Table of contents for Yearbook 2024 in Wheels

IF WE DIDN’T do any actual driving at Wheels COTY and instead handed out our trophy based on how contenders present on paper, you might well be looking at the winner. Luckily that isn’t the case because as we discovered at Lang Lang, BYD’s Sealion 6 has plenty of strengths. And one major weakness. No prizes for guessing what that might be… Let’s start with the good stuff. After establishing a beachhead with the popular Atto 3 small SUV and then consolidating its market share with a host of other electric models, the Sealion 6 mid-size SUV is BYD’s first proper shot at nabbing some serious sales volume in Australia. As a rival for the Toyota RAV4, it’s playing in one of Australia’s most popular segments, and in a brochure or…

It’s beautiful and interesting, but does it offer enough?ANDY ENRIGHT COTY 2024 DELIVERED us some very good looking cars. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most agreed that the Polestar 3 was a striking piece of design, that the MG Cyberster definitely had its moments and that the Kia EV9 came with a welcome surplus of presence. But, for this judge at least, there was only one truly beautiful shape and it belonged to the Mercedes-Benz CLE200. Isn’t that the point of a coupe in the first place; to sacrifice practicality for panache? I’ve never really understood the notion of an ungainly coupe, and from virtually every angle, the CLE offers something interesting. It’s almost lost the traditional three-box shape that we associate with Mercedes…

THE MG CYBERSTER represents a flurry of firsts – an all-electric roadster unlike anything we’ve yet seen from anyone; a super-expensive sports car from the cheap and common brand that MG has become; and arguably the first genuinely desirable-looking car to arrive here from China. And because none of us had yet driven one – MG arranged for it to make COTY before any customer had even received a pre-ordered vehicle – there was palpable excitement about sampling its impressive-sounding performance. An electric motor on each axle making 375kW and 725Nm and delivering all-wheel-drive acceleration adds up to a claimed zero to 100km/h sprint of 3.2 seconds. The last time I attended a Wheels COTY, just over a decade ago, those figures would have caused all our jaws to hit the…

“The Skoda shows how dull an EV can be when it aims to be simply ordinary family transport”GLENN BUTLER SOMETIMES YOU don’t even need to be looking at a Tesla, or be surrounded by them, to notice how much the world’s most overvalued brand has changed the global marketplace. Sure, most obviously, there are many more EVs on the road from other brands, but when you look at a car like the Skoda Enyaq Coupe, you can actually imagine the panic within the walls of the giantVolkswagen Group: “Everyone wants a bloody Tesla – just build something that looks like one, and do it now!” There is plenty of Tesla in the exterior design of this spacious Skoda, which Enright described as “slightly less potato-ey in shape than the Model…

IF ALL THE COTY judges had been savagely struck down by some foul flesh-eating disease and forced to cull the initial field of 25 to a final six without being physically capable of driving any of them, the MG4 would have been a near cert to go through, because it just looks so damn good on paper. Not only that, but even from our sad sick beds we’d all be aware of the seismic effect it has had, not only on MG’s fortunes, but the market as a whole. Here is a vehicle that offers performance, practicality and peace of mind – thanks to a 10-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty – but also changes the value equation and makes buying an EV a viable option for so many people by coming to market from…

IT’S IRONIC THAT Hyundai’s out-of-the-box design theme for the fifth-generation Santa Fe large SUV resembles a box on wheels. This eye-catching aesthetic, which is repeated outside and in, is designed to be exactly that. Hyundai wants the Santa Fe to be noticed because the previous four generations were too often overlooked by car shoppers. Like it or not – and we do (except the low-pants rear, but there’s a reason for that) – this Santa Fe will have its boxy styling to thank for new car buyers actually putting its other qualities to the test. Essentially, Hyundai has gone big on style to get the substance noticed. More irony? The new Santa Fe hit Australian showrooms mid-year priced $10,000 above the outgoing model, which design changes alone can’t justify. All models…

I PITY THOSE car enthusiasts who still feel that electric cars are some sort of soulless appliance. Yes, there are many cheap EVs that are about as thrilling as reading a user manual for a USB hub, but then the same goes for many affordable combustion-engined cars. Just as a dull car is a dull car regardless of how it’s powered, the inverse applies to fun and interesting cars. Thing is, it’s easy to make dull cars. It’s far trickier to imbue a car with character, to make you want to drive it, to daydream of your favourite roads, to paint a huge smile on your face. We’ve had well over a century of practice to figure out how to do exactly that with combustion-engined vehicles but, for the most part,…

