Table of contents for January 2022 in Wheels

THERE’S BEEN raging debate around automotive showrooms across Australia on several fronts, sparked by GM’s ill-handling of Holden dealers. Yet there’s no denying that the rise of the internet and global juggernauts like Amazon and Uber Eats has impacted the way Australians buy almost everything. But what about the process of buying a new car? Here in Australia, the traditional dealership model has hardly changed – at least until the last 24 months or so, with carmakers and dealership groups at loggerheads once again. Mercedes-Benz Australia is the second brand in as many years to announce a shift away from the dealer model. From January 1, 2022, its Australian dealer network will operate via an agency model for new-vehicle sales. Here we’ll walk you through what it all means, who…

DUE Q1 BMW i4 Expected late in Q1, the i4 will arrive in two variants to start: eDrive40 and M50, both with adaptive suspension. The former will be priced from the $100,000 mark, with a rear 250kW/420Nm electric motor, a claimed 0-100km/h of 5.7sec, and a 590km range. The M50 powers all four wheels with 400kW/795Nm, hits 100km/h in 3.9sec, and covers a claimed 510km. Pricing starts from $124,900. DUE Q3 PORSCHE CAYMAN GT4 RS Its 7:09.3 Nurburgring lap time won’t be relevant to most, but the fact it’s 23.6 seconds faster than the regular 718 GT4 might. The 368kW/450Nm naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat six from the 911 GT3 helps, though the GT4 RS weighs just 1415kg. In Australia, Porsche is asking $300,800 for the privilege. DUE Q3 FORD E-TRANSIT…

IMAGINE A state-of-the-art supersonic fighter jet being produced and its maker being told, “You have to sell 500 to the public before you can fly it”. That may sound ludicrous, yet it’s not far off what happened for the genuinely iconic, unorthodox and unstoppable 1973 Lancia Stratos HF Stradale. A mid-engined, compact spaceship penned by a Lamborghini designer and powered by a free-revving Ferrari engine, it was utterly gobsmacking – and a political struggle from the start. This was not an existing road car modified to the extreme – the Stratos was created with the sole purpose of winning the newly instituted World Rally Championship (WRC). The result of Lancia’s motorsport ambition, the road version existed purely because it was mandated by FIA Group 4 regulations. Otherwise, this was a…

NEW SOUTH WALES Highway Patrol was recently hit with a bit of tough news. With Chrysler’s exit from the Australian market, they’ll>be quiet lyretiring their 300 SRTs and instead havingto increasingly look to diesel BMW 5 Series instead. For the rest of us? Well, that’s a bit more of a mixed picture. Unlike General Motors and Ford, Chrysler wasn’t a company that could be relied upon to serve Aussie performance-car buyers a relatively consistent buffet of the good stuff. Its most lasting legacy was the Valiant, the third wheel to the Holden Kingswood and Ford Falcon, with full local manufacturing operating out of South Australia’s Tonsley Park assembly plant and Lonsdale engine foundry. The VE won the Wheels Car of the Year in 1967, but it was the 1971 Valiant…

FIRST OVERSEAS DRIVE Model Volvo C40 Recharge  Motors Dual (front + rear axle)  Battery 78kWh  Max power 300kW  Max torque 660Nm  Transmission Single speed reduction  Weight 2207kg 0-100km/h 4.7sec (claimed)  Economy 20.7kWh/100km  Price $79,990 (estimated)  On sale Q4 2022F FOR A COMPANY that has been foretelling the end of combustion powered cars longer than most, Volvo has taken a surprisingly long time to bring its first pure-electric model to market. The statement of intent started with the cull of all piston engines comprising more than four cylinders, then any that happened to displace more that 2.0 litres got the chop. Next, the electrification gene was administered in the form of plug-in hybrids, paving the way for full-fat EVs to succeed petrol and diesel for good. But despite the beads of…

“IT’S A BLOODY PUDDLE,” I caw out indignantly to photographer Alastair Brook, who is waiting a hundred metres up the road. Apparently, if you trace it far enough up a map to the point it originates, this is the start of the Yarra River – Victoria’s best-known waterway– and I’m standing right on top of it. I thought it might have been at least a glassy billabong surrounded by slowly swaying stringy barks, but actually it’s a large brown pool with an acrid stench in the middle of a dark, dank forest. But a pool, crucially, trickling ever so gently downhill into some nearby bushes, all the way to Port Phillip Bay. From where the water is actually coming from, it’s hard to tell. India’s great Ganges River begins at…

BECOMING the benchmark is tough, but remaining so is even tougher. Whether in sport or business, once you’re top of the pile a large target is painted on your back and everyone ups their game in response. The Volkswagen Golf has regularly adopted this mantle throughout its 47-year history. While it hasn’t always been top of the class, it’s fair to say that any car that bests it – the original Ford Focus, for instance – is usually very special indeed. The problem for the competition is that, like Porsche and its 911, Volkswagen has an extremely close understanding of what makes the Golf successful and how to improve it, which it tends to do with each successive generation. Since 2003 it’s been on a roll. The Mk5 took its…

