Table of contents for February 2025 in Wheels

THE BIG PICTURE seems straightforward enough. Honda Motor and Nissan Motor are in talks to merge, in a bid to share the burgeoning development costs of electrification and digitalisation. The two companies talk of this as a collaboration, but even a cursory glance at the financials suggests this is anything but. Nissan is in trouble and Honda could conceivably offer it a realistic shot at survival. Merging Nissan with a culturally distinct and operationally diverse company has been done before. The 1999 merger with Renault, managed under the auspices of then-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, identified multiple areas of complementarity and opportunities for cost-saving. That synergy is harder to identify with Nissan and Honda. The two companies overlap in many product areas, and while Nissan faces a situation where it now…

THIS IS THE Alpine A290, the sporty variant of the Renault 5, and it feels to me like the return of the hot hatchback. Maybe I’ve said that before, about the COTY-winning Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, much larger, more expensive and powerful though that is. But sufficiently few are the approachable, hot, practical electric cars that it feels appropriate to mention it. Along with the A290, anyway, these strike me as EVs that talk to the enthusiast. The A290 is based on a Renault small electric car platform called AMPR; the R5 and this Alpine are the first two cars to be based on it. It’s a compact car, at 3.99m long and 1.52m high, albeit it’s 1.82m wide across the body. Overhangs are relatively compact too, with a 2.53m…

The Lexus Future Zero-emission Catalyst (LF-ZC) was a concept unveiled in 2023 that was designed to point to future Lexus design directions. The blend of angles and curves expands on the company’s current design language, while retaining themes such as the shape of the spindle grille. The body utilises giga-casting technology, splitting its exoskeleton into three parts: front, centre and rear. A floor-set prismatic battery pack lowers the centre of gravity, while a focus on aerodynamic efficiency and a low frontal area extends range.…

01 ZF 8HP TRANSMISSION 2009 – BMW 760Li For a while it looked as if the dual-clutch transmission would retire the flabby old torque converter auto, right? Not so fast, hoss. Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen, or ZF to most of us, had other ideas. The company that was originally formed to produce gear wheels for Zeppelins developed a compact eight-speed transmission with four planetary gearsets, three clutches and two brakes that could shift gears in as little as 200 milliseconds with a beautifully oiled slickness that suddenly made DCTs seem clunky. Compatible with rear- or all-wheel drive layouts with torque outputs from 220Nm to 1044Nm, the ZF 8HP even prompted some manufacturers like Audi and BMW (with RS5 and M5 respectively) to ditch DCT installations and return to automatics. The added length of…

MOST OF THE cars we cover here in Modern Classic reach that status through sheer durability. Years of continuous improvement hone something that was rough ready into a polished gem. Of course, the opposite can happen too. Cars that burst onto the scene in a blaze of youthful verve often mellow into comfortable middle aged spread. Once in a while, we get that rarest of things: a hero car that appears and then vanishes almost as quickly as it arrived. For a magnificent case in point, look no further than the Lotus Exige S1. Its production run lasted but a year. From its introduction at the Brands Hatch round of the Lotus Motorsport Elise race series in April 2000 to the last car coming out of the Hethel plant in…

THE MORE observant among you will spot that I’ve swapped the keys of my Mitsubishi Outlander for those of something a bit more rugged – a Triton GLS. This one sits smack bang in the middle of the Australian Triton line-up – above the GLX and GLX+ but below the top-spec GSR – and it retails for a touch under $60k at $59,090. Unlike the GLX and GLX+, the GLS gets Mitsubishi’s more advanced Super Select II 4WD system with 2H, 4H, 4HLc and 4LLC, 18-inch alloy wheels, standard-duty rear suspension, terrain control and hill descent control. Plus, it carries over the rear diff lock that is standard on the GLX+. Also setting it apart from the lower-spec variants is the inclusion of LED exterior lighting; dual-zone climate control; an…

