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DRIVER TRAINING IS DANGEROUS?

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Had an interesting chat to a lucky young fellow the other day. He came from a wealthy family in the bush and his dad piloted a Cessna plane to let them cover the huge distances in the great Australian outback. It came as no surprise that the youngster had learned to fly from the age of just six. Sitting on dad’s knee and taking hold of the controls and being a junior pilot. He couldn’t reach the pedals at that stage, but learned how to help with the steering and… Read more

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STUTZ BEARCAT

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1932 Stutz DV-32 Super Bearcat

Harry C Stutz built his first gas buggy in 1899 and later went into the manufacture of transmissions and axles. His first involvement with automobile manufacture was in 1907 when he designed the American Underslung. Stutz created the Underslung by inverting an orthodox chassis so that it hung from its axles instead of riding above them. With front and rear leafsprings anchored outboard and above the frame, added stability was obtained. This placed the centre of gravity much closer to the ground and these basic principles are still common to… Read more

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60TH ANNIVERSARY FIAT 500 CABRIOLET

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Fiat Australia is importing a special edition 60th Anniversary Fiat 500 as a tribute to the original cute-as-a-button, and very Italian, Fiat 500. Soon given the pet name of Cinquecento, the tiny four-seater (yes, four!) first went onto the road in 1957. The 60th Anniversary Fiat 500 is only sold as a cabriolet, it features classic styling cues, with a vinyl dashboard, the vintage logo on the front and a chrome finish on the bonnet. Its dual-colour body paintwork has a three-layer white for the lower sections of the body,… Read more

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SUZUKI SWIFT SPORT TURBO

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Small car master, Suzuki knows a thing or two about building hot machines at modest prices. We won’t get into talking about Suzuki motorcycles here, we’ll leave that for our bike guys Peter Thoeming and Stuart Woodbury. What we are reporting on is the latest version of a car that first delighted hot-car lovers on a limited budget – the Suzuki Swift GTi – over thirty years back. In recent generations it has been given the title of Swift Sport Turbo. The term ‘pocket rocket’ has been used many times… Read more

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OFF ROAD, BUT NOT OFF THE AIR

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For ages, tradies have been out of tune with modern living being stuck with tinny entertainment systems in their utes, while navigation invariably gave up the ghost where the bitumen ended. Thanks to the increasing popularity of pickup trucks by non tradies, owners of new Mazda BT-50s have been switched on to the latest in in-car entertainment with the pickup truck climbing to new heights through the addition of a premium satellite navigation-cum-infotainment system. Mazda Australia has got together with the Australian arm of Alpine Electronics to develop the new… Read more

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2018 BMW M240i COUPE REVIEW

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The BMW 2 Series range is closely related to the 1 Series, but comprises the sportier models, the coupe and convertible. There’s also a station wagon, the Active Tourer, though in the complex world of BMW this wagon is more 1 Series than 2. Anyhow, our test vehicle this week was the pick of the bunch, the hotrod BMW M240i coupe. We have always loved the BMW straight-six engines and this latest 3.0-litre turbo-petrol produces 250 kW of power and a great 500 Nm. At $76,510 it’s reasonably well priced… Read more

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JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 2011 – 2016

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Jeep began the whole SUV thing almost accidentally with the introduction of the CJ (Civilian Jeep) not long after the Second World War ended. Spotting holes in the market Jeep introduced station wagons and later – 1996 to be precise – came the first Jeep Grand Cherokee, a large 4WD aimed more at buyers of luxury station wagons rather than keen off-road drivers. These first units are getting on in years, so we will start this used car checkout with the WK Series Grand Cherokee launched in Australia in February… Read more

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TOUGHER THAN EVER – NEW MERCEDES G-CLASS

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The Mercedes-Benz G-Class is the real deal. Forget SUVs, SAVs, SATs, crossovers, soft roaders and a variety of other vehicles people buy because they want to be seen at the wheel of a Tough, or should that be Tuff? vehicle. The Merc G-Class is in a lightly populated class of large, serious, ladder-frame working vehicles. The current model dates back to the late 1970s, with several updates in the meantime so a new model is long overdue – and is on its way. Mercedes is gradually passing information to the… Read more

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STINGER SET TO BE A GAME-CHANGER FOR KIA

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  The end of local production of Commodores and Falcons has created a battle in the large family car market. The new German Commodore isn’t due till February, new Kia Stinger and Toyota Camry arrived earlier this year and both are pushing hard in the sales race while the Commodore slot is vacant. Kia Stinger is making a big deal on being rear-wheel drive, unlike Commodore which is either front- or all-wheel-drive, Camry is front drive only. Stinger is offered in four specification levels: S and Si with either four… Read more

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JEEP TRACKHAWK: THE WORLD’S CRAZIEST MUSCLE CAR

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Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk has reached us Downunder with a bang. Want to buy one? Too bad, because the first batch has already been snapped up. Only 62 Trackhawks were in the first ship to dock here. The guys and gals at Jeep have a quirky sense of humour – and have gone for 62 because that’s the capacity of the Chrysler Hemi V8 engine – 6.2 litres. If that’s not large enough a supercharger has been added to pump its apparent capacity to somewhere about 10 to 11 litres,… Read more