YOU’D HAVE THOUGHT that after 101 years of practice, Citroën would have cracked the Australian market by now. With that amount of experience, it would be a reasonable assumption that the French company would know what Aussie buyers wanted and how to price a car to sell here. But no. Emphatically no. The longest continually operating automotive brand in these countries has left Australia, ceasing sales operations at the start of November. The 35 existing service centres will fulfil servicing operations, but for how long is open to question. It’s all rather sad. “Whilst we acknowledge and celebrate Citroën’s rich history in the Australian market, we must look to the future and consider the rapidly evolving, dynamic, and competitive nature of the industry and local market, alongside changing consumer demands,” said…

AUSTRALIA IS THE only major market in Mazda’s world that gets the CX-60, the CX-70, the CX-80 and the CX-90 SUVs. I have no shame in admitting that, prior to driving the CX-70, I genuinely had very little idea as to how they all meshed together. Even now that I do understand it, I’m still a little leery of the logic behind it and can see how the average buyer might be flummoxed. Put simply, a CX-60 is a medium-sized SUV for a CX-5 customer with deeper pockets. If they want something yet more imposing and more premium, they can step up to the bigger CX-70, Mazda’s flagship two-row SUV. That leaves the CX-80 and CX-90 to accommodate those buyers who need three rows of seats. Of these, the CX-80…

ANDY ENRIGHT (WHEELS EDITOR 2022 TO DATE) Friendlier than he looks, the hardest working editor in the Aussie print publishing industry is the ringmaster of this three-ring circuit for a second time. Last time he oversaw Wheels’ first ever COTY award for a ladder-framed vehicle. Never afraid to break the mould, Enright introduced some tweaks to the formula this year that would see judges being afforded more time when assessing cars at Lang Lang and being given more scope to deliberate on their decisions. He’s also backed the ‘best foot forward’ policy that sees individual models that best represent a vehicle range being entered. STEPHEN CORBY (2012-2013) While it’s great to have the luxury of time, Corby’s brain runs at such a ferocious clock speed that he typically needs a…

BMW IX2 XDRIVE 30M SPORT Steadily and without huge fanfare, BMW has been establishing a reputation for EV leadership among the Euro brands. The iX2 lands with us in dual-motor xDrive 30 M Sport guise, aiming to show that ‘the ultimate driving machine’ doesn’t need petrol and can score the Munich marque a second EV victory at COTY. BYD SEALION 6 Fifty grand and change for a plug-in hybrid SUV that’s box fresh and comes with a whole hatful of bells and whistles? That sounds like fighting talk to us, and we were keen to see whether the Sealion 6 had the chops to put some established Aussie favourites firmly in their places. Or is something lost in the translation? FORD MUSTANG DARK HORSE We’ve enjoyed having Mustangs at COTY…

“It’s not amazing in any area and it’s not disappointing in any area”GLENN BUTLER EVERY ONCE IN a while a car sneaks through the COTY process almost by stealth, arriving at the pointy end of the competition by sheer dint of not doing a whole lot wrong. The Mazda CX-30’s win in 2021 is a case in point. Since then, the rules have been tightened somewhat so that those cars that are, and let’s not mince words here, further aligned to the forgettable end of the automotive spectrum find it tougher to progress. With no fewer than six COTY victories under its belt, Honda knows a thing or two about what it takes to win. In fact, only Ford, Holden and Mazda have ascended to the top step more often than…

WHO’D HAVE guessed that the second most affordable car at COTY this year would be a Lexus? Only the MG HS pipped the baby Lexus on that score, and it’s fair to say that the Golf-sized, Audi Q2-rivalling LBX intrigued, baffled and split the judging panel like few others. Corby was particularly affronted. While he claimed that the cabin smelt like a Lexus, he felt that the rest of the LBX execution cheapened the brand, noting that it didn’t feel or drive like a Lexus, and that there was no room in the back. Campbell described the rubberised coating of the steering wheel as feeling like a sex toy, whereas many of the other judges liked the silky feel of the rim. Even the door handles divided opinion. I loved…

CAN YOU BELIEVE that a Mercedes-Benz E--Class has never won COTY? It’s one of the odd quirks of history of this illustrious award. In 57 runnings, an E-Class has never won, Mazda has outscored Toyota 9-1 and Audi has never had a sniff. That’s part of the joy of COTY – it’s never predictable. Indeed, the E-Class’s best shot was probably the lovely W124, which was curiously given the cold shoulder back in COTY ‘86 when no award was bestowed. But here we have a sleek new-generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class and, given that you’re reading about this car well in advance of the finalists’ pages, it clearly wasn’t to be for the E300 – the lone E-Class variant for now. Let’s start with the good stuff. There’s plenty to like about…

