JEEP in style, but European in size, this US-designed, Italian-built baby SUV has what it takes to shake up its patchy competitor set.

WHAT IS IT? Built on an entirely new platform, yet sharing elements with Fiat’s 500X crossover, the funky Jeep Renegade is manufactured alongside its Italian cousin in Fiat’s Melfi plant in southern Italy. Jeep claims the Renegade is 100 percent Apple Pie in execution, including a proper ‘Trailrated’ all-wheel-drive version, yet several models employ Fiat-Alfa’s 1.4-litre ‘MultiAir’ turbo four and front-wheel drive. Think Jeep toughness in a satchel-sized, city-chic package.

WHY WE’RE TESTING IT Launched in the challenging Hollister Hills outside San Jose, California, the Renegade is Jeep’s newest arsenal in its bid to be a serious global player. With worldwide Jeep sales up 39 percent in 2014 (to a record 1,017,019 units), about the only thing standing in the way of the stylish, neatly sized and surprisingly capable Renegade is production capacity. Available with 16 different engine and transmission configurations, the Renegade is armed and ready to attack the burgeoning baby SUV set.

MAIN RIVALS Ford EcoSport, Holden Trax, Honda HR-V, Mazda CX-3, Nissan Juke, Peugeot 2008, Renault Captur, Skoda Yeti, Suzuki S-Cross and, when it launches in Australia late this year, Citroen’s C4 Cactus.

THE WHEELS VERDICT Huggably good-looking, with loads of cool design details, the Renegade’s trump card is its terrific styling. But beyond this baby-Jeep aesthetic is a car that manages to be genuinely well-rounded. It’s surprisingly quiet, reasonably punchy, roomy, handles and rides fluidly and (in 1.4 turbo manual form) feels a bit sporty. Plus, the Trailhawk model is a true off-roader. Only steering numbness at straight ahead and a flat rear seat dilute the Renegade’s goodness.

PLUS: Handsome styling; fluid handling; pleasant ride; road-noise refinement; off-road capability; brave colour palette; available technology; overall concept MINUS: Steering is over-light and deprived of feel around straight ahead; rear-seat cushion is flat and lacks under-thigh support; nine-speed auto needs a Sport mode

THE WHEELS REVIEW THE Renegade is one of those cars you really want to like. Unmistakeably Jeep in style, it manages to distil many of the design elements the brand holds near and dear – seven-slot grille, trapezoidal wheelarches, a tough stance and army-inspired details (like the ‘jerry-can’ tail-lights) – and perfectly packages all that into a well-proportioned, super-cool little SUV. Plus, it comes in some really ‘out there’ paint colours that manage to enhance its visual appeal.

Measuring 4232mm long and riding on a 2570mm wheelbase, the Renegade sits smack-bang in the guts of the baby SUV class.

Available with front- or all-wheel drive, when the Renegade lobs in Australia in the third quarter of this year the range will kick off with an 82kW 1.6-litre ‘EtorQ’ naturally aspirated petrol four, and will include either a 1.6- or 2.0-litre turbo-diesel four (or both). The front-drivers we drove in California, however, sported a version of the 1.4-litre ‘MultiAir’ turbo-petrol four that does such a fine job in Alfa Romeo’s Giulietta.

Tied to a sweet-shifting six-speed manual gearbox with the same faux-metal knob as a base Giulietta, the entry-level Renegade Sport weighs a solid 1372kg, but manages to feel sprightly in its lower gears thanks to the 1.4 turbo’s generous 119kW and 250Nm outputs.

A lesser-powered 103kW/230Nm version will be offered in Europe, but Australia will stick with the up-spec 1.4 turbo, including an optional six-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Riding three-up through very hilly country, the Renegade Sport feels a little flat-footed in taller ratios, demanding at least 2800rpm on its tacho in fifth and sixth gears to deliver noticeable shove. But with just the driver on board, the front-drive Renegade is punchy and keen, with a gutsy mid-range.

Jeep claims “under 10 seconds” for the 0-100km/h sprint for both the 1.4 turbo manual and its 2.4-litre ‘Tigershark’ atmo sister tied to a nine-speed auto, and we wouldn’t argue with that.

No real complaints about the Renegade’s on-road dynamics, either, especially in terms of quietness and overall fluidity.

Running fully independent suspension with struts at each corner and Koni ‘Frequency Selective Damping’ (FSD) – designed to filter out high-frequency surface irregularities while maintaining ride suppleness and body control – the Renegade feels confident and mature on challenging surfaces.

