Table of contents for April 2015 in topCar

Then: Ford GT40 The original Ford GT40 made its race debut in 1964, won its first event in 1965 and took its first Le Mans victory in 1966 – with a one-two-three finish. And you’re still surprised Ford is planning to launch a new GT supercar to commemorate it next year? 1966 was far from the end of the story, as the GT40 went on to take three more winner’s trophies in consecutive years. It’s also responsible for podium champagne-spraying, after teetotal racer Dan Gurney covered the crowd following his win in 1967. Now: Ford GT The 2016 GT is a carbonfibre and aluminium blend of the old – the form is deliciously-updated GT40 – and the new, with Ford’s anniversary supercar featuring active torsion bar and pushrod suspension, carbon-ceramic…

Toyota Yaris WRC TOYOTA HAS confirmed it will return to the World Rally Championship in 2017 with a 224kW 1.6-litre Yaris sporting four-wheel drive and a six-speed sequential gearbox. Your granny’s trip to the supermarket would never be the same again, if modern WRC rules still required car makers to build homologation production vehicles. The spoilsports. Go on Toyota, make our day. Renault Kadjar AND YOU thought ‘Qashqai’ sounded silly? Renault’s new crossover shares more than just a funny name with the Nissan – it’s based on the same platform. Not yet confirmed for SA, but if it does come, buyers can expect frugal petrol and diesel engines plus a choice of two- and four-wheel drive. Resembling a giant Clio (with a Mazda CX-7 window line), the Kadjar offers 190mm…

NOTHING BETTER portrays Formula 1’s knee-jerk pursuit for magic bullets to halt its dramatic TV and live ratings slides than (myopic) proposals from F1’s Strategy Group and a commercial rights holder feeling massive revenue squeezes that the sport adopt 1000-horsepower power units from 2017. Exciting concept, yes, but will such power, though, prove the panacea they desperately believe it to be? True, 1000bhp (746kW) provides a great headline figure, one sure to catch the attention of fans and sponsors alike, while the challenge of reliably producing such explosive output from 1600cc V6 units gets the cream of the planet’s engine designers sweaty-handed. A fifth of the total will be supplied by beefed-up hybrid systems, but 800bhp from 1.6 litres equates to 500bhp per litre: another sexy number to bandy about……

BMW 228i CONVERTIBLE PRICE R545873 ENGINE 1997cc, 16v turbo, 180kW @ 5000-6500rpm, 350Nm @ 1250-4800rpm TRANSMISSION Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive SUSPENSION MacPherson strut front, multi-link rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4432 / 1774 / 1413 mm WEIGHT 1535kg PERFORMANCE 6sec 0-100kph, 250kph top speed, 6.8L/100km, 154g/km ON SALE Now THE BMW 2 Series Convertible joins the Coupe and Active Tourer as the third instalment in the 2 Series line-up. On a global scale it’s been a pretty important car for BMW considering its predecessor was the best seller in the compact segment. It’s arguably the most attractive model in the line-up with wide, slim headlights and large air dams helping create a shark-like appearance. It’s athleticism is backed up by stocky rear haunches and a full-length shoulder line. Inside the sense of quality…

HYUNDAI i20 1.4 FLUID M/T PRICE R204 900 ENGINE 1398cc, 16v, 4cyl petrol, 74kW @ 6000rpm, 133Nm @ 3500rpm TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual, front-wheel drive SUSPENSION MacPherson strut front, torsion beam rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4045/1720/1455mm WEIGHT 1175kg PERFORMANCE 11.6secs 0-100kph, 182kph top speed, 6.5L/100km, 147g/km ON SALE Now WHEN IT COMES to sensible hatchbacks, who truly did something first, whatever it was, hardly matters. What’s more important when launching a new car destined for mass-market consumption is not to upset the applecart too much. As far as the new i20 is concerned the Koreans can certainly pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Aesthetically, it’s an all-new car, cribbing the sort of blacked-out C-pillar you’ll find on a Jaguar XJ limo and sporting more hexagons on its re-moulded grille…

AH YES, REMEMBER the Volkswagen CitiGolf? Its diminutive proportions and sporty demeanour made it a massively popular choice among students and first-time buyers owing to its affordability and versatility. However, when Volkswagen’s bigwigs announced its demise back in 2009 the entry point into VW ownership spiked with the introduction of the newer and, crucially, safer Polo Vivo. While this model was a far better choice, particularly from a safety perspective, its price point put it just out of reach of lesser earners. The VW Up on the other hand is aggressively priced to appeal to a far larger audience slotting in below the Polo Vivo as VWSA’s cheapest offering. However, don’t be put off by its budget badging because it’s every bit as pleasing and fun to drive as its…

