WheelsMarch 2018的目錄

T-Wings teed off F1 teams jumped at vaguely worded regulations surrounding rear bodwork in 2017, with ungainly looking T-Wings quickly followed by the exhaust-blown ‘Monkey Seat’ device. Both are outlawed for 2018, along with the shark-fin style engine cowl. However it appears Mercedes has developed a merger of the two for 2018, with a miniature T-wing sitting atop the exhaust tip for the W09 challenger. Manage a trois Teams are limited to just three engines per car for the entire 21-race season in 2018 – one less than last year. Say a prayer for Kiwi Brendon Hartley and his Toro Rosso teammate Pierre Gasly, who must suffer the notoriously unreliable Honda power unit this season. Grid penalties for using more than three engines have also been simplified. Halo darkness my…

What is it? LiDAR is an acronym for ‘light detection and ranging’. Essentially it’s a form of surveying technology that uses a laser to detect objects and, using the information gathered while in motion, rapidly builds a precise virtual image of the surrounding environment. It’s broadly agreed by vehicle manufacturers that LiDAR is fundamental to the success of autononmous vehicles. Orlando-based company Luminar is one of the industry leaders currently advancing the technology for automotive applications. How does it work? An infrared laser beam is scattered from the LiDAR unit. These light pulses hit surrounding objects and are reflected back to a sensor located near the laser. The sensor feeds the information to a powerful processor that calculates the time the laser pulse took to return and therefore the distance…

FATHER TIME I saw the new ZB Commodore on the road for the first time the other day. I had my 11-year-old son in the car with me, and it took me back to the first time I ever saw the newVK Commodore, ironically when I was also aged 11. My late father was a mechanic in the Torana era of HDT, and as a result, Ray Borrett had brought the firstVK Calais with the electronic dashboard down to dad’s factory after-hours. I can remember it driving down the long driveway towards us. Two-tone bronze over silver, with brown, diagonal-pattern leather seats. I also remember being slightly disappointed that it was the six. I had hoped for the eight, but it really didn’t matter. It was a new Commodore, and…

While few senior car execs would say so publicly, most agree with Henry Ford’s infamous assertion that history is bunk. Yet as brands struggle to forge emotional connections with their new machinery, so that’s starting to change. As is so often with sports cars, the Porsche 911 has proved the bellwether, the value of air-cooled versions rising higher than those of the technically more advanced water-cooled ones that replaced them. Is a leggy automatic 964 cabriolet really two or three times better than a gently used 996 manual coupe? That’s what the market thinks at present; while a lightweight 2.7 RS is worth more than a garage full of new GT3s. Part of this may well be down to the madness of crowds, with the soaring values of some average…

IN THE late 40s, few could have imagined the responsibility that would fall to the original Willys ATV. Not only would its devastatingly effective recipe of simple but revolutionary design allow the tiny four-by-four to lug countless tonnes of troops and equipment, but its name – General Purpose, shortened to GP or Jeep – would go on to be the placard of an institution. Flash forward more than 75 years and this car – the gen-two Jeep Compass – is charged with a similarly hefty responsibility. From a sales peak in 2014 when the Grand Cherokee was flying off showroom floors faster than any other large SUV, the seven-slot grille brand is in need of help and this all-new small-to-mid-sized SUV could be the charging cavalry. Unlike the smaller Renegade…

IT’S A case of blink and you might miss it when it comes to the latest updates to the Nissan Navara dual-cab. From the outside, there are no changes to the D23, the bluff dual-cab soldiering on without so much as a new badge. The grunty 2.3-litre twin-turbo four-pot diesel matched to a decent seven-speed auto is also unchanged, which is no bad thing. A six speed-manual continues to be available on much of the line-up for a saving of around $2500. But anyone who crawls underneath may notice some nifty new springs in the back-end, the first of numerous chassis changes aimed at making the Navara better at doing things that utes do, namely towing and carrying loads. Remember, until the imminent arrival of the Mercedes-Benz X-Class, the Navara…