The FSD dampers still transmit some suspension jiggle on California’s rippled concrete freeways, but on patchwork country roads, the Renegade’s road-noise refinement puts it right at the top of its class.

It handles neatly, with well-contained body movement and a level of fluidity that most people wouldn’t expect from a Jeep. Indeed, with the peppy 1.4 turbo and snappy manual shift, the front-drive Renegade is quite a fun little thing, even on all-season 215/65R16 Continental Cross Contacts.

The Renegade’s only real weak link is its electric steering, which is too light and lacking in feel around the straight-ahead position, though it becomes more precise and responsive once you start to apply lock.

Move up through Renegade’s Sport and Longitude trim levels and you come to the Limited. Wearing 225/55R18 Kumho KL33 tyres, the Limited is grippier than the 16in-wheeled models without too much detriment to its ride.

But up in the mountains, the Limited’s Tigershark 2.4 with nine-speed auto needs to be driven manually – via a correctly configured gate (forward for downshift, back for upshift) – to prevent the nine-speeder from trying to grab the tallest gear possible, and hunting up and down its vast ratio set.

In the city and on fast freeways, however, it’s a different story. The 137kW/236Nm 2.4-litre engine needs revs to perform, but its plethora of ratios helps.

And while it isn’t the quietest thing around, it is massively more refined and enjoyable to listen to than some of the horrid petrol donks in rival SUVs.

In the all-wheel-drive Trailhawk – boasting Jeep’s revered ‘Trail-rating’, a Terrain Selector with a ‘Rock’ mode, low range, hill-descent control and an impressive 220mm of ground clearance – you can genuinely go off-roading in a Renegade.

While the Trailhawk’s 1586kg makes the 2.4 Tigershark engine work hard for its money, a lower final-drive ratio (4.33:1 versus 3.73 for the 2.4-litre in other models) goes some way to making up for it, as does the Trailhawk’s matte-black bonnet bulge, funky 17-inch wheels and toughened styling (with bespoke bumpers to enhance its approach and departure angles).

What the lowering of the Renegade Trailhawk’s diff ratio might achieve is a useful top gear. At a cruise-controlled 120km/h, the regular 2.4 auto is in eighth gear, yet if you flick it manually into ninth, it starts to lose speed as the tacho drops below 1600rpm. In other words, at any legal speed in Australia bar the Northern Territory, ninth gear is irrelevant.

The Renegade’s robust interior is littered with design details that will please Jeep fans – like the map of Moab, Utah, ahead of the gear selector in recognition of where Jeep first tested the Renegade Trailhawk, and the little Willys-Jeep figure tracing its way around the windscreen’s lower right edge – it’s a well-built and quiet place to spend time.

Offering plenty of scope for customisation (such as a chocolate dash and door tops with orange accents, beige seat trim and beige lower plastics), the Renegade offers highly competitive levels of passenger space, as well as a sizeable 525-litre boot.

About the only area it loses out is the support offered by its rear-seat cushion. Deliberately mounted low to ensure the Renegade achieves near-flat cargo floor, the seat itself is okay, but there’s not enough under-thigh support.

There are no rear air vents, either, but at least the front pair are mounted high on the dash, looking like a pair of snowboarding goggles.

Ultimately, what will determine the global success of the Renegade is Jeep’s ability to build enough. Ours will come from Italy, as will those destined for the US and Europe, but Brazilian production will kick off in late-March, and China may follow suit down the track.

Either way, the funky, chunky little Renegade deserves to gain a following. If you think ‘Jeep aesthetic, European size and flavour’, then you’ve pretty much nailed it.

Here’s hoping punters are brave enough to go for the olive, orange, 70s blue, and 50s bone paint colours…

SPECS Model: Jeep Renegade Sport Engine: 1368cc 4cyl, sohc, 16v, turbo Max power: 119kW @ 5500rpm Max torque: 250Nm @ 2500-4000rpm Transmission: 6-speed manual Kerb weight: 1372kg 0-100km/h: 9.0sec (est.) Economy: 6.0L/100km (est.) Price: $24,000 (est.) On sale: Q3 2015

Mark Skaife was instrumental in creating the legend of the original R32 Godzilla. Who better, then, to compare it with the current R35 beast-master?

A DENSE, black cloud front seemed to be marching towards the motor racing circuit with Wagnerian menace.

