Click on the image for a gallery of high-res pics of the Toyota Aurion Sportivo SX6
For years, the large, family car market in Australia has been divided between the Aussie built GM Holden Commodore and the Ford Falcon, both on the road and on the track. The large car market has been characterised not only by their size, but also by V6 or V8 powerplants running on rear-wheel drive platforms. For years, other competitors, including Mitsubishi with their Magna and more recently their 380 models, have tried to chip away at this virtual duopoly, with limited success.
The game is changing though. As the price of fuel has risen, the Australian car market has seen a massive shift away from large cars and towards more fuel efficient, medium sized models. The market is currently dominated by vehicles like the Mazda6, the Honda Accord, the Hyundai Sonata and in particular, the Toyota Camry. As Australia's largest passenger vehicle brand, Toyota has long enjoyed segment-leading sales with the Camry, and although it's not a sexy choice, Toyota's mid-sized sedan represents a smart purchase, with high re-sale value, good fuel economy and Toyota's reputation for outstanding reliability.
Continue reading the Toyota Aurion Sportivo review after the jump.
Click on the image for a gallery of high-res images of the V8 race cars at the Queensland Raceway.
Recently, I was lucky enough to take a spin around the Queensland Raceway in a V8 race car courtesy of a Christmas present from my lovely wife. The Queensland Raceway is west of Brisbane and hosts a number of high profile events during the year, including Round Seven of the V8 Supercar Championship, Champ Car Racing and drift competitions. For me though, it was all about the V8 Race Experience, where you get suited up and jump behind the wheel of a V8 race car for either five or eight laps of the circuit. Let me just say at the outset that I've never driven a car on a race track before, so the nerves were peaking from the moment I started the drive out to the track.
Upon arrival and after all the usual paperwork was out of the way, the head instructor took us through a tutorial to teach us some of the basics of driving a race car on a race track:
First of all, it's nothing like driving a street car on the road
You have to follow the racing line, which involves using the entire expanse of the road
Different types of corners require different strategies to wring the most speed out of them
Accelerate out of the apex of the corner
You brake not only to reduce speed but also to shift the weight of the vehicle from the back of the car to the front of the car, and importantly, over the front wheels
Brake 10 percent to start shifting the weight then 100 percent to really slow down the car before a tight corner
On this track in these cars you only use third and fourth gear
Hold the accelerator flat to get the highest speed on the straight
click image to view high-res gallery of the Holden Commodore SS V-Series
Since the Pontiac G8 burst onto the scene at the Chicago Auto Show heralding a new era of affordable, rear-wheel drive GM sedans, interest in the new vehicle has been intense. Based on GM's new Zeta platform, the G8 is actually an Australian Holden Commodore under the skin and is set to be manufactured Down Under at Holden's Elizabeth plant in South Australia. This could give us a great opportunity to tell you all about how the Pontiac G8 will feel and drive long before one lands on U.S. soil. That is, so long as Autoblog has someone actually in Australia – someone who can convince Holden to lend us a Commodore SS V-Series. Well we do, and they did.
Ferarri's new driver Kimi Raikkonen put in a dominant performance to win the opening round of the 2007 Formula One series over the McLaren duo of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and debutante Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen, who started from the pole position, had an incident-free race and at one point held a massive 15-second lead over the field. His Ferrari was clearly faster than many other cars in the race, allowing him to lap all but seven of his opponents by the end.
The race, run in perfect conditions, started impressively with a huge crush of vehicles successfully navigating the tight first and third turns of the course without any clashes.
There were a small number of vehicle failures throughout, and one spectacular collision when David Coulthard of the Red Bull team attempted an impossible passing maneuver around a tight, windy section of the temporary street circuit, cutting across the front of Williams-Toyota's Alexander Wurz. Coulthard's front left wheel assembly was smashed as his vehicle flicked up onto and then slid across the nose of Wurz's car and went flying through the air to land safely in the sand. Remarkably, Wurz was able to continue without any problems while Coulthard walked away from his ruined machine. Despite this, the pace car was not required throughout the 58 lap Australian Grand Prix, which ran very smoothly after requiring four stoppages last year.