TWELVE months after it launched, the MX-5 Retractable Fastback (RF), with its folding metal lid, is now the best-selling version in Mazda’s ND MX-5 range. That’s a bit of a shock. Within those sales it’s the flagship GT version that takes the lion’s share. Clearly Mazda is right when it says today’s customers want all the bells and whistles to go with their pure sports car experience. Now there’s a more embellished RF to take their fancy. A run of 110 RF GT Limited Edition (LE) models sits atop the line-up, priced at a lofty $55,790 driveaway. That’s a circa $8K impost. Then again, the LE is the first upgrade this generation of MX-5 has had from a performance standpoint. Upgrades include lightweight 17-inch BBS alloy wheels, a Brembo braking…

EVEN THE iconic 911 isn’t immune to the diktats of EU group emissions rules. The VW Group, of which Porsche is but one of 12 constituent brands, currently lags behind every other major European carmaker in its bid to meet swingeing 2020 emissions regulations. This has instigated a push for electrification within the business, with the 992 generation representing the 911’s introduction to hybrid powertrains. An evolution of the current 991 series, the 992 will be unveiled in October, with the rear and all-wheel drive 331kW Carrera S. The entry-level 295kW Carrera will follow in Spring 2019. With 48-volt electrics, a redesigned dash, matrix laser headlights, an eight-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission, and a chassis that’s been re-engineered for mild hybrid propulsion, the 992 retains the classic 911 silhouette, albeit with…

SUNSET over Los Angeles is one of the greatest pseudo-natural spectacles the sprawling Californian metropolis has to offer. The stunning show of colours is the result of a cool ocean on one side of the city, mountains on three others, something called an inversion layer and tonnes upon tonnes of vehicle exhaust belched into the atmosphere every day. Californians are addicted to their cars and the atmosphere bears the scars. The spectacularly beautiful people are another example of a superficially pretty veneer masking an uglier reality. Flick on a local TV station and between personal injury lawyers touting no-win-no-fee representation, you are bombarded by ads for preventable disease medication. Diabetes, high blood pressure, constipation, obesity. Apparently cosmetic procedures can conceal all... Just weeks before I arrive, the beauty of LA’s…

ONE, TWO, four, twenty, one hundred. It was a vast mob of ’roos, emerging in waves from the spinifex. Startled by the searchlight blue of the LED headlights, they scrambled over one another to reach safety. Some were knotty, muscled adults, timing their leap across the boundary fence in advance like a chess player, effortlessly skimming as if working ground-effect. Others were scrappy little tackers, jinking furiously, looking for a breach in the wire. One lost grip, lowsiding on the sand like an inept motorcyclist, limbs flailing desperately, eyes wide, spittle flecking from its soft mouth. Pre-dawn out of Dunkeld in a Porsche 911 GT3 rewards a certain circumspection, but delayed gratification only makes what’s to come that bit more piquant. Choosing where to take Porsche’s latest 991.2 version of…

1996 Flash Engineering established by Swedish ace Jan ‘Flash’ Nilsson as a touring car team. Nilsson wins the Swedish Touring Car Championship in a Volvo 850. The team progresses into the noughties with S40 and S60 S200 Super Touring cars. 2004 Flash Engineering is bought by Swede Christian Dahl and is rebranded as Polestar in 2005, which represents the star closest to the celestial North Pole, as well as alluding to pole position. 2009 The Volvo C30 S200 is the first fruit of Polestar Racing. Polestar Performance becomes Volvo’s official tuning partner. 2010 The first Polestar Performance concept is the C30 Polestar. Its second, the S60 Polestar concept, arrives in 2012. The Swedish flag, also applied as the nation’s early century racing colours, provides the cyan shade. 2013 Polestar Performance…

STOCKHOLM syndrome is a real thing. I know this, because I seem to have fallen in love with my captor, the Subaru Impreza. We’ve spent more than six months together, with at least two hours a day on every workday – maybe more considering the crushing weight of roadworks reducing Melbourne’s traffic to a crawl – spent staring at the rear end of the car in front. And I’ve enjoyed it. It has given the impression of saving my arse on numerous occasions; the autonomous emergency braking via its stereo-camera Eyesight system stepping in to avoid real – and sometimes imagined – danger in front. It has more than adequately warmed my buttocks in the depths of winter – the heated seats so effective I could only ever tolerate its…