REPORT TWO PEUGEOT 508 Price as tested $57,490 This month 696km @7.9L/100km Total 5485km @8.8L/100km THEY SAY “you never forget your first…” Never, I think to myself as I glance at the freshly fitted baby seat and the Pug’s open rear door, has a cliché been so wrong. My newborn, who is waiting patiently to embark on her first ever car ride, won’t remember this journey at all. But I will. In fact, I’ve been preparing for weeks. And so has the Peugeot. Fitting the baby seat was our first task. Now I’d heard all of the horror stories. Friends frequently complain of skinned knuckles, twisted belts and fiddly buckles but I encountered none of these with the 508. Once I’d located and exposed the deep-set ISOFIX anchorage points, it…

$49 SAVE 31% $89 SAVE 38% $149 SAVE 48% Scan the code or phone our new Australian-based call centre on (02) 8315 2092 or visit secure.whichcar.com.au/wheels Savings represent the percentage discount on the newsstand cover price of $11.95. Prices are AUD and include GST. Offers are valid until January 31, 2022. Valid for new subscriptions and renewals of existing subscriptions with Australian delivery address. For more information email subscriptions@wheelsmedia.com.au…

FIRST OVERSEAS DRIVE Model Volkswagen T-Roc R Engine 1984cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 221kW @ 5000rpm Max torque 400Nm @ 2000-5200rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1575kg 0-100km/h 4.8sec (claimed) Economy 7.8L/100km (tested) Price $57,500 (estimated) On sale July 2022 THINK OF THE Volkswagen T-Roc R as the same attractive smallto-mid-sized SUV package you get from the existing T-Roc range but with a serpent’s sales pitch and something a little more sinful. Instead of the milder 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre engines common to the rest of the family, the R denotes the same 2.0-litre turbocharged powertrain you’ll find in the potent Golf R along with a host of accompanying refinements and additions to warrant the Volkswagen performance halo branding. It won’t arrive in Australia until about July 2022 but when…

FINALLY After the most tumultuous and challenging two years in living memory, the world is slowly but surely returning to some semblance of normality. Factories have restarted, car production is up, stocks are rising and – most importantly – a host of exciting releases are heading to Australia in 2022, to usher in a new era of motoring for consumers tired of waiting for life to resume since the beginning of this decade. While electrification will play a bigger part than ever before thanks to a wave of interesting EVs heading our way, a large number of established favourites have been or are about to be redesigned, improved and/or updated, as car manufacturers go all-out of satisfy the pent-up demand for vehicles across the globe. These include the final-ever locally…

Aside from kissing near terminal velocities down a dirt road like we were being chased by a TV helicopter, the sum total of our off-roading in the G400 was almost getting stuck in what resembled a peat bog. In Normal mode we felt to be burying ourselves up to the axles, but there was no more gleeful a feeling than pressing each of the three diff locking buttons and seeing them all light up red and orange. The G400 crawled out like the traction issues of a moment earlier were it playing a practical joke. If you want an actual off-road test, our sister title 4x4 Australia has got you covered.…

SARDINIA IS PUTTING on a brave face. Behind a 2000km perimeter of perfect white sandy beaches, soaring mountain escarpments and sun-bleached seaside villages, all is not as idyllic as it might appear. You don’t need to go far out of the quaint townships dotted about this Italian island to find the scars of an aggressive mining past with the spoils of lead and zinc prospecting still lingering long after the valuable resources departed. Bomb ranges to the east pose a more modern hazard with secret NATO ballistics tests allegedly spiking mysterious illnesses in local communities. More recently, the unprecedented severity of wildfires that struck the island – second in size only to Sicily among the islands of the western Mediterranean − in 2021 is being blamed on climate change. Sardinia…

NISSAN RECENTLY RIPPED the covers off the seventh generation of its halo Z sports coupe model, oozing styling cues from the granddaddy of Z-cars, the S30 series that ran from 1969 to 1978. It could be argued that the Z family has never strayed too far from the S30 template: six-cylinder engine beneath a long bonnet, a pert coupe cabin over the driven rear wheels. Purists like to point to the very first Z, the two-seater, 2.4-litre Datsun 240Z, which rocketed to best-selling sports car status within three years and ended Britain’s hold on affordable sportsters. We’re here to argue that the 260Z, introduced in 1974, is the more truly representative of the breed. Because it’s where the bloat began. Launched amid the global oil crisis and choking US emissions…

