Sommaire pour June 2023 de Wheels

TESLA IS FLYING high, at least as far as fulfilling orders is concerned. Last year the company that re-invented the electric vehicle for the 21st century sold almost 485,000 EVs in the U.S. alone, a 41 percent increase on the number it delivered in 2021, in a market where overall vehicle sales slumped 11 percent. Tesla may have sold more EVs in the U.S. last year than the rest of the industry combined, but the names underneath it on the sales charts are interesting. Ford was the number two EV brand in America in 2022, and Chevrolet number three. Next came Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and Audi. Of the 23 brands that sold EVs in America last year, only two other than Tesla were pure EV start-ups – Rivian, which came…

WANT TO FEEL ancient? Well, consider this. Temporally speaking, the launch of the E31 BMW 8 Series was closer to the first televised appearance of Elvis Presley than it is to today. But then the 8 Series is a car that has a rare ability to catch you off guard. Despite none finding customers during the ’80s, it’s viewed by many as a quintessentially ’80s BMW yet the technology that underpinned this car was anything but a throwback. Its genesis can be traced back to the mid-’80s. In the early ’80s, ex-Ford and Audi stylist Pavel Hušek was commissioned by BMW Head of Design, Claus Luthe to submit early proposals for a flagship coupe. Rather than reach for a new lexicon of design language, Hušek, probably best known for his…

LOCAL DEVELOPMENT and testing of the 2024 Toyota Tundra is well underway here in Australia, but North Americans have been enjoying the Texas-made 4x4 ute line-up for more than a full calendar year. In the home market, Tundra is available in either rear- or four-wheel-drive, with two engines, two beds, and multiple trims to choose from. Still using traditional full-size pick-up body-on-frame construction, the new Tundra’s also Texas-sized and suited to Americans’ XXXL tastes. In its longest configuration – the Double Cab paired with the long box – it stretches nearly six and half metres in length. It’s just shy of two metres in height and spans almost 2100mm across for the model we’re driving here, the TRD Pro. The standard engine is what Toyota calls its i-Force 3.5-litre, twin-turbocharged…

DURING THE past 70 years, almost 10,000 vehicles have been tested by Wheels. Ranking them in terms of talent would be a mammoth task and would possibly create a roster of cars very different to the one assembled here. These are the greats and greatness can be a surprisingly tricky concept to nail down. Case in point, the Ferrari F40. There are many objectively superior supercars, yet few would deny that the F40 captured a moment and built its legend from exactly the sort of raw intangibles that separate the great from the good. By the same token, this is no rose-tinted wallow in nostalgia. Some phenomenal cars have failed to make the cut and there will be some surprises. There may be one or two choices that seem parochial…

NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R R32 IT SEEMS hard to believe that the Skyline R32 GT-R was a flop when it launched in Australia in 1991, with only 63 of the 100 car quota initially finding owners. It took Jim Richards and his spirited speech from the podium at Bathurst in ‘92 before the public at large realised just how good the GT-R was. It enjoyed two years of Aussie touring car dominance before a contrived rule banning all-wheel drive and turbocharging effectively banned it, bolstering the legend of Godzilla. It heralded a Playstation generation while the Porsche 964 and BMW E30 M3 were seemingly battling on Atari. PLUS Arguably channelled the 959’s genetics even better than Porsche MINUS Nissan hid its light under a bushel with limited export markets BMW E46…

IF YOU’RE tackling the toughest country in the world, buy a LandCruiser. Generations of Aussies aren’t wrong. Whether you’re passing through Cameron Corner or the Empty Quarter, vehicle choice becomes elevated above the superficial and becomes predicated almost purely on substance. Since 1951, that vehicle has increasingly been the Toyota LandCruiser. It wasn’t always that way, though. The original BJ was born from US Korean War contracts, but its successor, the FJ25, was the first to be sold in Australia. It wasn’t a great vehicle, plagued by front axle and gearbox issues, as reported by the Thiess contractors who drove them on the Snowy Hydro project. What made the LandCruiser great was Toyota’s response. Genchi genbutsu roughly translates as ‘go to the source’ and Toyota’s philosophy was to dispatch engineers…