THE MASERATI GHIBLI ought to have been fantastic. The proposition at launch was utterly mouth-watering. Here was a handsome sedan built on a box-fresh platform, clothed in steel/aluminium hybrid body panels that offered the option of rear- or all-wheel drive, an intriguing selection of power-plants and more tan leather inside than you’d ever see on a Portofino naturist beach. Yet today, the Ghibli is seen as something of a failure for the brand. How did that happen? Back in 2012, when the car was unveiled, there were some pretty grand plans for it. With the Ghibli and its Levante SUV counterpart, then-CEO Harald Wester hoped to increase Maserati’s global sales from 6000 in 2012 to 50,000 in 2015. How we sniggered at this lofty ambition, yet the last laugh was almost…

DETROIT, JANUARY 1989. As usual at Cobo Hall, it’s cold. Bitterly cold. Snow flurries whistle down Washington Boulevard as they have done during the Detroit Auto Show for nearly thirty years, whipping out along the Detroit River into Lake St Clair. Change is also in the air this year, however. The show has been renamed the North American International Auto Show, reflecting a change that occurred in 1987, when the event was opened to global car manufacturers. This year there’s a stand that will change the luxury car market for ever. It’s no great surprise to industry insiders that Toyota had been planning to launch a luxury arm. After all, the Japanese government had virtually written it into existence when it imposed voluntary export restraints for the U.S. market. Such…

IT’S INCREDIBLY HARD to one-up a Lexus LFA. It exists in a plane so far removed from the typical supercar mainstream that there’s little that could conceivably turn up at a cars and coffee meet that would have the star power to outshine it. That’s part of the reason why you can’t buy one for anything less than… well, you tell us. The current going price overseas seems to be around $800,000 USD, which is around $1.3m AUD. Here? You’d need to come up with $1.5m+ at a very conservative estimate. Before you go digging down the back of the sofa for any loose change, what if there was another Lexus model that could offer the impression of the LFA’s sense of occasion for less than ten percent of the…

AS DESIGN DIRECTOR for MG’s Advanced Design Studio in London, Carl Gotham has a lot on his plate. It won’t have escaped your attention that the Chinese manufacturer is operating at a frenetic pace, upending the industry’s standard product lifecycles with a rapid and iterative product launch schedule. Gotham’s the man behind the look of MG’s most striking product to date, the Cyberster roadster, so we jumped at the chance to have a chat with one of the most forward looking designers in the business. AE: Thanks for joining us today, Carl. Can you walk us through what the initial design brief was for the Cyberster? CG: It was a project that, as designers, we’ve been wanting to do for a long time for the brand, just waiting for the…

DOES ANYONE remember the video game, Tetris? That addictive puzzle game with the falling blocks and catchy music? I spent far too much time playing that on the brick-like Nintendo Gameboy. Some might view this as time misspent, but I think otherwise – especially when it comes to packing a car boot for a short family holiday. This skillset was always going to be tested when working with the Volvo EX30’s limited 318-litre space for a weekend getaway. The luggage area jumps to 904 when the rear seats are dropped but leaving the kids at home to fend for themselves might be frowned upon. To this point, the smallest car in Volvo’s current model line-up has ferried the clan around on family day trips, but I had yet to put…

OVERSPECIFICATION is something we’re all occasionally prone to. We think we need all the bells and whistles when we really don’t. The Ford F-150 Lariat that we’ve been running has given me pause to think about this contemporary buyer behaviour because, if I’m being truthful with myself, a Ford Ranger would probably suit my needs a whole lot better. I don’t tow, which squanders the Effie’s prime drawcard. I have used the tray fairly regularly, which probably puts me ahead of many ute owners, as I’ve not only been hauling bikes all over the place, but I’ve also done a fairly extensive garden remodelling exercise. And yes, the ride quality really does improve when you’ve got a couple of hundred kilos of mulch in the back. Nevertheless, it’s often reassuring…