AN INDUSTRIAL CURIOSITY: a limited edition Japanese car. And of the mere 357 2000GTs built, two were hand-made soft-tops for the 1967 Bond film You Only Live Twice. 007’s Toyota might have originated in Shizuoka but it was, at least superficially, a shameless copy of Coventry’s Jaguar E-Type. These were, after all, the days when the Japanese still had an insecure grip on either intellectual property or creative autonomy. The backstory of the 2000GT complicates its pedigree. It was begun as a project by Yamaha who tried to sell it to Datsun, failed, then sold it to conservative Toyota. Its engine block was truck-based, but gifted with sophisticated Yamaha cylinder heads. Styling was by Graf Albrecht von Goertz, a German exotic who had once worked in the US for the…

IMPREZA LANCER 1992 Evolution (CD9A) beats Impreza to market by two months. 4G63 2.0-litre turbo, 4wd. RS and GSR variants get 184kW / 308Nm Impreza (GC8) launches in Japan. EJ20 2.0-litre flat-four makes 177kW in turbocharged WRX trim. 1994 Evo II (CE9A) gets upgraded suspension, aero and 192kW, 309Nm engine. Japan enjoys 184kW WRX STI and hardcore 202kW WRX STI Type RA. 1995 New pistons boost Evo III (CE9A) Lancer to 198kW; aero optimised. Mäkinen wins WRC. 1996 Colin McRae wins WRC, defying team orders. Fierce rivalry with Carlos Sainz secures manufacturer title. 200 Series McRae road cars built to celebrate. 1998 Evo IV (CN9A) brings Active Yaw Control and new turbo/intercooler for 206kW and 353Nm – suspiciously bang on Japan’s self-imposed limit… Subaru wins third manufacturer’s title on Sanremo…

THE CURRENT R35 GT-R does not merely stand atop a pile of trophy parts harvested from the shattered and broken remains of defeated establishment rivals, it leans heavily upon the legacy of five generations of Skyline GT-R, Nissan’s flagship performance product since 1969. The last Skyline GT-R was the R34. It was – and in many ways still is – an astonishingly fast road car. You’d never call it pretty. But beneath that brutish bonnet lies a 2.6-litre twin-turbo straight-six of immense potential, which explains why it’s almost impossible to find an unmolested example. V-Spec models, which stands for Victory Specification, included firmer suspension, an even more fiendishly complex electronic four-wheel-drive system than standard and an active limited-slip differential at the back. Empowered by myriad go-faster electronic assistants, to drive…

EVEN IF YOU think you haven’t heard of the Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship, or Super GT, as it became in 2005, if you’ve ever laid your hands on a PlayStation, there’s a good chance you’ve thrashed a Pennzoil Nismo GT-R, or Castrolliveried Supra to Gran Turismo glory. As it did in Europe, the demise of Group C racing in the early 1990s led to a switch to more production-like racers in Japan, with an emphasis on delivering the closest racing possible. Cars run in either 300bhp (224kW) or 500bhp (373kW) classes with engine restrictors and the fastest drivers are forced to run with ballast to keep the title fight open until the last lap. The Super GT series recently downsized from naturally-aspirated V8s to turbocharged 2.0 fours, to better…

A QUARTER OF A century ago, Mazda rescued the sports car from irrelevance. We hadn’t grown out of love with the idea of an affordable rear-drive two-seater, after all, only the dated, unreliable British-built reality. Twenty-five years, and almost one million units later, we’re in Barcelona to drive the latest MX-5, a ground-up, clean-sheet refresh, against a backdrop of sales badly wounded by the recession and shifting tastes. In the late-1970s we ditched sports cars for then new-fangled hot hatches. This time it’s pseudo-sporty SUVs. Can the MX-5 save the genus a second time? There’s promise in Mazda’s insistence that this fourth generation car owes more to the first than the last. Despite accommodating a quarter century of advances in technology and comfort – and the expectation of both –…

IF YOU’VE HEARD of Peter Brock (and not confused him with the late Aussie racing legend of the same name), it’s almost certainly because of his work on the Shelby Daytona Cobra coupe. Brock’s slippery re-fashioning of the already quick Cobra roadster helped Ford beat Ferrari in the 1965 world sports car championship. But did you know that old ‘Shel repaid the favour by stealing Brock’s contract to campaign Toyota’s new 2000GT? That decision turned out to be bad news for Toyota, but made Datsun hot property with US sports car fans. ‘I can laugh about what Carrol did now,’ remembers Brock. He didn’t just get mad though, he got even, and then some, using contacts in Japan to wangle two Datsun 2000 roadsters and a race budget directly from…