It had its rival on the ground: an awesome automotive force, a twin-turbocharged, all-wheel drive powerhouse that has already sat the most revered of European rivals flat on their rear ends.

In all this, the new Nissan GT-R R35 road car was replaying the scene from 17 years earlier, when its forebear – the legendary Skyline GT-R R32, christened by Wheels as ‘Godzilla’ – charged head-on into a black wall of downpour on lap 144 of the Tooheys 1000 at Mount Panorama.

The R32, for all its supposed all-wheel-drive superiority, was simply hosed off the track along with Ford Sierras, Commodores and BMW M3s. But in the wash-up, a countback of the previous lap gave the race to the controversial Japanese supercar.

It was a final cigarette before execution.

The victorious Gibson Motorsport team-mates Mark Skaife and Jim Richards had spent the first half of 1992 locked in battle for the Australian Touring Car Championship in their Winfield-liveried GT-Rs. It was the wily, supernaturally talented Kiwi against the 25-year-old wunderkind who had largely driven the R32’s development.

With their shared Bathurst victory in chassis 5, the final R32 built by Gibson, Skaife crowned a record-breaking 1992 season. He had also become Australia’s youngest Touring Car champion and took the Australian Driver’s Championship in his SPA-Formula Brabham single-seater. The latter two titles were sealed on the very same day at Oran Park.

And here we were today. Storm clouds. Oran Park. And a pair of thundering, clawing, blood-red Nissan GT-Rs, book-ending 17 years.

Mark Skaife OAM, Australia’s most successful touring car driver, retired from full-time racing last October. But as he stepped into a more understated Holden race suit and pulled on the familiar yellow and red helmet for his Wheels GT-R assignment, he admitted he might dabble in the enduro rounds. “I won’t be able to go cold-turkey, because I love driving too much,” he shrugged. “Even things like today; I just love getting into the car and speeding around.”

He’s been a Holden man through-and-through since 1993, of course, when V8 Supercars killed Godzilla. And the last time he’d driven chassis 5 was when he’d last handed the car over to Richards at Mount Panorama, under gathering clouds.

These days, he said, “I can drive any car that starts with ‘H’, ends with ‘N’ – and isn’t a Hillman.” But 12 years of comparative product testing with HSV and Holden have kept him well up to date with rival products.

He hadn’t seen a GT-R R35 in the metal before. “I think it’s a super spunky-looking car,” he nodded, knowing a thing or two about tough road cars (his daily driver is an HSV GTS). “I love the wheel offset, I love the aggression, but it’s got that tough look about it. Tough-looking car. And value for money, absolutely.”

We gave Skaife a quick rundown on the GT-R’s transmission and suspension R-modes and ESP switches. With ‘R’ on and ESP off, Skaife burbled the chiselled red supercar down Oran Park’s pit lane. Its pert tail disappeared beyond the fast kink of the full-length GP circuit. When the nose bobbed up again over the bridge, it was already travelling at a clip.

Skaife was feeling out the traction, experimenting with the boost, car and driver squirming around as they became acquainted through the cresting-left Suttons and over the Dogleg. The red wedge disappeared again into the hard-leaning hollow before BP corner. And when it came past me on the straight – whooshing like an F-18 fighter, right-side mirror reaching for the wall – this performance party was already on.

Skaife trail-braked scary-late into the kink, the GT-R getting quite squirrelly as he firmly and rapidly massaged corrections into the wheel. Watching from the pit wall, I figured Skaife had probably caught it four times, in the second-or-so it would take most people to realise they were losing it.

I’d driven the R35 on the road in Germany, and had been gobsmacked by the way it masked its 1740kg kerb weight. But plenty of hard-edged road cars show up soft on the racetrack; surely, not Godzilla?

Skaife did five or six thundering, hard-working laps. I forgot to count, amid the train-sized cylinder of dust and air and chemical stench of brakes blasting past me on the straight, the brake lights Morse-coding deep into the kink, the rear end twisting and torquing as Skaife mastered its momentum. But then the GT-R was cruising, cooling its turbos, before the stinking, tinking R35 was stopped before us in the pits.

If I’d been expecting some awe-struck rice-boy’s reactions, or a hard-headed Holden V8 fan’s ruthless critique, I’d have been surprised. Skaife delivered a verbal data-download on everything the R35 had been doing. And how one might go about improving it.

“From a geometry and stability standpoint, it’s quite nervous on the way to the corner,” he explained. “When you first turn it, it’s nervous, and that restricts your entry. Then, when you get it to what I call segment two to three, bringing it back to the apex, it’s actually got mild understeer. That [right] front tyre there has copped plenty.”