ON AUSTRALIA DAY 2018, an Australian motoring journalist was officially recognised – and for once, not just in a speed-camera photo. Pedr Davis, 88, was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to journalism and the automotive industry, in a career whose Australian chapter began with Wheels in our maiden year of 1953. Davis was born in London in 1929. His father was a general newspaper journalist, and young Pedr showed a flair for writing, selling short fiction pieces to the local newspaper from age 16. Obsessed with cars and motorcycles, he secured an engineering apprenticeship at the Austin Motor Company. “Austin employed 42,000 people at the time, but I knew nothing about big corporations. Early on I thought, ‘Well, gee whiz, I ought to…

IT’S NO SECRET that the imported ZB represents the biggest departure for Commodore in the nameplate’s 40-year career But there was a whole lot more going on behind the scenes. Here we take a look at the backstory that Holden didn’t include in its press material, and debunk the myth about the twin-turbo V6. The new Commodore was to have been built in Australia Way back when the VF Commodore was unveiled in early 2013, then-Holden chairman Mike Devereux dropped the bombshell that the next-generation version was already on the drawing board and slated for local production from late-2016. That was just 10 months before General Motors announced it would pull the plug on Aussie manufacturing. Holden only recently confirmed that the car in question was going to be a…

Mercedes-AMG GT four-door IT’S SURELY a sign of the times when a new Mercedes-AMG model arrives with 470kW and it’s not even the performance flagship. That’s the case with the GT four-door, very much an E-Class under the skin and effectively an upmarket replacement for the AMG CLS63. The scale of AMG’s ambition with this model is evident in the range o f engine choices. Opening the line-up is the GT 53 powered by the new turbocharged 3.0-litre in-line six with an electric compressor, good for 320kW/520Nm. Next rung up features the ubiquitous 4.0-litre V8 in base, non-S tune, making 430kW and 800Nm, which happen to be the outputs of the most hardcore of the current coupe line up, the GT R. Topping this – for now – is the…

Getting into Ford, Holden or Toyota’s local design studios is only slightly harder than opening one of those rigid plastic blister packets without severing an artery but, thanks to Paul Beranger’s new book, you can get a fascinating glimpse into Australian car design without scaling a single wall. Eight decades of local design is covered in 336 pages with in-depth images, stories and biographies and you don’t need dynamite and a chainsaw to open it either. Crayon to CAD by Paul Beranger $120 c2cpublishing.com.au The 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback was immortalised by the Hollywood feature film Bullitt, but now you can have your own tiny version in the correct colour thanks to the venerable and quite indestructible Lego brick. It’s suitable for people aged seven to…

ROOF-DOWN in Puglia, the heel of boot-shaped Italy, the Portofino is making a good first impression. The interior of Ferrari’s new 2+2 is door-to-door craftsmanship. The neatly designed instrument panel is an expanse of perfectly stitched leather and crisply detailed metal, studded with a just-right helping of technology, including a big central touch screen. The new, magnesium-framed front seats are snugly comfortable, the driving position pretty well perfect. And the Portofino’s topless aerodynamics cocoon the cockpit in calm air. But then there’s the sound of what seems to be an asthmatic playing an out of tune didgeridoo. The ugly racket isn’t being made by some second-rate roadside busker. It’s coming from the Ferrari’s behind. The Portofino’s exhaust system has electric bypass valves just upstream from each of its pair of…

NO ONE ever said mediocrity had to be an impediment to prosperity. Well, at least no one at Mitsubishi ever said it. There’s not a standout performer in Mitsu’s now-eight-strong model range, yet the company finished 2017 in fifth position on the sales chart, much to the chagrin of sixth-placed Ford. All of which bodes well for Mitsu’s latest addition to its SUV line-up. The Eclipse Cross squeezes between the ASX and Outlander; a pricier, more design-led alternative to the former; more compact and affordable than the latter. It’s no gifted athlete, but it does get enough of the fundamentals right and has sufficient showroom sheen to elevate it above mediocrity. The line-up is contained to just three variants sharing the new 1.5-litre turbo four and CVT with eight ratio…

DID SOMEONE in Munich forget to hit the ‘Caps Lock’ key? BMW’s new small crossover SUV is more ‘x’ than ‘X’. The X2 is, in essence, a lower-case X1. The difference in height is a little more than 70mm, and the X2 is also almost 80mm shorter overall, with an identical wheelbase. Also shared are engines, transmissions, and chassis components. The five-door body of the X2 was penned with the aim of attracting the kind of customer who would never consider the X1, according to project head Julius Schluppkotten. And it does look entirely different, chiefly because not a single panel is shared. “When we started the car we had very clearly the idea to focus on younger customers,” says Schluppkotten, recalling the X2’s embryonic stage three or four years…