FROM 1948, WHEN he founded Honda, until ’73, when he stepped down for interfering (he insisted on air-cooled engines when his engineers knew water-cooling was the way forward), Soichiro was a pioneer like no other. While Japan reeled from the war, he was in a shed strapping two-stroke engines to bicyces. He went on to reinvent the motorcycle, develop world-beating engines of all sizes, revolutionise mass-market cars and conquer F1. Even today, 23 years after his death, Honda spends its profits developing robots and jet planes while other car makers scrap in tiny niches. ‘I think best when I have a wrench in my hand,’ he once said. No car boss was ever like him – and surely none like him will follow.…

CARBON CHASSIS. F1-derived V12. Crazy tandem seating. Yamaha’s OX99-11 had all the ingredients of a supercar sensation back in the early ’90s, but just three prototypes were built before the project was scrapped. Budget disagreements between Yamaha and design company IAD led Yamaha to give its own team at Ypsilon Technology the project – and a ludicrously optimistic six months to finish it. And this in the middle of desperate Japanese recession. Delayed, then ultimately cancelled, OX99-11 remains an enigmatic ‘what if?’.…

THESE ARE TIMES of progress, but there are also fields of human endeavour in which we’ve stalled, or slipped backwards. We haven’t improved on – or even replaced – Concorde or the Apollo programme, and watching footage of the final years of the Targa Florio from that same era might leave you with the same feeling of loss. When did we lose interest in seeing sports cars racing over a mountain road? When did we forget the rightness of that? Wasn’t motorsport better then? Could we not have found a way to constrain the size and power of sports-racers so we could still run them on real roads? If consenting adults can still go rallying, why did proper road racing die? The Targa Florio is long gone now. The final…

TO HELP US find out we’re taking Opel’s latest urban dweller to a place that knows a thing or two about urban renewal – Woodstock, Cape Town. Not long ago only the hippest of the hip would’ve braved this narrow corridor adjacent to the city between Devils Peak and the docks. But nowadays its semi-derelict, low-rise urban scrawl (not sprawl) fuses with restored Victorian homes and trendy eateries to create a uniquely South African socio-political scene. From the Old Castle Brewery, to the Old Biscuit Mill, Woodstock may have its roots set firmly in the past but its mentality is fully integrated in the now. Geographically, unlike District Six that was deemed a ‘whites only’ area, the ‘grey zone’ of Woodstock never suffered forced removals during Apartheid, at least giving…

MONTH 10 UPS | Quick enough to rough up the riffraff at a set of traffic lights DOWNS | At R461000 the 2.0TDI 4Motion is cheaper to buy and run ‘I’VE GOT R150k–200k to spend on a new car, what do you recommend?’ This is a question I get asked a lot. Honestly, if it were my money, I’d buy a second-hand BMW E46 M3. But, hey, I’m not the brightest spark in the cylinder head, and I’m a car guy. So when the next-door neighbour popped in for a visit recently, asking that same question after her 18-year-old son stuffed the family Run X into the Armco on Ou Kaapse Weg, I knew I had to think again. There are plenty of sensible and reliable new cars out there…

‘YOU HEAR THAT, Mr Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death.’ So says Agent Smith in sci-fi movie The Matrix, at the pivotal moment when he attempts hero homicide via subway train. Is the naturally aspirated, high performance engine facing a similar threat of extinction? For the Ferrari 458 replacement is here, and it’s powered by a downsized turbocharged engine – in the same way that the heralded engines in BMW’s M3 and Honda’s Civic Type R made way for forced induction. The 488 GTB is not an all-new car, but it is extensively reworked. The name refers to the individual cylinder capacity of the fresh 3 902cc twin-turbo V8 – a trait shared with the 250 GTO – and references the 308…

FASTEST TIMES FROM JEREZ FERRARI (Kimi Räikkönen) 1:20.841s SAUBER (Felipe Nasr) 1:21.545s MERCEDES (Nico Rosberg) 1:21.982s WILLIAMS (Felipe Massa) 1:22.276 TORO ROSSO (Max Verstappen) 1:22.553s LOTUS (Pastor Maldonado) 1:22.713s MCLAREN (Jenson Button) 1:27.660s MCLAREN BOSS Ron Dennis coined the phrase ‘the winter world championship’ in the early ’90s when Ferrari made a habit of emerging from the winter test sessions fastest, only to lose the ‘summer championship’ to his Woking-based team. Well, Ferrari looks strong once again. At the first pre-season test of 2015 the team’s cars topped the timesheets on three of the four days, all the while McLaren – who have Honda engines once again – languished at the bottom of the time sheets. But lap times don’t mean an awful lot at Jerez. The asphalt is abrasive…