Skaife went on to describe the yawing and corner uneasiness we’d been able to see clearly from the outside. He had been busy.

“At places like Suttons [a left-hander with a dip on turn-in, and a crest after the apex], the car’s quite nervous,” he went on. “You brake it, turn it, oversteer – and when you’ve got it caught, it gets back on the front wheel and just starts to understeer. And then finally when the understeer goes away, when you get back onto the throttle, it’s got enough sniff to drive itself out pretty straight.

“A lot of the characteristics are similar to the R32, when it first happened,” he smiled. “The amount of drive grip they’ve got is just extraordinary. When you can get into the throttle, it’s just unbelievable.”

Skaife added that the early throttle response was too tardy in letting him shift the action rearwards. I wondered aloud whether he’d been spoiled by 17 years of V8s, too long away from turbos. “No, you could definitely change the mapping to give you a bit more for your money there.”

The front tyres, whose shoulders weren’t new when we started, underlined Skaife’s point about the GT-R’s two phases of understeer.

“It’s actually front grip-limited, at some point,” he mused. “The nervousness really comes from an unstable rear, and the instability gives it that initial oversteer – but the natural balance of the car is mild entry understeer.”

He’d been impressed by the brake feel, but the car’s weight had contributed to bad fade after just three or four laps. He asked the kerb weight, and we told him: 1740kg.

“Yeah, it feels like it’s got quite a lot of momentum there. You have to do quite a lot of work to straighten the car up.”

How does all of this tally with his more usual mounts – similarly big, V8 rear-drivers? “Well, as a consequence [of the understeer], some of the fun’s taken out of it as a purist’s car,” he said. “But the amount of exit grip and how much throttle you can get on the car, once you’ve got it neutral and you can get it off the corner, anyone who didn’t enjoy that is just kidding themselves.”

Skaife recognised that the R35 is a GT-R. In his Nissan days, he had an R32 company car.

“Oh, you can feel that DNA,” he smiled. Skaife should feel it; he is himself woven somewhere deep in the GT-R code. “But … I hope they don’t get upset with me for saying this: they’ve lost a little bit of the crudeness and the rawness that the original [R32] car had. It had a much nicer steering wheel – a racy wheel – a more sculpted seat, so it was more like a race car.

“But, from the architecture and the engineering of the car, the way it translates to the driver, there’s a lot of that DNA… They’ve done that, but they’ve tamed it off too much. I’d be very interested to see what a Spec-V would be like.”

Which brought us back to his lap time. Did he care to hazard a guess? “Honestly, I wouldn’t have a clue, because after driving touring cars around here … I would have thought it’d do a, ahh … it’d be an 18 or a 20?”

In fact, on used tyres and without having sat in the car before, he had clocked a best of 1:18.08. He nodded. “If you put your head down and had some new tyres, this would be good for a 16.5 to 16.8, I reckon.”

As it stands, it’s only eight seconds off the pace of a current V8 Supercar. And, more pointedly, it means the R35 would still have its red baboon-butt soundly spanked by its 17-years-older, race-bred sister.

Back in 1992, the Winfield GT-R R32 – on slicks, of course – clocked a fastest race lap of 1:10.26 in Skaifey’s hands. He’d qualified it a quarter of a second quicker, but was pipped to pole by a brilliant John Bowe in the Shell Sierra.

Chassis 5 is now owned by restaurateur and racer Terry Ashwood, who bought the Gibson collection lock, stock and baseball caps in 2001.

Skaife slowly paced the car, hanging his head, looking upwards to admire the immaculate red, yellow and white paintwork. Its body glistened like the hull of an America’s Cup yacht.

He remembers – even down to gear ratios and brake master-cylinders – his time with the GT-Rs. The first time they met was in 1990, with four road cars and several boxes of Nismo race bits.

The GT-R had yet to be subjected to two, continuous years of Gibson Motorsport’s engineering wizardry. The Skyline’s story would be one of Aussie ingenuity exported to Japan for factory Group A homologation.

Skaife first drove one of the Nismo kit-cars on a lonely, drenched test day at Winton.

“I couldn’t believe, number one, the turn-in in the wet,” he recalled. “But the exit drive, it was unbelievable. You could get the car basically halfway around the corner and just put your foot flat.