Keep it tight (no more than 200 words) and do include your suburb if via email: wheels@wheelsmag.com.au You can also have your say on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (search for Wheels Australia) “Remember the lesson about not wasting ink on Jag?” LOOKS like you didn’t quite absorb the wisdom Editor Butler tried to drill into you all those years ago. Remember the lesson about not wasting ink on the Jag? Something about it selling a measly 2-3% of what BMW, Mercedes, and Audi were moving? Yeah, that one. Fast-forward to 2024, and here we are in the age of EVs – 6% of the Australian new car market. Six. Percent. So, care to explain why your latest issue devotes 14 pages to EV reviews and only 15 to ICE vehicles?…

IN THE performance car world, acts don’t get much harder to follow than the straight-six powered BMWM 140i–one of the greatest rear-drive hot hatches of all time. That’s especially if you’re replacing it with an all-wheel-drive, front-biased, four-cylinder car with decidedly dumpy styling, the M135i. Dubbed the F40 when it entered production in 2019, a twin-turbo Ferrari it was not. BMW’s all-wheel-drive hot hatch was destined for the back pages of the fast car history books, if any pages at all. In 2025, BMW is trying again with the same car. A comprehensive facelift conceals a brand new interior, despite BMW sticking with the same B48-code-named 2.0-litre turbo-charged four-cylinder. Power is up 8kW to 233kW but torque is down, curiously, 50Nm to 400Nm. Overall weight has increased 100kg, and the…

While the Western world was astonished at the ‘come from nowhere’ quality of the original Lexus LS 400, perhaps this attention to build integrity wasn’t such a great surprise in Japan. After all, Toyota had been building its Century model for 22 years. This was very much the shop window for the company’s finest craftsmen to demonstrate their technical excellence. Designed as a vehicle for C-suite executives who appreciate quality and discretion, the Century was best known for the G50 variant’s V12 power-plant, the only one in a Japanese production car and the reason why Lexus’ cylinder count never went higher than ten. Inside it utilised exquisite veneers developed in conjunction with Yamaha musical instruments, Ruikyo fine-piled wool upholstery, a rear-seat ottoman, an independently-sprung chauffeur’s seat and even offered an…

SLIDING SIDEWAYS down a narrow gravel track, in a pitch-back forest with a battery of ice-white pencil beams pointing the way, is not the traditional path to a career in automotive engineering. Then again, it quickly tells you what makes a car tick. Speed is one thing, but a successful competition car also needs to be reliable, trustworthy and, most of all, easy to drive. Those same basics are also essential for successful track laps at the daunting Nürburgring in super-quick Toyota Supras and a bunch of quick little Kia cars. Graeme Gambold knows it better than anyone, because the Melbourne engineer has managed to translate a moderately successful run in rallying into some of the best driving cars in Australia today. What’s more, he did it without ever completing…

IF YOU’VE EVER had that sinking feeling when looking at your EV’s range indicator, a pair of young Victorian entrepreneurs might just be your roadside saviours. The feeling of triumph when you roll to an EV charger with almost zero range in the battery pack is only trumped by your heart sinking to your boots when you find said charger out of commission. It happens Fortunately, there’s a solution, at least if you live in and around Melbourne. Two enterprising electricians, Toby Batters-Holding and Daniel Henry, founded Mobile EV Charging a couple of years ago, and realised that there was a space in the market for EV recoveries in Australia. “We saw a gap in the market, because nobody was doing this in Australia,” says Batters-Holding. “There are a couple…

EVERY ONCE IN a while, we run one of those ‘10 Car Design Trends That Need To Stop’ sort of features on the Wheels website. People tend to love them because they have a modest element of rage-bait about them, and the comments fill with people who hate chiming or who vent their spleens about lane keep assist. While running this Genesis GV70, I think I’ve found my pet peeve: tailgates with no external opening mechanism. Bear with me here. I loved the hinged tailgate badge on the Volkswagen Golf for its clever duality. It even gained a third function when it hid the rear camera and there’s a lot to be said for tailgate handles which impart a feeling of solidity. As much as I am enjoying the Genesis…