2015 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix 18 to 20 September 2015 The Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix is a spectacular night race run on the streets of Marina Bay in downtown Singapore. The circuit is lit by thousands of powerful floodlights and is a mix of high speed straights and bumpy slow corners, making it a real challenge for the drivers as they weave their way between the barriers. The event has witnessed a huge success since its first edition back in 2008. The circuit lights create a brilliant strip carving its way between the water and the city's skyscrapers, adding beauty to the picturesque scenery of the Marina Bay. The numerous types of off-track entertainment including the post-race concerts have also played a significant part in increasing the popularity…

LEXUS NX 200T EX PRICE R579900 ENGINE 1998cc, 16v, 4-cyl turbocharged petrol, 175kW @ 4800-5600rpm, 350Nm @ 1650-4000rpm TRANSMISSION 6-speed automatic, all-wheel drive SUSPENSION MacPherson-type strut front, double wishbone rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4630/1845/1630mm WEIGHT 1755-1860kg PERFORMANCE 7.1sec 0-100kph, 200kph, 7.9L/100km,184g/km CO2 ON SALE Now I’M TYPING AWAY on my phone at the 2013 Frankfurt motor show. Alongside me is a wildly angular SUV concept that’s provoking loads of reaction. Not much of it is positive, but I tap in my verdict for TopCar’s show report and hit send... ‘Amazingly, the crazy-origami Lexus LF-NX [concept] is growing on me. Yes, it is radically overwrought and too narrow for its height, but as a show car it’s loaded with cool details such as deeply sculptural tail-lights, ultra-slim headlamps, subtle crease lines on the…

MERC B220 CDI PRICE R448000 ENGINE 2143cc, 4cyl turbodiesel, 130kW @ 3600rpm, 350Nm @ 1400-3400rpm TRANSMISSION Seven-speed dual-clutch auto, front-wheel drive SUSPENSION MacPherson strut front, multi-link rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4393/ 1786 / 1558 mm WEIGHT 1505kg PERFORMANCE 8.3sec 0-100kph, 224kph top speed, 41L/100km, 107g/km ON SALE Now IT’S NO SECRET the B-Class has celebrated huge success overseas, especially in Germany where it’s the maker’s second most popular car after the C-Class. While the first interpretation never really took off here in SA the second-generation certainly intrigued the market with its bold aesthetics, streamlined interior and significantly better handling characteristics – a result no doubt owing to the MRA platform that also underpins A-Class, GLA and CLA models. So what’s new? Firstly it’s undergone a notable facelift to keep it in line…

CAN WE ALL agree that Pepé Le Pew, the lovable French skunk from the Merrie Melodie series of cartoons, is the stereotypical French cartoon character? Strolling around Paris in the springtime without a care in the world, his soul motivation – like any true Frenchman – is to find love. As the story goes his advances on Penelope Pussycat – a black cat with a white stripe (often humorously painted on by accident) – are always scuppered by his malodorous scent and general unwillingness to take no for an answer. Granted, by today’s standards you might say Pepé’s behaviour borders on sexual harassment, but trust me, if ever a car embodied the same won’t-take-no-for-an-answer character it has to be the new C1. On paper, replacing the popular city car was…

THE AE86 COROLLA is Toyota’s equivalent of the very special BMW E30 325is – a pretty unassuming model elevated to greatness by back-to-basics performance engineering under the skin. You’d be tempted to assume the AE86’s ascension from boxy shopper to drift legend was by accident not design, if it wasn’t for the 50:50 weight distribution, standard-fit limited-slip differential and impossible-to-break 1.6-litre DOHC 4A-GE engine sending 94kW to the rear wheels. The names too were a clue – few family hatches get called Thunder (Trueno, the pop-up headlight Sprinter version) and Lightning (Levin, the fixed-lamp Corolla). Like all the best Japanese performance legends, the Hachi-Roku (Eight-Six) built its reputation on the heady combination of high-rev resilience and vaporised rubber, a recipe Toyota tried to update for the 21st century with the…

BY ACCIDENT OR design, the return of the most important name in Japanese sports cars has an immaculate sense of timing about it, and no little symmetry. The original NSX was an aluminium-intensive mid-engined flagship that allied searing performance and immersive driver involvement with exemplary ease of use. It also came dusted with a little Formula 1 magic. Honda-powered Grand Prix cars were midway through a six-year spell of dominance, and Ayrton Senna helped hone the NSX’s driving dynamics. Now, 25 years later, and on the eve of Honda’s return to the F1 grid as an engine supplier – with a hybrid turbo V6 – the NSX is back; an aluminium-intensive mid-engined flagship (with hybrid turbo V6 power) that claims to ally searing performance and immersive driver involvement with exemplary…