SURPRISINGLY candid is how we’d describe the head of Mini, Bernd Korber, who is speaking with Wheels about the brand’s bold future. He’s not hiding emotions, either. “We’ve got the next five years pretty much buttoned up,” he says, “but even thinking about the platform that will replace the [incoming EV] matrix introduced in 2023 is still spooky stuff right now”. On paper, Mini is healthy. Impacted supply chains have knocked down a 2021 sales projection from 350,000 to 305,000, but that is still a five percent increase on the 292,000 cars sold last year. Ultimately, Mini is aiming for 500,000 annual sales, a goal expected in the decade’s second half. Before then, big changes, like new factories in China and Germany that will assist a global debut of new…

“When Honda can still make engines that win in F1 and sell enough to make $8 billion overseas, why are Australian sales so miserable?” HERE’S TO HONDA THANKS TO ANGUS MacKenzie for his column ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ (Wheels, Dec ’21) and his portrayal of the genius of Soichiro Honda. It was insightful, but also alarming, in this current transitional and revolutionary phase of the auto industry. As an early adopter (in the 1960s) and passionate enthusiast of Honda machinery, I relished the technological wizardry that Honda’s inventions gave us. I quickly learned that the solution to beating cubic capacity was simply greater efficiency. Just look and listen to footage of the tiny Honda Six screaming around the Isle of Man circuit in the 1960s at almost 20,000rpm. But that…

IT’S THAT SPICY five that gives the RS3 a special flavour. With its handful of cylinders, the odd-number engine has a distinctive offbeat sound. It evokes the 1980s World Rally Championship glory days of the original Quattro, while also making the Audi stand out among the four-cylinder rabble-rousers of the all-wheel drive hot hatch elite. But this new RS3 may be the last of the line. Next year Audi must decide whether or not to invest in updating its turbo five-cylinder to meet the tough Euro 7 emissions standards coming in 2026 or 2027. It won’t be easy, admits Steffen Bamberger, Audi Sport’s head of technical development. The measures necessary to meet Euro 7 are costly, complex and bulky, and will take five years to develop. As the shift to…

WE DON’T LIKE reminding ourselves that living in one of the world’s most lockeddown cities – ahem, Melbourne – during a once-in-a-century health crisis denies you a few things. First, it was the 2020 Australian F1 Grand Prix. Then an AFL final. Soon, it quickly dawned on us a while would pass before we’d see big competition in the flesh again. So, you can imagine the collective groan heard around the Wheels office when we had to cancel the first midsize SUV mega-test organised in a while. With the Hyundai Tucson landing fresh from a generational makeover in April, we finally had a showdown sorted until our entries from Toyota, Subaru and Mazda were forced to pull out. Thankfully, we didn’t have to send home the plucky new Hyundai Tucson.…

REPORT TWO HYUNDAI i30 N DCT Price as tested $52,000 This month 746km @9.6L/100km Overall 1154km @9.4L/100km AS FAR AS understatements go, calling the new i30 N a facelift, especially in automatic guise, is like saying Amazon is just an online store. Yes, the i30 N wears a more expressive face with sharpened features, but leaving it at that ignores so much else. As mentioned last month, Hyundai claims that the i30 N DCT, when unleashed from a standstill, can launch itself to 100km/h from rest in 5.4sec. That’s 0.7sec quicker than the pre-facelift version with a manual transmission, or 0.5sec better than the new manual. Among the i30 N’s rival set, not the Ford Focus ST, Renault Megane RS, or even the eighth-genVolkswagen Golf GTI (which won’t have a…

REPORT ONE INTRO SUBARU OUTBACK TOURING Price as tested $47,790 This month 461km @10.1L/100km Overall 461km @10.1L/100km GEEZ, it’s low!” says the Scientist, jumping into the Outback for the first time. We’ve done a fair few miles in Everests, MU-Xs and the like of late, so she’s pleasantly surprised entry doesn’t require the expected grab of the Jesus handle. I imagine her reaction would please the brains trust at Subaru, as it means the new-for-2021 Outback is scanning as an SUV, rather than the highriding, crossover wagon it actually is. SUV sales are hot and Subaru needs to maintain or grow its slice of that lucrative pie. Subaru would also be happy that the Scientist and I are smack in the middle of the ‘Ideal Outback intenders’ Venn diagram. To…

NOT TO SAY there’s causation, but the world went a bit pear-shaped when the Toyota Tarago left us. The people mover of choice for tens of thousands of Aussies ended production in the final weeks of 2019, since replaced by the more luxo-bent Granvia. But this page of Wheels hasn’t paid homage to the trusty Tarago until now. First introduced to Australia in 1983 as our own version of what was called the TownAce (and the unfortunately named MasterAce), the Toyota Tarago was effectively a passenger van body plonked onto the chassis of a commercial vehicle, though with slightly upgraded components for a more car-like drive. A note in Wheels February 1983 points out the “soon-for-release MasterAce Grand Saloon has coil-spring rear suspension and an aerodynamic nose”. But it was…