“We knew what lap-time other cars would do, based on our [Skyline HR31] times. The HR31 was a very competitive car – Jim won the championship in 1990 with that car – so we knew this thing was going pretty well.”

If the helmet still looks at home in the R32’s cockpit, it’s because Skaife’s colour scheme dates back to his Winfield days. While he strapped in, owner Ashwood hooked up the external battery and fired the gorgeously finished, 2.6-litre in-line six into life.

The under-bonnet view looks more street-machine than Formula One: hand-wrapped heat shielding tape, braided steel hose, polished aluminium and anodised fittings. Steel-tube “bridges” straddle the cast-aluminium cam covers to support the Inconel exhaust manifold against turbo temperatures of 1000 degrees C.

Skaife reckoned the R32’s power steering to be 40 percent heavier than the R35 road car’s. The new one wasn’t pushing against slick tyres and 5.9 degrees of knock-kneed negative camber. But even the steering wheel itself was special; after all, Skaife helped create it.

“There’s a bit of crudeness,” he smiled from the cockpit. “There’s a lot of stuff that was really modern for the era, and now not. Like the gear lever, and where it is. We never bent the lever and put it where we wanted it … It’s a lot more road-car-y, and that’s essentially what they were.”

Skaife did three or four laps in the R32, dabbing brakes as he left the pit-lane, then giving the car an 80 percent thrashing for a similar portion of each lap. He was deferring to the car’s age and value, but owner Ashwood had also asked him to shake it down for that weekend’s Phillip Island Classic.

The barking note from the side-exit pipe was a reminder that touring cars don’t need a V8 to sound great.

“I felt very comfortable straight away,” Skaife grinned when he came back to the pits, remembering the familiar click-click-clicking of the American-made Electramotive engine management. “A lot of nice memories come back, from just the feel of it and the sounds and the things that were part of what made the car very special.

“You know, so many of the intrinsic, engineering things that we did with that car, as soon as you get in and drive it, poof – they just come back. I mean, the way that car turns at the corner, is unbelievable. In fact, it would be the best car on turn-in that I would have driven in 10 years or more. It’s unbelievable.”

Skaife admits to a special emotional attachment to this car. “When you’re a professional race driver you try not to get too attached to the cars – because you pretty easily don’t have one!” he reflected. “But definitely, cars that you’ve had great results with, and cars that have meant a lot to you…” He nominates this, and HRT chassis 45 (2002’s VY), as the two stand-outs of his career.

And this car, R32 chassis 5, was the ultimate product of 10 years of pioneering experience in preparing turbocharged Nissans; experience that had made Gibson Motorsport one of the most respected Nissan racing developers in the world. And Gibson fed its findings straight back to the factory, adding to the very fabric from which the latest R35 has been cut.

This is the car, and that was the race, that made the GT-R great.

Blood Brothers, featuring photos by Easton Chang, was first published in May 2009

We’ve all watched rally drivers in awe. It’s art-like the way they dance roll-caged weapons across gravel, snow and dirt, millimetres from trees. But if there ever was a reason not to try it ourselves, this may be it.

Wince-inducing but strangely mesmerising at the same time, rally car crashes are like a celebrity wardrobe malfunction – you can’t look away. This video is no different. Flying BMWs, imploding Citroens, and spectators left lucky to be alive, this is one of the most painful compilations we’ve recently come across.

Four-wheel drive won’t necessarily save you either. Watch as Subarus and Lancer Evos suffer the same crumpled fate as the two-wheel drive punters. It is amazing European panel beaters aren’t all flying King Lears with so much destruction. Go on, have a watch and tell us you disagree.

What is it?

The twin-turbocharged V8 AMG version of Mercedes-Benz’s top-tier two-door coupe, now in its ninth generation and reverting back to historical S-Class nomenclature after being called CL-Class since 1996.

With so many two-doors/coupes/V8s in Merc’s fold, what’s the big attraction?

The S-Class Coupe is Merc’s grandest two-door, pitched squarely at empty-nester ‘captains of industry’ accustomed to S-Class luxury levels but no longer need four or five seats. The appeal of its AMG trapping needs little explanation, though the bent-eight Sixty-Three model is for buyers who find twin-turbo V12-powered S65 version, on sale May, a little too, erm, bourgeois and excessive.

How excessive?

The S65 6.0-litre V12 generates an eye-watering 463kW and – gulp 1000Nm and costs $1000 short of half-a-million Aussie pesos. While at ‘just’ $409,000, the S63 version still pummels with 430kW and 900Nm from its 5.5-litre bent eight.