‘IF YOU WERE a betting man,’ says Nissan’s Global Motorsport Director Darren Cox, playing down Nismo’s return to Le Mans this summer, ‘you’d expect us to qualify ninth.’ Sandbagging? Here comes the hint that we shouldn’t rush to Betting.com just yet. ‘Mercedes has a massive commitment to the race, and Audi has a legacy advantage. If we tried to beat them at their own game, we couldn’t. But we’ve found something different in the rules and we think we’ve got our calculations right.’ Those calculations have resulted in an incredible front-engined LMP1 racer that looks like the craziest Le Mans car since, well, the last Nissan branded 24-hour mutant, the rocket-shaped DeltaWing. ‘Le Mans is much more exciting than F1,’ says Cox. ‘The rules in LMP1 are the most innovative…

JAPAN’S TUNING INDUSTRY is inextricably linked to Japanese performance car culture. Pre-2005, it was the bridge between the road cars’ self-imposed 206kW limit, and the racers not be a direct sales pitch but not be a direct sales pitch but that resonated most. Tuning added to the cars’ cult status, and visions of shady night time street racing are bound up in their appeal. Just as Toyota suggests today with the 86, back then Japanese cars were all about the sense that the factory car was the beginning, not the end. Robust straight-six twin-turbocharged engines fitted to Mk4 Toyota Supras and R32/ R34 Skylines were so easily tuned, garages including Top Secret often claimed to have topped the legendary 1000bhp (746kW). Sometimes the claims were impossible to verify, sometimes not:…

OKAY, SO THE only thing it dominated was the list of cars starting with the letter X, but the Xedos 6 was a heroic failure. Launched in ’92 with a peachy 2.0-litre V6 engine, swoopy styling and a sort-of luxurious interior, it proceeded to be roundly ignored by buyers, and in fact managed just 72000 sales globally in seven years. Most joyous of all though was its British Touring Car record. In both ’93 and ’94 Mazda finished last in the manufacturers’ battle, and in ’94 neither Matt Neal nor David Leslie made it to the end of the season – the former injured in a crash and the latter departing when the money ran out. Patrick Watts fleetingly went off-message with a pole at Snetterton in ’93, but soon…

DRIVING A 350Z today, your first thought is what on earth went wrong with the 370Z? Where the successor is steroidally over-wrought, from the wristsprainingly weighty gearshift to cacophonous exhaust drone, the 350Z is laced with real genius. Even its appearance is aging gracefully. Particularly the coupe on those glorious Rays alloys. As a treat for rear-wheel drive sports cars fans, the Nissan is criminally overlooked. But we will not forget. Not when there’s a 3.5-litre V6 up front that wails with an increasingly beautiful mechanical intensity as you wind on the revs. The apparent lack of sound deadening and a massive rear strut brace are a constant reminder that this is a purposeful Porsche hunter, the handling as pure and straightforward as a low-slung front-engined, rear-driving bruiser could possibly…

NOT SO LONG ago, Opel was bleeding cash so fast, owner General Motors was close to pulling the plug permanently. Thankfully it didn’t, and now the 153-year-old brand and its wildly diverse heritage is beginning to thrive once more. It may be hard to imagine it nowadays, but not only did the Opel Kadett sell as well as the VW Golf in the 80s and early 90s, it also regularly beat BMW on the race track. Even before that, big Opels with grandiose names such as Diplomat, Admiral and Kapitän powered by even more grandiose V8s were the equal of Mercedes-Benz’s S-Class. When US President Gerald Ford toured Germany on a state visit in 1975 his carriage was a long-wheelbase Opel Diplomat V8. Not just Kadetts and Corsas, Asconas and…

MONTH 6 UPS | Rear parking camera, interior storage binnacles, cheaper running costs… for now DOWNS | Surround cameras offer poor visuals on monitor, Bluetooth connectivity freezes iPhone after dropped calls THE RECENT DROP in the oil price has seen a welcome respite at the petrol pumps, but with almost an 80c/litre increase looming on the horizon (at the time of going to print) we are going to have to make hay while the sun shines to derive the most value from the current lows. While our average consumption hardly changed in this last period we did notice a 4c/km drop in the average running cost. While we have loved the Prado’s practicality, space, diesel powertrain and comfort in its near 10000km tenure with us it’s the behemoth’s technical features…

MONTH 10 UPS | Duster performed like a little piece of heaven in… ‘Die Hel’ DOWNS | Came back from the sortie with a few battle scars WHEN YOU’RE FEELING homesick for a place you’ve never been to before, it can only mean one thing – you need a road trip. Approximately 100km from Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape, is a hidden valley surrounded by the Swartberg Nature Reserve called Gamkaskloof. One way in, one way out, with no conceivable reason to go there other than to traverse the 48km stretch of gravel road known as ‘Die Hel’. This is my kind of road trip. I’ve known about it for a while but haven’t had the time or the vehicle to tackle the formidable road. Or so I thought. I…