TALK about subtle. Unless you see them side-by-side, you’ll have trouble picking apart the newly arrived Lexus RX L from the five-seat RX that’s been on sale here since 2015. Lexus says all the sheetmetal behind the seven-seat RX L’s B-pillar is unique, but you’ll need to squint to tell. Both variants share the same wheelbases, with the RX L getting another 110mm grafted on aft of the rear axle. The only real hint that something is different is the chrome trim above the L’s rear quarter window – it arches the opposite way to the regular RX’s. Oh, and the tailgate glass is a few degrees steeper. So Lexus has adeptly camouflaged the new variant’s bigger butt, yet doing so fails to gloss over a number of compromises from…

IF WE needed any further proof that we’re living in the golden age of the hot-hatch, then this glorious pearlescent-orange Renault is it. Pumped to within an inch of appearing gratuitous, and preened so beautifully in just about every area, the new Renaultsport Megane RS280 has ‘want’, ‘need’ and ‘must have’ written all over it. Much like its heavily re-engineered predecessor, this is no shoehorning engine experiment, and nor is it merely a simple exercise in modernising the cracking hot-hatch that fans have salivated over for nearly a decade. This is fresh thinking for Renaultsport, despite the fact we’ve seen a five-door hot Megane before. The French performance outfit had considered continuing with a three-door format but felt the development budget was best spent turning the rather unspectacular, if worthy…

For a business that has spent 20 years doing things with Volvos that it will probably never do again, Polestar, Gothenburg’s new ‘electric performance brand’, carries a remarkable aura of freshness and new endeavour about it. Perhaps it’s the sky-gazing nature of the name that does it, or the recent complete rethink of its partnership with Volvo, a company which itself has managed to stand outside the money-driven, horsepower-crazy, German-centric melee that forms the arena for mainland Europe’s other premium manufacturers. It also helps that, for the past six months, Polestar’s fortunes have been guided by an ambitious new CEO, Thomas Ingenlath, who, as Volvo’s chief of design, has spent the past five years making Gothenburg’s latest models beautiful and relevant. Designers don’t always make good business managers, but Ingenlath…

AM I THE ONLY one who thinks my new Volvo XC60 long-termer looks a little smug? As though its handsome grille is somehow twisted into a haughty smirk, and when it drives, it doesn’t so much roll past smoothly as saunter with a superior swagger. It sounds daft, I know, and yet such attitude wouldn’t be entirely without cause. The XC60 is our freshly minted Car of the Year and this particular example, which is the $92,990 hybrid-powered T8 flagship, last month trounced its rivals from Porsche, Audi, Jaguar and Range Rover in our performance mid-size SUV comparison. Clearly then, DQC55W has already been put through the Wheels wringer and emerged not only unscathed, but manifestly more confident and more convincing. It also means a traditional ‘welcome’ report to the…

FINESSE isn’t what you buy a Mustang for. In fact, finesse isn’t something you’d associate with any generation of Mustang, including this fifth-gen example. Yet Ford’s loveably flawed, feel-good two-door somehow gets away with it. Call it deployment of the character card, and a shopfront window reflection to show just how damn ballin’ you look in a muscle car like this. Eight months in, I still feel slightly warm and fuzzy clasping the Mustang’s chunky door handle and lowering myself into its broad, heated-and-cooled perforated-leather seats. Long gone is the slight intimidation I first felt staring over its double-humped dashboard and bulging bonnet, unaware of its extremities and worried I was going to kerb its multi-spoke black 19s. Instead, a level of trust was quickly built, along with an unwavering…

LET’S SAY you’re a technology billionaire who’s big in space exploration, satellites and energy, with almost the means – and perhaps the will – to take over the world. You’re looking to buy a car, but heck, you already have your own car company. What to buy? In 2013, SpaceX/Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk plonked down £612,000 ($1.05m) to buy ‘Wet Nellie’, the white Lotus Esprit from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. It must amuse Musk that this car doesn’t actually have wheels and can only be driven underwater. The Lotus Esprit had its genesis in 1970 as project M70, successor to the mid-engined Lotus Europa (1966-’75). Key goals were to modernise the Europa’s quirky styling and create more occupant space. Giorgetto Giugiaro, who had left…