The photo pretty much tells the story here. A 49-year-old woman, who was reverse parking in a multi-story car park, mixed up the gas and brake pedals and almost ran her car completely through the second floor garage wall - check out the second photo after the jump.
Looking like something out of an action movie, this nasty situation took place on the January 23rd, 2007 in the northern German town of Langenhagen. Apparently the automatic gearbox was the villain according to the woman, who was thankfully unharmed but no doubt received the shock of her life. Wonder if anyone was walking down the sidewalk underneath when it happened?
Click on the image for a gallery of high-res images of Ford and GM Holden Utes.
At the Brisbane Motor Show, which started on Friday, Ford and GM Holden, plus their tuning groups Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) and Holden Special Vehicles (HSV), had plenty of top Aussie utes on display, ranging from the workman Ford Falcon XR6 Cab Chassis, through the higher performance Ford Falcon XR8 and Holden SS Crewman and up into the fully-blown FPV Super Pursuit Ute and the HSV Thunder.
As a ute driver myself, it was great to see the totally Oz vehicles proudly flying the flag as fast, fun, rear-wheel drive sports cars with big boots.
On the side: our friends over at the Jalop uncovered a story in CarPoint that reports that the launch date for the new Holden Commodore Ute has been bumped forward and that a left-hand drive version is in the cards. Could this mean that GM is considering a El Camino comeback? An even better question is: would you buy one? - Ed.
Click on the image for a gallery of high-res images of Ford and GM Holden muscle cars.
At the Brisbane Motor Show, which started on Friday, Ford and GM Holden had plenty of muscle on display at their booths courtesy of their tuning groups, Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) and Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) respectively. Highlights included the HSV GTS, Clubsport R8, Senator Signature and Grange, while over at FPV, the Force 8, F6 Typhoon and others were proudly displayed.
Aggressive styling, fat alloys, huge red brake calipers, gills, rear wings, fog lamps, dramatic chrome badges, extra centre console-mounted dials and loud colours all seemed to be common elements across both ranges. Some of the highlights included the FPV Force 8 with its evil-looking black paint job, and the fully kitted out HSV Senator Signature with its circular, LED tail lights.
Down here in Australia, Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) are pushing their new range with a catchy advertising campaign including billboard style posters at airports like the one I snapped above on my camera phone. The new FPV range is billed as being "Performance, Inc." and features from left to right, the F6 Typhoon, GT, Force and the Super Pursuit Ute. If you're a Ford fan stuck in North America and you'd like to feel a bit closer to all this muscle, check out the FPV's cool videos.
The Chevrolet Caprice, designed and manufactured by GM Holden in Australia, has been named Best Luxury Car at the 2006 Autocar Middle East Awards. The all-new rear wheel drive Caprice, part of GM Holden's A$1 billion (US$780 million) development of the new Commodore range, emerged as a clear winner from the two other finalists in the Luxury Car class, the Volvo S80 V8 All-wheel drive and the Lexus ES350.
Three days of analysis and testing were undertaken by Autocar's expert judging team, who declared the Caprice unbeatable value given its size, standard package and six-litre, 270kW / 362hp V8 engine which delivers a "brutal" 530Nm / 391ft-lbs of torque. Standard equipment includes Electronic Stability Program (ESP), DVD player with twin rear LCD screens, 18" alloy wheels, Bose premium 10 speaker sound system, xenon headlamps and tri-zone electronic climate control. The build quality, ride and overall refinement of the Caprice were all regarded as being superior to the previous model. In Australia, the six speed automatic, 6.0L V8 Caprice retails for A$69,990 (US$54,620).
Follow the jump for the conclusion and an additional photo...
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