MONTH 10 UPS | First service complete DOWNS | Only two months left in my care VEHICLE SERVICES. We all dread them. It’s not that the experience itself is a nightmare but it’s more the schlep of being without a car for a day and having to get out of bed super early to be the first soul in the service queue. And then there’s that awkward lift in to the office which, more often than not, is characterised by even more awkward conversation and faux smiles. The only upshot is the free coffee and biscuits you get upon arrival. Sarcasm aside I’ve never had a bad experience when it comes to servicing and my recent encounter with Peugeot Citroën Cape Town has been one of the better experiences in…

GENUINE DOWNFORCE The new RS may look less of a caricature than before but there’s still an outsized wing and diffuser combo at the rear. Global development boss Raj Nair says it creates big downforce with minimal drag RACY ON THE INSIDE Interior boasts a flat-bottomed wheel, RS-specific instrument graphics, alloy pedals and Recaro seats as standard, with racier, shell-backed buckets an option. Gearbox is a six-speed manual RIP REVOKNUCKLE The Mk2 RS’s clever but pricey and heavy front suspension strut layout is gone. Going four-wheel drive means there’s less torque steer to quell, and there’s no need for an RS-specific wide-arch bodyshell MUSTANG ENGINE WITH MORE PONIES 2.3-litre Ecoboost four-pot from the new ’Stang has been heavily breathed on for a more free-revving power delivery. Ford won’t announce a…

JUST 10KG HEAVIER The 4C’s carbon structure and the Spider’s weight-saving measures, including thinner glass, mean that the Spider is a paltry 10kg heavier than the Coupe. LOSES A ROOF, GAINS A HALO The Coupe’s glass engine cover is replaced by rear buttresses and a body-coloured deck lid. Both the windscreen surround and the ‘halo’ that hides the roll-over structure can be specced in carbonfibre. LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES We’ve seen the concept, here’s this summer’s production 4C Spider with optional Akrapovic titanium exhaust, designed to liven up the droning 177kW1750cc turbo. Here’s hoping... SHINE A LIGHT ON ME Conventional headlights replace unloved segmented units, while Giallo yellow paint is new. 0-100kph in 4.5sec and 257kph means Spider matches Coupe for speed.…

WOW, THAT WAS fast. Who says the car industry doesn’t move with the times? The oil price only began its vertiginous slide in June, yet by January the Detroit motor show was a power, performance and petrol-fest. Look at the cars unveiled there and you’d think that the green movement and the global financial crisis simply hadn’t happened. Bill Ford opened his company’s multimillion-dollar event at the Joe Louis Arena by telling us how ‘green’ is now at the heart of everything Ford does. I turned around to see if I could spot his scrolling teleprompters. I had a feeling they read, ‘green, blah blah, efficiency, yada yada, hybrids, (wring hands, look earnest), NOW HERE’S THE VERY FAST CARS!’ Green certainly isn’t at the heart of the 441kW Ford GT,…

BMW X6 M PRICE R1690659 ENGINE 4395cc, V8 turbo, 423kW @ 6000-6500rpm, 750Nm @ 2200-5000rpm TRANSMISSION Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive SUSPENSION Double wishbone front, multi-link air suspension rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4880 /1985 /1754 mm WEIGHT 2 275kg PERFORMANCE 4.2sec 0-100kph, 250kph top speed, 11.1L/100km, 258g/km ON SALE Now A FORMULA ONE racetrack may not seem like the ideal setting to launch a gargantuan SUV such as the BMW X6 M but it’s been touted as the most dynamic X model yet and what better way to test these claims than at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The USA is a massive market for BMW, and the largest for its X-models, too, so it’s little wonder the Bavarian firm chose this destination to launch its all-new turbocharged panzer tank.…

BMW X6 XDRIVE50i PRICE R1163000 ENGINE 4395cc V8 32v, twin turbo, 330kW@5500rpm, 650Nm@2000-4500rpm TRANSMISSION Eight-speed Steptronic sport transmission, all-wheel drive SUSPENSION Double wishbone front, multilink rear, optional air suspension LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4909/1989/1702mm WEIGHT 2170kg PERFORMANCE 4.8sec 0-100kph, 250kph, 9.7L/100km,227g/km CO2 ON SALE Now THE BEST THING about being first to market is that you develop a market niche that no one knew existed or, in the case of the X6, even knew they wanted. With over 260 000 X6s sold around the world since 2006, the sportier version of the X5 has both pioneered and largely dominated the Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) segment in larger markets such as China, Europe and the US. Despite this success you’ll still find that most South Africans dismiss the X6 as pointless, believing there are…

