While we hear endless stories of doom and gloom about Ford and Holden’s positions in the Australian automotive industry, the other local maker, Toyota, just keeps on selling about one in every five new vehicles sold downunder. It’s probably the overwhelming desire of the general media to ignore good news More
The AC Cobra was a high performance cross breed; a British AC Ace with a Ford V8 engine. The first 75 production cars used the Ford 4.2-litre engine but this was then replaced by the 4.7-litre V8 from the Ford Mustang. Only 560 of these 4.7-litre Cobras were built in More
The demise of the local manufacture of the Mitsubishi 380 was the result of a common ailment within the car industry – belief in your own hype. When sitting down to build the next generation Mitsubishi Magna the marketing people convinced themselves their new car was so much better than More
Renault’s history in Australia has been one of seemingly endless comebacks, followed by the French company’s slow fading away. Not completely away, but far enough out of the scene to become a bit player rather than a mainstream one. The latest Renault revival downunder began three years ago with the More
Nissan X-Trail has been a major player in the SUV field in Australia for many years, so it didn’t make sense to mess overmuch with the basic design. Just revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show as a concept, but which we predict is pretty close to the real thing, the More
Audi is often in the vanguard of vehicle design and the A3 is a classic example. Audi was the first of the iconic German makers to make the bold move of moving down into smaller, relatively affordable cars. Prior to the Audi A3 you had to find something north of More
“This gets along a bit,” said my mate in a surprised voice – and we were still only 500 metres from his front gate in the new Nissan Pulsar SSS hatchback! The newly-released Pulsar SSS hot hatch rounds out the welcome comeback of the Pulsar nameplate to Australia. And, yes, More
It’s Fiesta time! Following the depressing news of the end of its vehicle production in Australia, Ford finally has something to celebrate. The blue oval recently got its Go Further campaign off the ground, launching the Fiesta small car downunder. Ford is determined to rattle the cages of a few More
It’s not just we Aussies and the Yanks that love their SUVs, Europeans have really been getting into them in recent years; and the big name German marques have quickly cottoned onto the boom in these handy vehicles. BMW began its SUV range with the X5 and has gradually worked More
These days very few SUV buyers are looking 4WD capability in off-road conditions, rather they want an on-road station wagon with a high level of equipment and the premium features usually only found in upmarket models. Well aware of this, Holden has introduced a new model to its Captiva 5 More