TOPPINGS PISTA Bold white and blue stripes are a nod to Ferrari’s legendary 1950s North American Racing Team (NART), that only competed at the world’s highest-profile races. AIR FORCE ONE The ‘blown’ rear spoiler is now higher and wider, while the underbody diffuser features a double-kink design inspired by the GTE race car. MARANELLO MODS The 90-degree twin-turbo V8 has been upgraded with Inconel exhaust manifolds, a lighter crank and flywheel, titanium conrods and carbonfibre plenum chambers. FERRARI has finally uncovered its eagerly anticipated performance-enhanced 488 special edition, confirming that the manic road-racer will wear the Pista moniker. The news puts to bed speculation that the car would recycle one of the company’s numerous rare-breed nameplates, such as GTO, Competizione, Speciale, Stradale or Scuderia, instead opting for a name that…

IT’S hard not to picture the faces of the macaque monkeys being gassed in a test chamber and suffering from nitrogen-oxide poisoning, when recalling the latest twist in the Dieselgate saga. Yet it’s really not about the monkeys. As unethical as it was, the gassing of these ‘non-human primates’ merely points to a bigger picture. The body responsible for commissioning the test, the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, known by its German acronym of EUGT, a body funded in part by Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler. While the latter companies have claimed to know nothing of these tests, Volkswagen has no such deniability. It provided a Beetle TDi for the experiment, conducted in 2014 in Albuquerque, and one of its engineers, James Liang, who was…

MARCH-APRIL ALFA ROMEO Stelvio; AUDI R8 V10 RWS; BMW M5; CHEVROLET Silverado ute; CITROEN C3 hatch; HSV Colorado Sportscat; HYUNDAI i30 N; JAGUAR E-Pace; JEEP Grand Cherokee Trackhawk; LEXUS LS; MERCEDES-BENZ X-Class ute and AMG GLC63 wagon/coupe; PORSCHE 718 Cayman/Boxster GTS, 911 Carrera T and 911 GT2 RS; VOLKSWAGEN Mk6 Polo 70/85TSI MAY-JUNE AUDI RS4 Avant: FORD Mustang facelift; HYUNDAI iMax/iLoad facelift; JAGUAR XJ update and XJR 575; KIA Cerato sedan; LAND ROVER Range Rover Sport/SVR facelift and Range Rover facelift; LOTUS Evora GT430; MERCEDES-BENZ S-Class coupe/cabriolet facelift; PORSCHE Cayenne; VOLKSWAGEN Mk6 Polo Beats and Polo GTI; VOLVO XC40 DUE MARCH Porsche Cayman GTS Launching here in March wearing a $173,100 sticker (or $179,080 as a PDK), Porsche’s fleshed-out flat-four Cayman GTS gains 11kW/10Nm over a 2.5-litre Cayman S (thanks…

People who’ve spent their livelihoods doing something they loved, a job they perhaps once thought their children would do, blown away by the cold and careless winds of change. It’s an ill wind that’s also blown through my chosen career, as literally thousands of people who once were word warriors have joined the dull queue of job hunters. The comparison is perhaps overly maudlin from my side, as there are still some jobs in journalism, and Wheels magazine, in particular, goes from strength to strength, but as the number of print publications starts to mirror the number of video-rental shops, I can certainly see the parallels. It really doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do – be it screwing together doors or welding together words – if…

AGAINST all expectations, the legendary brood-hauling ability of Peugeot’s famous ‘Familiale’ station wagons of the past has somehow resurfaced in this new-generation people carrier, the 5008. Not too big on the outside, yet almost Tardis-like on the inside, it’s the seven-seat SUV for those who don’t want a bulky, distasteful 4WD. There’s something delightfully left-field about the Peugeot 5008. It features the odd stylistic nod to the SUV set it’s trying to attract – cue the ‘bash-plate’ garnish on its front bumper and statuesque 1646mm height – yet the 5008 is a sleeker, more tautly drawn seven-seater than every rival bar its Citroen Grand C4 Picasso relative. Ingeniously, front-bumper and grille designs aside, the 5008 shares its entire structure from the B-pillar forward with the smaller 3008 – driver-focused, concept-car-like…