FORD FUSION 2.0 ECOBOOST TITANIUM PRICE R424900 ENGINE 1998cc 4cyl, turbo, 177kW@5300rpm, 340Nm@2300-4900rpm TRANSMISSION Six-speed automatic, front-wheel drive SUSPENSION MacPherson strut front, multi-link rear LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4869/1910/1473mm WEIGHT 1584kg PERFORMANCE 7.9sec 0-100kph, 240kph, 8.5L/100km, 187g/CO2 ON SALE Now REMEMBER THE MONDEO? No? Well, you’re probably not alone in that regard as Ford’s ‘non-premium’ executive sedan never enjoyed the sales success it deserved in South Africa. While the Mondeo ticked many boxes against rivals Passat, Accord and Volvo’s S40 at the time – selling well in both European and US markets – it failed to generate the same brand pull (or status) as the bigger-selling premium German brands locally. But much has changed in the last five years and Ford’s sales volumes have grown by over 50% from 2010 to 2014, buoyed…

DECIDING WHAT CAR fits into which category nowadays is car bodystyle classification: genius level. Once-simple sedan, estate and hatchback genres have become so interwoven they resemble macramé by blindfolded drunkards. Regardless, if certain manufacturers can somehow make a business case for a sports coupe off-roader or a coupecum-hatchwagon why not try a family panelvan crossover? Welcome to the world of Volkswagen’s Cross Caddy. FINDING FORM Successfully merging the curvaceous roofline of a coupe with the pragmatic dimensions of an estate is one thing, turning a commercial vehicle into a more broadly desirable family car is far trickier. This is the heaviest burden the Cross Caddy must bear. Like a Polo that ate all the pies before contracting a hideous swelling disease, its proportions were never supposed to please the eye,…

ALTHOUGH ALL THREE of the Civic models used as starting points for the three Type Rs were available in SA in cooking form, only the last, FN2 model was officially sold here. That’s a great pity as the second-gen version (EP3) aka the breadvan was a cracker. As per other cars with this unflattering nickname – the Z3 M Coupe, that one-off Bizzarrini Ferrari – it’s a term born of affection for the unlikely alliance of functional looks and serious speed. Launched in 2001, the EP3 Civic Type R beat rivals on pace and price, while also offering useful space and typical Honda reliability. A real one-car solution for the enthusiast family. The big draw was – and still is – the sublime and oh-so-Honda drivetrain. You’ve got to keep…

TAKE A REGULAR Q50 saloon, sold as the latest Skyline in Japan, rip out the engine and transmission and replace it with a twin-turbo 3.8-litre V6 from the GT-R driving all four wheels through a seven-speed torque-converter automatic. While you’re at it, redesign the front bodywork to fit and feed that motor and to look cool, too. For the record, the Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge musters a healthy 412kW and 600Nm which Infiniti predicts will be enough for a sub-4.0sec 0-100kph time, and a top speed of around 290kph. Sure it doesn’t use the GT-R’s six-speed dual-clutch auto but that seems in keeping with the Q50’s less hardcore brief than Nissan’s ‘Godzilla’. Though it’s just a prototype that may or may not go on sale some time in 2016, a…

THE LFA SUMS up everything we love about Japanese cars in one berserk slab of carbonfibre. Apart from the bent L on its bonnet, there’s precious little in common with the genteel saloons Lexus had spent the previous two decades building. How on earth did dull old Toyota manage to slip a mega-money supercar into showrooms alongside a Yaris? In this bipolarity lies the secret appeal of Japanese car makers. There’s often – to western eyes – an unpredictable schizophrenia at their core: one minute they’re building mind-numbingly desensitised white goods, the next a scintillating sports car that feels like it hails from Maranello in Italy, not Motomachi in Yokohama. It’s hard to believe the LFA was first unveiled a decade ago, floated as a flight of fancy at the…

A TOUGE MEANS ‘mountain pass’ in Japanese, and touge racing has become indelibly associated with AE86s drifting around blind corners. In fact, contrary to media depiction, touge isn’t exclusively about drifting, although doing so is one way to stop another car from overtaking, and slipping tyres help keep engine revs high. Usually one car leads, the other following a set distance behind, with the winner being the driver who opens or closes that gap. Although originally an underground movement, the scene later spawned an entire cartoon series, Initial D, a film and a cult hero, Keiichi Tsuchiya. But not everyone loves touge racing, including people coming the other way, so many Japanese mountain roads now sport anti-drift road furniture.…