“The biggest issue I had with the braking was getting to 100km/h”STEPHEN CORBY MUCH HAS BEEN made about the onslaught of battery electric vehicles from the Land of the Dragon, so fierce that Europe and the US have pulled up the tariff drawbridges. But the Chinese aren’t just focused on lithium-ion and electromagnets. They want a bite of the internal combustion pie as well. Enter the new MG HS. Flanked at COTY by its BEV brethren, the MG 4 and swooping Cyberster, it took just a quick glance by the judges to recognise that this second-generation mid-size SUV has come a long way from its predecessor. The preceding MG HS was not a vehicle we could recommend – to anyone we liked, anyway. A decidedly European, smartly inoffensive exterior conceals a…

BIG, PREMIUM electric SUVs have a tendency to do quite well at Wheels COTY (think Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQC and BMW iX) which might explain why the Polestar 3 sauntered into its starting slot at Lang Lang with a certain swagger. It’s unquestionably big – at 4.9m it’s close to a Volvo XC90 for length – and at $132,900 it’s certainly expensive. Which immediately put it under the microscope for value against the COTY criteria. “It’s very expensive,” said Dylan, which drew a strong murmuring of agreement from the other judges. “But is it too expensive?” That’s a curlier question. While it’s possible to argue that no car costing this much can ever truly be good value, when you view the Polestar 3 in the context of its competitor set,…

“I was actually really impressed with how competent this car was, and how fast it is”GLENN BUTLER THERE’S A DISTINCT sense of, “Oh, it’s you again” when approaching the ‘new’ Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD, because it feels like we’ve seen this all-conquering EV before. Many times, even. Personally, I made the argument even before driving it that no vehicle that refuses to provide a speedometer where it belongs – in front of the driver’s eyes, rather than pinned to the top of a giant screen offset to your left – should be allowed to win COTY for safety reasons (weirdly, it turned out that this year’s entry from safety fetishistsVolvo had done the same thing). I was also keen to vote the Model 3 out on the basis that…

GIVEN HIS UNCANNY ability to get to the crux of things, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Peter Robinson only needs six words to articulate what we’re all thinking about the Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Having just returned from the flurry of wheelspin, V8 thunder and manly manual gear shifts that is hustling the Dark Horse around Lang Lang’s ride and handling circuit, Peter looks around and declares, with barely disguised astonishment, that Ford’s new flagship pony car is “the best Mustang I’ve ever driven!” A quick peek at the notebooks of the other judges reveals similar thinking. “Wow! Didn’t think a Mustang could feel so ‘all of a piece’”, scribbled editor Enright. “Not as fast as an EV but 1000 times more soul,” said Corby. “It’s the best value performance…

FORGET THE FURORE. Remove from your mind, if you can, the past two weeks’ noise about Living Vivid and Breaking Moulds. Concentrate instead on the Jaguar Type 00 (Zero Zero), the long-promised concept coupé that introduces a radically new design style to the 90-year-old marque and sets the tone for its all-EV range that will hit showrooms from 2026. The concept car is a two-door, fixed-head coupé, a body type we’re told will not be built. But it has perhaps been chosen because it loosely echoes the layout of the 1961 Jaguar E-Type, the car nearly everyone cites as the leader of a previous great leap forward in Jaguar design. Company insiders say the concept coupé’s size, proportions and, above all, its design style are all “very close” to the…

FORGET WHAT you’ve heard about Porsche walking back its promises around electric vehicles. This Macan is never going to have an internal combustion engine, and if that doesn’t sit well with you, then you have until Q2 of 2025 to snap up the last of the old model from dealer stock because no more are coming Down Under. It’s one heck of a roll of the dice. Ballsy, even. But ask Porsche’s engineers whether they would want to return to petrol or diesel and the answer is unequivocal. “Why would we? Our goal was to do everything better than the combustion Macan.” The new Macan range opens at $128,400 which buys you the entry-level, rear-wheel-drive version. This is no makeweight, delivering a 265kW punch with overboost. Curiously, this Macan can…

COTY 2024 – IN WITH THE NEW… SO WHAT’S changed for 2024? The big one is that individual models within a range are put forward for review. Last time round, we clarified the eligibility rules to allow certain variants. That didn’t represent how real world buyers chose a vehicle. But we’ve gone further now. In the past, entire ranges of cars could, and indeed were, scuppered based on the weakness of a stripped-out entry model whose only job was to sell to rental fleets or to attract footfall into dealers. There had to be a better way of making the assessment process fair and inclusive. With so many models of cars eligible for inclusion at COTY 2024, rather than invite manufacturers to send their entire ranges and be faced with…