BMW i3 Were it launched today, BMW’s i3 would still appear fresh and bold. That it’s a decade old only underscores BMW’s achievement in building an EV that was light, great to drive and fantastic just to be inside. The Range Extender version seems like the best of both worlds, but if you’re going i3, avoid the problematic pocket-ICE and go all-in with the sweeter BEV. PLUS It earned BMW its first Wheels COTY in 2014 MINUS But infamously ran out of juice halfway round the judging loop HONDA CIVIC HONDA HAS a weird sort of corporate amnesia when it comes to Civics. Rather than extending a succession of incremental improvements, it often seems to forget everything it knew to start a new generation. So Civics 1, 3, 4 and…

THERE’S AN OLD aphorism in boxing that states that a good big ’un always beats a good little ’un. I'm looking at Nissan’s new Pathfinder as it rolls into the rail yard at Healesville and I’m wondering whether this seven-seat behemoth, the catalyst for this comparison, might have starched the opposition at the opening bell. It’s vast. It lumbers into position next to Hyundai’s Santa Fe hybrid and it looks like a mismatch. Fortunately, the Korean can whistle up its big brother as back up, the equally huge Palisade. Indeed, look at the footprints of the vehicles assembled for this test and it’s clear that the Pathfinder and Palisade are, to squeeze the pips out of the pugilistic metaphor, the true heavyweights, with the cruiserweight Toyota Kluger GXL hybrid next…

THE FACELIFTED FOURTH-gen Hyundai Santa Fe is genuinely luxurious in top-spec Highlander trim. First glance suggests plush trim and appointments to rival a Lexus RX, let alone a mid-spec Nissan Pathfinder. Lashings of ‘Camel’ Nappa leather ($295) cover the heated, ventilated, and 14-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat (and eight-way passenger) as well as the expansive dashboard. If you want baller-on-a-budget, the Santa Fe is our pick. Where rivals are going touchscreen-mad, the Santa Fe’s centre stack is almost entirely button-driven. Hyundai’s subdued graphics display well on the 10.25-inch touchscreen, though Apple CarPlay/Android Auto requires a cable. A 12.3-inch digital driver’s display incorporates blind-spot cameras to aid vision, and there’s a full suite of safety features including AEB, rear cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist. Hyundai’s unconventionally vertical wireless…

WE’VE DRIVEN OUR fair share of Sorentos since the car’s launch in August 2020, but there’s one encounter that stands out to me. On one occasion, between the bursts of Canon shutter, a Sorento owner pulled up in his Sport Plus diesel. He leapt out of the driver’s seat and ran over to admire ‘our’ GT-Line and enthusiastically discuss spec intricacies – the sort of thing that happens when you own a low-volume bespoke sports car, not a seven-seat SUV. The Sorento was a revelation for Kia, from its chiselled exterior to its retro-futuristic cabin with vertically arranged controls and twin 10.25- and 12.3-inch screens that look crisp and contemporary. Its knurled HVAC controls, art-deco air vent designs and glowing fish scale doortrims are properly cool. There’s substance, too, with…

NISSAN’S X-Trail is a bit like Madonna. Every few years it pops up out of nowhere looking and sounding completely different. The first car was a boxy homage to the off-roader in soft-ish roader form and looked quite distinctive if a bit like it was teetering on very high heels. The second-gen resolved a lot of the styling ideas and looked pretty good. The third was even more conservative acting as twin to the equally buttoned-up Renault Koleos. What distinguished the X-Trail from early on was a variety of engines and transmissions to keep everyone happy. That third-gen car soldiered on for a little longer than we were perhaps expecting, longer still when you consider its now-twin, the Mitsubishi Outlander, arrived last year. Both cars have grown in every direction…

DUE Q2 McLAREN 750S McLaren claims 30 percent of components are new for its 720S replacement; weight is down 30kg over the outgoing car (now 1277kg dry) while chassis highlights include a more sophisticated version of the hydraulically linked suspension. Twin-turbo V8 retains a capacity of 4.0-litres, but is wicked up to 552kW and 800Nm; 0-100km/h is now 2.7sec. DUE Q4 BMW XM LABEL RED For anyone still trying to come to terms with BMW’s unashamedly confronting SUV flagship, this may not help. The Label Red, limited to 500 units globally (30 allocated to Australia) wicks up the outputs of the twin-turbo V8 plug-in hybrid powertrain to 550kW and 1000Nm, adds even more equipment, a dash of extra warpaint, and bumps the price to $344, 200 – $46K over the…

