Sommaire pour August 2025 de Wheels

HISTORY. It’s definitely a frightful double-edged sword at times. While most other media outlets would likely kill for Wheels’ 73 years of heritage, I can say first hand that it can also be a constraint. Respecting the past that Wheels represents while moving into the future isn’t easy. Everyone has an opinion. If you want to find a famous brand that has mastered balancing its past and its future better than anyone else, we need look no further then Ferrari. I’m not just talking about its automotive achievements, either. I’m not the gambling type, but if someone were able to identify a better example of a company that manages its heritage while embracing ‘new’ simultaneously as well as Ferrari does, I’m all ears. In fact I’ll reward the first person…

AS HYPERCAR SPRINTS and lunatic EV launches slash 0-100km/h times to less than four seconds, those acceleration numbers have become as relevant in Australia as boasting about 315km/h top speeds. So now we have 20-80, and it’s measured in minutes instead of seconds and tenths and hundredths. What is it? And why is it important? It’s the time it takes to charge an EV battery from 20 up to 80 per cent, and it’s becoming as important to some new-car buyers as a 5-Star ANCAP score – but more on that another time. The 20-80 benchmark is part of the second phase of EV adoption in Australia, as more mainstream buyers consider if a battery-electric-mobile can or will work for them. Range anxiety is being mostly erased by electric cars…

THE F80 is the Ferrari that’s too fast for Fiorano. It’s the latest limited-run, extreme performance Ferrari of the kind that appears once a decade, a lineage featuring the GTO (aka 288), F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari, and is the first that hasn’t been demonstrated at Ferrari’s home test track. Instead it was presented to us at Misano, a flatter, wider and longer circuit than Fiorano, deemed more suitable for a car with the F80’s astonishing performance. Misano is popular with motorbike racers and looked as open and expansive as Silverstone on the video I watched of an Audi R8 GT3 lapping it before I got there. In reality, the F80’s speed made it feel about half the size. To the details first, though. The F80’s development timeline almost mirrors…

ADAPT or die. That’s what we’re told isn’t it? BMW clearly bought into this aphorism, otherwise its 3 Series would never have made it to a half-century in continuous production. Aside from the Volkswagen Golf, it’s hard to think of another model that so instructively charts the course of the modern passenger car, reflecting the trends, the policies and the technology of the time. Yet for all we laud the 3 Series, it’s rarely been a pioneer, preferring to take a more considered direction through each of its seven generations. While it has introduced relatively few technical firsts across the last 50 years, it has nevertheless been considered a durable benchmark in the compact executive sedan class, as the fortunes of its key competitors waxed and waned. Sit a 1975 vintage…

FORD RANGER It’s not just its relentless popularity with new car buyers that makes it obvious why the Ford Ranger has been crowned as the overall winner of Wheels’ Best Dual-Cab Ute award for 2025. It’s available drivetrains – including the new plug-in hybrid – its driving dynamics, interior, practicality, toughness and even its ergonomics mean the Ranger beats its competition hands-down. One of our favourite things about the Ranger is the way it drives for Australian conditions. Ford Australia were integral to the design and development of the Ranger and that can be seen in the way it drives: for a ute, its ride and handling balance is excellent. It’s also impressively comfortable, no matter which model you choose, and it’s more satisfying to drive than key rivals such…

HYBRID mid-size SUVs are all the rage at the moment, with more than 15 available on the Australian market for your choosing. Some of those are regular hybrids with motors and engines working together for the best efficiency, but others are plug-in hybrids, where you charge it for an electric-only driving period and once the battery depletes, it runs like a regular hybrid. One of the bigger-selling PHEVs in Australia over the years was the MG HS Plus EV, which was replaced with a new HS generation last year in petrol-only form. Now, the HS Super Hybrid has arrived in Australia, and a top-spec Essence in ‘Lunar Grey’ is mine for the next three months. I’ve affectionately named it Harvey the HS Super Hybrid. Let’s deal with the headlines: Harvey…

OFTEN, WHEN SPEAKING WITH SILLY OLD BASTARDS, I’ll trot out a particular recollection from the Australian Bicen-tennial Rally (Wheels, May 1988). Mercedes-Benz entrusted me with a near-priceless 1927 Mercedes-Benz 680S to join about 300 other vintage and veteran cars on the Victorian leg of the rally. The 680S was the road-going basis for the fabled SS and SSK racers. It weighed 1.9 tonnes, had non-assisted (left-hand drive) steering, a non-synchro gearbox and a supercharger that whined like an air raid siren. Add in a pedal configuration with the throttle in the middle and the brake on the right. Being a psychologically unstable 25-year-old, I could adapt instantly. At a stop in the Victorian coastal town of Sale, all the cars were lined up on a sports oval. As a grandfather and…

AUSTRALIANS ARE SUCKERS for performance cars meaning Hyundai’s N division enjoys strong support down under, with enthusiasts – sorry, that’s ‘Nthusiasts’ in Hyundai jargon – loving its go-fast products, so much so that a lot of its models are now produced solely for the Australian market. The i20 N hot hatch is one of them. The model left European markets in 2024 thanks to the region’s ever-tightening emissions laws but Europe’s loss is Australia’s gain, because we are one of two markets globally that continues to receive the i20 N. There’s just one i20 N variant in Australia, which is priced from $36,500 plus on-road costs. That’s noticeably higher than when it first launched locally priced at $32,490 +ORC, though since that time it has gained some pieces of extra…