SENTIMENTAL SELECTIONS get short shrift at Car of the Year. Try to ram a personal favourite through to the later rounds of voting and you’ll inevitably get shouted down by the rest of the judging panel so it’s best not to even try. A case in point is the BMW iX2. I thought I’d hate this odd-looking EV, but I ended up really enjoying it while at the same time knowing that there wasn’t enough behind my argument to propel it into the next round of voting. For what it’s worth, I think coupe SUVs are faintly ridiculous contrivances, usually offering far less practicality than their conventional siblings. BMW has instead boxed rather clever with the iX2, delivering a longer body than the iX1 which means that, at 525 litres, its…

HYUNDAI IS quickly building a reputation for the unconventional when it comes to electric vehicles. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised; the Korean giant has dabbled with whimsical design before, as the two-plus-one-door Veloster coupe proves. The Hyundai Ioniq 6 is not an anomaly, however; it’s a modern exploration of electrically motivated aerodynamic extremes, somewhat over-zealously applied to the venerable three-box sedan. Automotive designers love the idiom “form follows function”. It dictates that a car’s styling should not compromise functional goals. With the Ioniq 6, the fulcrum has moved in favour of aerodynamic form over automotive function. The result is a car that is not a pragmatic or practical choice for buyers, but a purely personal one. The Ioniq 6 starts with the advanced e-GMP electric architecture also found under the Ioniq…

IF YOU WERE wondering which car divided the judging panel the most at this year’s COTY, then you’re looking at it. Dripping with style and personality, and packing a powerful twin motor electric powertrain that has pushed its kerb weight out to 2000kg, depending on your viewpoint the Mini Countryman SE is either a fun breath of fresh air or a gargantuan, obese and overstyled step too far for a brand made famous on the back of a very small, light car. One thing it isn’t, however, is boring. After driving some of the more mainstream models in this year’s COTY field, slipping into the Countryman is like entering a world of hypercolour. If we gave out a gong for best interior then the Mini’s victory would be so resounding it’d…

YOU CAN COUNT on the croissant-dippers to try something different, and when it comes to the new electric era, the Renault Megane E-Tech has a certain je ne sais quoi. A sort-of-tall small hatchback crossover SUV, just a single variant is currently offered, the $54,990 Techno EV60. And sitting on the Lang Lang skidpan, nothing makes a Honda CR-V or Nissan Qashqai look more dull than parking a Renault Megane E-Tech between them. Its fat front-three-quarter stance and sports-car-like, almost tapering rear styling are unlike any other car here. Huge standard 20-inch wheels complete the concept-turned-production look. You can count on the French to go a bit off-piste from an engineering perspective as well. In the case of the Megane E-Tech, by packaging the electric motor, transmission, inverter and onboard AC…

VOLVO HAS FORM at COTY. It seems only yesterday that the XC60 and XC40 were basking in the glow of back-to-back victories. And now we have the EX30 which, in many ways, is the Swedish brand’s most important model yet. While Volvo has dabbled with electric variants of the XC40, the EX30 is the brand’s first model built on a dedicated electric platform. It’s also its cheapest EV yet thanks to a price that starts just below $60K. At just 4233mm long, it’s also the smallest carVolvo has made in ages. Despite those diminutive dimensions, however (height is just 1550mm and it rolls on a 2650mm wheelbase, making it more of a jumped-up hatch than small SUV), the EX30 makes a huge impression in the metal. With a foursquare stance, taut,…

THE SIX COTY judges huddled around the small outdoor table on Phillip Island, watching the sun setting on another long day. Schooners of various amber ales fuelled an argument: which cars would be our 2024 finalists. None drew scorn, admiration, disagreement, fondness and puzzlement quite like the Kia EV5. Kia’s first electric SUV, the EV9, landed on earth as if an extraterrestrial vessel. With its four-spoke wheels and intergalactic styling, the EV9 fascinated, yet it also acted as a beachhead for the smaller electric Kia SUVs. The EV9’s $97,000 base price was, after all, always going to mean it was something of a niche seller; a statement of capability if you like. The first of those smaller electric Kia SUVs is, of course, this, the medium-sized EV5. It was so new…

I’M GUESSING MOST of you have ridden in a Camry, either as an Uber or a taxi. The reason this Toyota is Australia’s most popular sedan, our ubiquitous taxi, and is now employed by more ride-share drivers than any other vehicle, is easy to understand. No potential rival goes close to matching the Camry’s long-acknowledged low operating costs, reliability, and practicality. No wonder over 20 percent of sales also go to rental fleets. So the chances are most of the Camrys you see are earning their owners a dollar or three. With the coming of the latest generation, the list of virtues grows to include true refinement, spacious comfort and, now it’s hybrid-only, extremely thrifty fuel economy plus, most surprisingly, driving pleasure. On this basis, I’m prepared to propose that no…