HERE’S SOMETHING you probably didn’t know; Subaru’s smallest SUV, formerly known as the XV and reborn as the Crosstrek for 2023 and beyond, is a uniquely Australian construct that was so well received, it was exported to the rest of the Subaru world. Neat, eh? “It was a Nick Senior initiative,” Subaru Australia’s managing director Blair Read tells Wheels at the launch of the Crosstrek. “The project at the time was named XV, and the name stuck.” Senior, of course, is a former managing director of Subaru, and the product plan to increase the ride height of the third-generation Impreza hatch and adorn it with now-industry ubiquitous black plastic overfenders resonated so well with HQ, the XV soon after became a part of the global line-up. After logging some 108,000…

IS THE the Scorpio from Indian brand Mahindra a great budget alternative for buyers looking for something different in a capable 4x4? We think so, but let’s delve a bit deeper. The two-model range currently starts at just $41,990 drive-away for the entry-level Z8 variant, and extends to $44,990 drive-away for the Z8L. At 4662mm in length and 1970mm wide, the Scorpio isn’t as large as some in its competitor set, but you don’t notice it when you climb into the front or second row of seats. Both rows offer plenty of space for passengers, with more space in the second row than usual because it only accommodates two people on separate captain’s chairs. Like most wagons in this size bracket, access to the third row for adults is awkward…

FORD FALCON XY GTHO PHASE III UWE KUESSNER’S iconic image of the HO Down The Hume, with Mel Nichols clocking 145mph is probably the greatest image ever published in Wheels. Shot south of Wodonga, it highlighted the abilities of a car that could clock 6.4 seconds to 60mph in 1971. The world’s fastest four-door? The Magnum-engined 1969 Dodge Polara might have had something to say about that. PLUS Blood and thunder V8 goodness MINUS Supercar scare denied us a proper Phase IV LEXUS LS 400 ANOTHER WHEELS COTY champ, the big Lexus claiming the award for 1990. The cover line said it all: “How could the best in the world not win?” Editor Phil Scott knew that recession-hit Australia would hate the notion of a $120,000 Japanese limousine carrying away…

GENIUS IS A word that has lost much of its impact. Yet it’s the only way to describe how Sir Alec Issigonis packaged the original BMC Mini. The design brief, decreed by chairman Leonard Lord on the back of a fuel crisis caused by the 1956 Suez debacle, called for a vehicle that would fit into a 3.0m x 1.2m x 1.2m box. Issigonis realised that packaging the vehicle would dictate virtually all of the design decisions, so mounted the tiny A-Series engine transversely, driving the front wheels. Progressive-rate rubber cones helped keep the suspension compact, while interior space was maximised by narrow profile woven webbing seats and exterior-mounted door hinges. Never before had 80 percent of a compact car’s floorpan been available for passengers and luggage. Issigonis ensured that…

LEXUS LFA IT’S NOT THE fastest, it’s not the best looking, it’s far from the best handling, it’s not the most technologically advanced and it’s a million miles from the most financially successful supercar, but the Lexus LFA might just be the best sounding. The best-built too. A flop at launch, with unsold stock available years after it had finished its 500-car run, the LFA and its Yamaha-fettled 4.8-litre V10 belatedly achieved hero status. PLUS The greatest sounding supercar of all time? MINUS The regret of not buying one when they were advertised for US$375K HONDA NSX THE INSPIRATION for much of Gordon Murray’s thinking around the McLaren F1, the Honda NSX showed that the supercar didn’t need to be super high maintenance. It was never cooler than when it…

WANT A GENUINELY big and buff diesel family seven-seater? Well, I’m here to let you know that your search just got a whole lot easier. Buy a Hyundai Palisade Highlander CRDi. You can thank me later. Neither the Pathfinder, the Kluger nor the outgoing Mazda CX-9 drink from the black pump, and the other diesel contenders here are more compact than the Hyundai, both the Mazda CX-8 and Kia Sorento having a footprint that’s around eight percent smaller. As we know, in this market, size matters. Updated for MY2023, the Palisade belatedly scores a full five ANCAP stars thanks to the fitment of a centre airbag and an upgrade to the autonomous emergency braking system. The Highlander specification is the range-topper, commanding another $10K over the Elite but adding features…

ONCE UPON A time, if you looked away and then, looking back, somehow went from two kids to five, you had no choice: you were consigned to Tarago-driving hell. These days, though, seven-seaters are so good you almost want to, well, come home with roses and red wine more often. None of our circa-$70K contenders are sub-par vehicles and you can do no wrong buying any of them. However, as is usually the case, some are a bit better than others. 4th Hyundai Santa Fe AWD Hybrid The seven-seater with the biggest personality. The unique Santa Fe almost reminded us of a Ferrari with its tan leather cabin, while it tied first for outright value and for many of our testers, its refinement made it among the most enjoyable for…