SKODA has long been one of the best makers of wagons, with the Octavia still the company’s best-selling product globally despite the rise and rise of SUVs. Locally, more attention is given to the Kodiaq SUV, but the Octavia remains an excellent choice as a family car. For the 2025 model year, there are three Octavia models offered in Australia: the entry-level Select tested here, mid-spec Sportline and the top-spec RS. All three are available in either liftback or wagon body styles. Don’t let the $43,990 drive away price fool you: the interior of the Octavia feels like a more expensive car, even in base model form. That’s thanks to the solid materials used throughout, including the pebble-like dashboard trim, cool light grey textiles and tight-feeling switchgear. Many of the materials…

CHANGE CAN BE SLYLY DECEPTIVE. It’s been nearly nine years since Wheels last ran a comparison featuring people movers, or multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) if you prefer. That test, in the October 2016 issue, featured a bunch of them alongside the latest seven-seat SUVs, and Nathan Ponchard introduced the piece by suggesting that you might but an MPV if you’d given up on life and would choose a more thrusting SUV if you still had any semblance of lead in your pencil. Fast forward to now, and SUVs are everywhere. They’re no longer the edgier choice. In fact, were you to choose any of the MPVs we’ve gathered here, it’s probably the case that parenthood hasn’t robbed you of your capacity for independent, practical and reasoned thought. They’re a disparate bunch, ranging…

THE LAST LEXUS we ran here in Wheels was – excuse me while I disappear and check – way back in 2020. In that case it was an RX350, built on the old Toyota K platform that underpinned the Camry. Since then, we’ve welcomed an all-new fifth-gen model that’s on the far superior TNGA-K bones, like the, er, Camry. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? Now I don’t know about you, but since the big LS limousine became a bit of a specialist interest thing, the RX has come to represent main-stream Lexus. It’s been a fixture in the line-up since 1998, although it wasn’t until the second-generation XU30 model arrived that we began to associate this athletic-looking SUV with hybrid power. The RX400h that…

THE GENEVA INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SHOW IS DEAD. After a protracted and undignified series of post-COVID death rattles, it’s now clear that the GIMS isn’t on the way back, at least in any form that we can recognise. The event scheduled for November of this year isn’t going to happen. First run in 1905, the last edition of the show in 2024 was a sorry spectacle. Renault was the sole European OEM, and its 5 E-Tech was the show’s highlight, battling against a welter of Chinese SUVs that couldn’t wait until the Shanghai event. So how did it come to this? The exhibitor list for 2020, when the show was cancelled at the last minute due to the pandemic, looked healthy. Look beyond the long list of manufacturers, however, and the list…

MANUAL LABOUR I know the Australian market has changed and stories on EVs, hybrids, twin-cab utes and the occasional automatic supercar is the new norm. So the comparison of the manual coupes in July 2025 edition couldn’t have come sooner. Any chance you could continue this? This would reward manufacturers who still offer a manual. I have personally looked at an MX5 and BRZ but don’t fit in either (too tall). I then looked at a Type R even though it is front-wheel drive and actually practical. A comparison of these would be a great read. You could potentially add a Yaris GTS or Corolla GTS and a WRX. Further down the track, you could then pitch the winner of that comparo against the Z (winner of the 3 coupes)…

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IN LAST MONTH’S ISSUE, we tested the new BMW M235 Gran Coupe, the sporty version of the recently updated version of BMW’s smallest sedan. It’s a compelling package that’s fast, great quality and good to drive, but also priced too close to the 3 Series which offers a more well-rounded package. How does the entry-level 218 Gran Coupe compare instead? Priced from a far more reasonable $60,400 plus on-road costs, the 218 Gran Coupe trades the M235’s 233kW 2.0-litre four for a 115kW 1.5-litre turbo three-pot, and unlike the M235, is front-wheel drive. In Australia, the 218 features the M Sport styling package as standard, so when it comes to appearances, it at least looks like its more expensive sibling. Despite being the entry level BMW sedan, the 218 Gran…

Very few people have created a career with the door skin for a humble 1964 HD Holden. Brian Tanti is likely to be the only one. Yet it was his TAFE project as a teenager, while studying to become a panel beater in Melbourne in the 1970s, that opened the door to a life with some of the world’s coolest, costliest and most collectible cars. Tanti spent 30 years as the custodian of Lindsay Fox’s exotic car collection, has scratch-built bodies for classic Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes, been responsible for a concept car to tout the abilities of Australia’s automotive industry, had a hand in the proposal for a Holden super-ute, and also helped to train and inspire a generation of young automotive apprentices. “I made the door skin as a…

TRY TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE and, more often than not, you’re in the express line to losing your identity. When we first heard of the new plug-in hybrid Mercedes-AMG E 53, it sounded as if Affalter-bach was teasing us with a car that promised a bit of everything for everyone, as long as your pockets were deep enough. It could generate a monstrous 450kW power output, the same as the last E63 S with its powerhouse 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. But where that car returned a combined fuel figure of 9.3L/100km, this new E 53 AMG has just 18 per cent of the old car’s thirst for fuel at the bowser – a claimed 1.7L/100km. It’s also bigger, better equipped, safer, and around $50k cheaper than the last time…

THE MODERN IMAGE OF PORSCHE IS THAT OF AFFLUENCE. In recent years, it has typically raked in revenues of around €40billion (A$67 million) but this financial safety blanket wasn’t always guaranteed. Back in 1991, the company’s revenue at the end of the year totalled, and when converted to Euros – was €15 million (A$26.9m). In other words, it was 2666 times smaller than today. It was, by most measures, on life support. This was the situation that new CEO Arno Bohn had acquired. A man with no previous motor industry experience, the former IT professional had a formidable task on his hands. Porsche faced all sorts of challenges, chiefly around the entry-level models. The contract with Audi to build the four-cylinder 944 model line at Neckarsulm expired at the start of…