THERE’S MORE TO Japanese rally history than Evo vs Impreza. Nissan made the world sit up when its 240Z won the ’73 Safari Rally – the toughest on the calendar – after placing third on the Monte the previous year. Toyota (Celica Twin Cam Turbo), Nissan (240RS) and Mazda (RX-7) all contested the flame-spitting Group B era in the 1980s, but were soundly beaten by the Europeans. That all changed in the early 1990s, when the Group A Toyota Celica GT-Four took Carlos Sainz to the 1992 driver’s title. The Celica went on to secure back-to-back driver and manufacturer championships in ’93 and ’94. Unlike Group B’s 200-unit requirement, the factories had to produce 2500 Group A road cars in a year, which meant we got the tasty Celica GT-Four.…

BEEPING THEIR HORNS, revving the engines of their bizarrely customised motorbikes and generally causing more traffic chaos than a pensioner heading the wrong way up the N1, Japan’s dwindling pompadour-wearing Bosozoku (‘violent running tribe’ in Japanese) gangs are about as welcome in their homeland as Chinese attempts to snatch back the Senkaku islands. But there’s another side to Bosozoku, and it’s some of the most outlandish modified cars in the world. Imagine Wacky Races re-cast with Super GT cars designed by Hot Wheels and you still wouldn’t be close. The cars are mostly ’70s and ’80s domestic models fitted with humungous wheel arches, wildly extended exhausts and ludicrous, pedestrian-mauling chin spoilers.…

TALENT ISN’T ENOUGH, neither is success. Niki Lauda won two titles for Ferrari but fell out with Enzo, Alain Prost was one race away from the title but was sacked for criticising the car, and Kimi Räikkönen was dumped a year early despite winning the title first time out. Yet Gilles Villeneuve, who achieved no titles and won fewer races in six years than Vettel managed in half a season at Red Bull, was lauded by Enzo as ‘a son to me’. No question then, that you need a certain temperament to stick it out at Maranello. Does Sebastian Vettel, who showed signs of sulkiness in 2014, have the right stuff, and what advice would his predecessors offer him? On the face of it, the timing is perfect for team…

SIT DOWN WITH the Jaguar XE’s engineers and they’ll talk about the 50-metre test: those first moments behind the wheel where a car begins to reveal its character; the weight of the steering, the sound of the engine, the touch of the controls. Even if your mind is elsewhere, those mental impressions are subconsciously forming. I blip the keyfob – one of the few not-new things on the XE – and climb into Jaguar’s crucial new BMW 3 Series rival. What do you notice during that 50-metre handshake? The relatively low-slung driving position, the steering that feels tight and precise immediately off-centre, the easy torque and unpleasing mew of the new Ingenium 2.0-litre turbodiesel engine in low gears, and the way the chassis – even on our car’s R-Sport suspension…

RACING IN PRETORIA first took place on 26 December 1902 with a motorcycle meeting held at the Caledonian Grounds and subsequent motorsport events were held at venues including the old horse racing course, the pre- and post-war Alan Reeve circuits, Waverley, Quaggaspoort, the McCallum circuit on the Cullinan Road and even the access roads around the original Iscor facility. An oval track named Zwartkops was built in 1947 for speedway and midget car racing, but this had nothing do with Zwartkops Raceway, which has had a chequered three-part history that has survived numerous major setbacks to become what is today probably the country’s busiest, best supported and most popular motor racing venue. For 13 years the Grand Central circuit at Halfway House had been the then Transvaal’s premier racing venue…

Your 2018 car’s digital instrumentation should be as crisp as a 50-inch High Definition television’s display, claims Visteon, the electronics giant behind Jaguar-Land Rover infotainment systems. Visteon’s next-generation ‘SmartCore’ system (pictured) packs an enhanced instrument cluster, head-up displays and infotainment plus connectivity to the cloud, web, e-mail and ‘phone, blending it into one powerful system run off an in-car SIM or your mobile. Heading for a production car in three years, it’s just the start of the dashboard revolution... 1 Head-up displays, as in this Visteon ‘SmartCore’ system, proliferate with more driver info and augmented reality navigation that project direction arrows on the road ahead. It should end those infuriating wrong turns, when two streets come up in quick succession and you gamble on the wrong one. 2 Strict internet…

MONTH 7 UPS | Properly run-in motor starting to deliver more kilometres per litre DOWNS | No instantaneous fuel consumption display AS A GENERAL, although not militantly applied, rule here at TopCar, we like to keep our copy clean. Naturally that means avoiding foul language wherever possible, but it also means we use the words per cent in place of the percentage symbol (%). The exception is where it would just lengthen the article unnecessarily as is the case with our regular new car sales analysis spread. Again, a clean look is the main reason for using kph for speed in place of the more traditional km/h. So I’ve always found it a little contradictory that we still use the very clunky industry standard of litres per 100km as a…