THE PHONE ALARM blares, the upbeat ringtone feeling somewhat ironic as it still looks suspiciously dark outside. The screen reads ‘six-something’ in the morning and the vibrations echo harshly throughout the wooden side table. I’m up. I’m not usually a morning person, but the Hyundai i30 Sedan N in the garage goes back in a few days, and I’ve had this Sunday circled in my calendar for weeks. I’ve written in previous reports that the i30 Sedan N is the sort of car that will have you looking ahead for the next big drive opportunity, and today is the payoff after many busy weeks of anticipation. The car and I have a date with the Victorian High Country, ultimate destination: Lake Mountain. The weather down in Melbourne is cooling, and…

THIS MONTH marks 50 years since the launch of Australia’s first locally designed luxury car, the Ford LTD. That makes it also the 50th anniversary of Australia’s shortest-lived, least-produced and least-acknowledged production car – the LTD’s two-door sister, the Ford Landau. It’s ironic that the Landau was the brainchild of Ford Australia Managing Director and marketing legend Bill Bourke. Just a few years earlier, it had been Bourke’s idea to make a high-performance GT four-door Falcon, at a time when ‘GT’ everywhere else in the world meant a two-door coupe. The XR GT of 1967 and subsequent Falcon GT series, which added a two-door coupe in August 1972, put Aussie muscle on the global map. As early as 1970, as Ford concurrently developed the Fairlane-based P5-series LTD sedan and the…

PAY UP TO POWER UP What would you rather have for a monthly subscription fee of US $60–57 channels with nothing on, or an extra 45kW available under you right foot? Yes, Mercedes in North America is offering customers of its EQE 350 electric sedan a power boost as an over the air upgrade, either for that monthly fee, or a one-off charge of US$1950. MOON MOBILITY It seems someone senior at Hyundai may have one of those folksy desk calenders with motivational quotes on them. Yes, the company really is “shooting for the stars; aiming for the moon” with the announcement that it will build a lunar rover in conjunction with companies in the Korean aerospace sector. No word on timing, but it will be at least 55 years…

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) “It will become increasingly difficult for luxury brands to keep charging a hefty price premium for their EVs” PRICE OF PREMIUM THE ERA OF electric cars is now here, and one thing that is becoming rapidly evident is the diminishing gap regarding EV technology and features between mainstream and premium brands. In the past, premium brands have been able to claim higher levels of engine and mechanical development, design, and advanced digital features. But with the advent of EVs and the inherent engineering standardisation in EV motors and battery packs, coupled with the relative ease today of developing…

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TO US, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a luxury car. To Germans it’s a taxi cab. In which case, how do you create an E-Class-sized car without an internal combustion engine that still embodies the DNA of Mercedes without alienating a hugely diverse target market? That’s the task of the EQE range and it’s one that, on the face of it, appears an almost impossible brief. The EQ series of electric vehicles from Mercedes-Benz is rapidly growing, but for now, let’s focus on the EQS, launched in 2021. As its suffix letter suggests, this is an electric interpretation of an S-Class and, with only a powerhouse EQS 53 AMG model initially launched in Australia, it’s only partially successful in translating what we’d typically consider S-Class traits to a new form factor.…

THERE’S A familiar refrain with many of the cars on this list and Joni Mitchell sang it. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Except with the W126 Mercedes-Benz S-Class we pretty much did know what we had. Like every S-Class before or since, it was the expression of everything Stuttgart knew about the art of making the car, yet the W126 was somehow different. It was imperious without being remote in its personality, refined without being uninvolving in its dynamics and, reassuringly over-engineered without being overblown, which is perhaps more than can be said for its successor. It needed eight cylinders under its bonnet to be at its best, and the last of the line 560 SEL versions were the…

MERCEDES-AMG A45 S THINK OF THE scariest road you know. You know, that one with blind bends, mossy shadows, hidden yumps and severe consequence if you get it wrong. You need to get from one end of it to the other, quickly, and the weather is against you. What current car are you going to choose? Chances are, if you’ve chosen anything other than a Mercedes-AMG A45 S, you’ve misunderstood the brief. PLUS Demented grip and poise out of just about any corner you could imagine MINUS You become disconcertingly accustomed to driving like a berserker RENAULT 5 TURBO THINK YOU’RE a pretty handy driver? Jump in a Renault 5 Turbo or a Turbo II and you may come to the conclusion that there’s more to this driving lark than…