NOTHING says ‘new era’ like a new-gen Commodore. Back in ’78, the VB original – designed by Opel – was smaller and way more sophisticated than the American-esque HZ it replaced, with Holden promoting it as “a new kind of car for Australia”. Now, 40 years later, history repeats with the ZB – a rebadged and refettled Opel Insignia. Made in Germany, five doors replace four, four cylinders oust eight while a V6 continues, rear-drive gives way to front or all-wheel drive and manuals are history. There’s even a bloody diesel. Echoing then-PM Ben Chifley in 1948, we can almost hear Angela Merkel declare, “Sie ist eine beauty!” Deceptively, the ZB sits between VF and the 1997 VT in length and width, so despite an 86mm shorter wheelbase, there’s room…

HOW’S this for a reality check? Right now, private buyers in Australia shopping for an electric car (that isn’t a $100K+ Tesla) have just one choice: the BMW i3. While the rest of the industry tramples over itself to blow more smoke about future EVs, the pioneering i3 is getting on with it, and has been since 2014. In 2016 a 94Ah/33kWh battery upgrade boosted the COTYwinning EV’s range, and now this mid-life facelift introduces a sportier variant called the i3S in battery electric (BEV) and range-extender (REX) formats at a $1200 premium over the regular car. Peak outputs rise by 10kW and 20Nm to 135kW and 270Nm, but a more important change is in the delivery. The electric motor spins to almost 12,000rpm as before, but can now serve…

YOU CAN never quite tell with Porsche, but the second generation of the 991-series of GT3 RS could be the very last of the current 911 generation. If all the rumours are correct and Porsche is true to form, it will reveal the all-new 911 (code-named 992) at the Paris motor show in October, seven years since the 991 made its global debut at Frankfurt in 2011. And the whole merry-go-round will kick off another cycle, during the course of which the world’s first hybrid 911s will be launched. But back in the present day, it’s just possible that a few of you are scratching your heads not so much at the existence of this car, but its timing. It always makes sense to produce such cars at the end…

THERE’S no hiding place here for the Holden Commodore VXR. The development vehicle excuses, the pre-launch PR bluster and any residual extended goodwill end right here. We’ve driven pre-production versions of the ZB Commodore VXR but this is the first time we’ve pitched it in against its toughest rivals. If you’ve read the 3000km drive to Bourke and back in the February issue, you’ll know that we harboured a few reservations about this car, most specifically in the way the 3.6-litre V6 engine (which can trace its ‘High Feature’ lineage back to the 2004 VZ Commodore) interfaces with GM’s nine-speed transmission. Given that there aren’t any normally aspirated, all-wheel drive cars in this price bracket with which to directly compare it, we’ve taken a slightly different tack. For a nominal…

P1800 1961-1973 Tough, comfortable and fondly remembered coupe used saloon engines and running gear in a remarkably stylish two-door format that lasted 12 years. Roger Moore made the car famous as transport for his sleuthing character in The Saint. 1800ES 1972-1973 Responding to the success of ‘breadvan’ coupes like the Reliant Scimitar GTE, Volvo modified its P1800, giving it an eye-catching glass hatch. Tougher US safety laws meant a short life as Volvo couldn’t afford to invest in required improvements. 262C 1978-1980 Following a Swedish visit by high-powered Ford-Lincoln execs, Volvo commissioned Bertone to produce this odd-looking 260-saloon-based coupe targeting US sales, using unaltered saloon mechanicals. Around 6600 were sold, including one to the late David Bowie. 480 1986-1 995 Neat coupe-estate lasted nine years in production, mostly because it…

SINCE the middle of last century, French manufacturers have enjoyed a reputation for producing cars of exceptional softness when it comes to dealing with lumpy road conditions. Anybody who has ever driven a Citroen DS would understand. Its hydropneumatic suspension technology – which uses interconnected oil-filled spheres rather than primitive springs – set a template that saw Gallic marques blessed with the reputation of offering the cushiest of rides. And burdened, too, as many more recent models from the country of fromage and escargot have delivered anything but comfort. While history might smile at the thought of wonderfully supple grand tourers like the Renault 16 and Peugeot 504, a Peugeot 407 on big wheels will punish any posterior it encounters. Aie! Our long-termer Megane GT wagon, however, is certainly a…