IT’S EASY TO wax lyrical about the extraordinary speed, focus and ingenuity of the McLaren F1 but in doing so, it’s also easy to lose sight of what makes this car different. Different to every supercar that went before it and different to many that subsequently arrived. To fully understand the F1, it’s instructive to focus on the ordinary. Peter Robinson perhaps speared that notiont best in his road test for Wheels back in June 1994. After proclaiming that you wouldn’t find a better supercar chassis anywhere in the world, he changed gear and noted “yet in the McLaren, there are few of the design stupidities we’ve accepted as normal in cars of this breed.” Therein lay its genius. The F1 redefined what we thought of as a supercar. It…

THERE’S A CERTAIN zen quality to the Mazda CX-8 Asaki LE. Unhurried, even. Settle behind the best set of clocks in the auto industry, take in the acres of Nappa leather, perfect contrast stitching and restrained metal contrast details and it feels a haven of tranquility. Your drive will be uninterrupted by unwanted chimes, distracting and unnecessary warnings on the dash or uninvited tugs at the steering wheel. The recently refreshed CX-8’s ride quality has been softened juuust to the point beyond which body control loses its fidelity and no further. The diesel engine, while not the most hushed example of its ilk under load, nevertheless has the ability to deliver a healthy surge of torque. Indeed, the numbers indicate that, in terms of torque-to-weight, the Mazda’s 2.2-litre turbo-diesel delivers…

YOU CAN ALMOST imagine the very first meeting Toyota had when starting development of its new Kluger. A room full of engineers in crisp, light blue shirts gathering quietly and given a list of numerical targets: it must accomodate seven people, achieve a five-star crash rating, tick a long list of equipment boxes and use less than 6.0 litres per 100km. Most crucial of all, it can’t cost a dollar more to build – and maintain – than strictly stipulated. At the very end of this process, a designer was hired to quickly jazz up the engineers’ work – and decide where to put the chrome inside – and off to the showroom it went. To be sure, then, the Toyota Kluger is an excellent vehicle. If aliens landed on…

THE TIGUAN ALLSPACE Adventure is available with just one engine – Volkswagen’s ‘162TSI’ 162kW/350Nm 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder petrol mill, which makes up more than 50 percent of Tiguan sales. It’s a familiar powertrain for those in the know with Volkswagen Group product, having starred in the Golf GTI hot hatch for so long, as well as the Passat and the Skoda Superb, Octavia RS, the Audi A4, and… well, it’s a long list. In some applications – like the Golf GTI and Octavia RS – the 162kW unit can be considered a hot to hottish heart, but in bigger models like the Tiguan, it’s more on the warm side. A very good warm, mind you, with a 0-100km/h time of 6.8 seconds. Until the new 235kW hero R model arrived…

PRICE Recommended retail figure at time of publication (asterisk indicates driveaway price) ENGINE TYPE L, in-line; V, vee; F, flat. Number of cylinders. T, turbo; S, supercharged; D, diesel; H, hybrid; E, electric SIZE Litres or kWh POWER kW TORQUE Nm TRANSMISSION M, manual; A, auto; D, dual-clutch; C, CVT WEIGHT Kerb, kg 0-100 km/h, acceleration in seconds (Wheels as-tested figures in italics) FUEL CONS Consumption in litres, or kWh, per 100km RON Octane of fuel required, as numbered, or D for diesel RESALE percent, 3-year resale in Glass’s ISSUE TESTED month/year DRIVE A, all-wheel; F, front; R, rear. Any figure in bold is our own estimate.…

THE LAST JEEP Cherokee rolled from the production line at Belvidere, Illinois on 28th February this year, bringing to a close production of a nameplate that stretches back across five model generations to 1974. The original SJ Cherokees had an Australian connection, being assembled for right-hand drive configuration in Brisbane, Australia from 1981. Due to Aussie tariff regulations which defined 4x4 vehicles as having a ladder frame, local assembly of the old SJ versions continued for three years after its more modern unibody XJ replacement was launched in other world markets. To many, the XJ was ‘the’ Cherokee. On sale for fully 18 years, total production topped over three million units. It spawned the Grand Cherokee, originally designed as its successor, and was a massively superior vehicle to its Wagoneer-based…