It’s rationalizing the irrational, perhaps, but the S63 is $90K more affordable yet, at 4.2sec for 0-100km/h, it’s just 0.1sec slower to the magic tonne.

That’s E63 and CLS63 pace, both markedly more affordable…

Sure, but power and speed aren’t the S-Class Coupe’s main attractions. They merely serve an otherwise range-topping sports-luxury experience with all the fanciness that entails.

Climb inside and the S63 Coupe not only makes lesser Mercs feel lower rent, it’s a noticeable design departure from even the S-Class sedans. From the Swarovski crystal console stowage handle to the Nappa leather-edged foot mats, it drips style, opulence and five-star luxury like nothing else this side of Bentley’s finest.

Shorter, lower, just as wide but with more girth across the rear axle than the S sedan, Merc’s ultimate coupe cuts a commanding presence on road. Inside and out, the racey AMG-isms have also been toned down – wood trim rather than carbonfibre, for instance – and this deft touch suits the overall character nicely.

AMG in just name then?

It’s no athlete. But the urgency and potency under foot as well as sporty ambience is still there. And it anchors its mandate of providing ultimate comfort and luxury while offering an effortless undertow of muscle nicely.

What does it bring to the Merc table?

A lot of the coupe’s bells and whistles are otherwise only available on the S-Class sedan, including the imaginatively named Magic Body/Sky/Vision Control systems.

Exclusive to the coupe, though, is the clever ‘curve tilting’ function, allowing the hydraulic self-leveling suspension to lean the car up to 2.65 degrees into a corner. It’s subtle in practice but far from a gimmick. Instead, it allows keen body control and keen cornering in Comfort mode without resorting to firm Sport damping that otherwise spoils the ride. Clever stuff.

What’s not to like?

There’s a pause between nailing the throttle and the V8 manning battle stations. And the otherwise superb AMG-spec seven-speed auto is less than silken in low-speed, part-throttle driving. Some of the spec list’s more glamorous features, such as the Swarovski crystal embedded LED headlights or Magic Sky Control (active glass roof tinting), are pricy cost options in a car already at an eye-watering pricepoint.

Does it live up to its flagship AMG status?

If carving corners is your bag, wise money would be spent on the $319,000 S500 Coupe, leaving enough change for an A45 AMG in the second carspace. But for complete luxo-performance in one package, the S63 AMG Coupe is the suitably complete experience.

Specs

Engine: 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8, DOHC, 32v Power: 430kW @ 5500rpm Torque: 900Nm @ 2250-3750rpm Weight: 2070kg 0-100km/h claim: 4.2sec (claimed) Top speed: 250km/h (claimed, limited) Price: $409,000

THIS time there was no booing, and no “You’re nothing but a pack of arseholes!” retort from the podium.

Twenty-two years after its last controversial win at Mount Panorama (in the 1992 Bathurst 1000), Nissan triumphed in a crash-punctuated 2015 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race for GT sports cars, its NISMO Athlete Global Team GT-R blasting from a distant third to the lead in a restart and two-lap sprint to the flag.

As the clock wound down, Katsumasa Chiyo in the Nissan carved his way through a gaggle of lapped cars and, in a blink, whipped past the Audi ahead and the leading Bentley to seal a remarkable win.

Chiyo of Japan, Belgian Wolfgang Reip and late inclusion Florian Strauss of Germany combined to post the team’s first win for two years, and a pleasing reward for the weary mechanics who worked until 4.30am on race day to repair the car after a qualifying crash.

The victory was redemption for diminutive Chiyo after his crunching qualifying mistake.

Spare a thought for Alex Buncombe, who a few days earlier withdrew from the race to attend the delayed birth of his child in England. The lucky benefactor was Strauss, who got the phone call from Nissan while holidaying in Thailand.

Second in the 12 Hour was the pole-winning Phoenix Audi R8 LMS Ultra of Laurens Vanthoor, Markus Winkelhock and Marco Mapelli, with the Craft Bamboo Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Stefan Mucke, Darryl O’Young and Alexander MacDowall opportunistically snatching the final podium spot with a last-corner lunge.

This move booted the Bentley of Matt Bell, Steven Kane and Guy Smith off the podium after a brave first foray by the British factory squad to Bathurst.

Underscoring the great variety and tight competition of the international GT3 cars, seven different makes took the first seven positions.

First Australian team home was the Erebus Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 of Jack Le Brocq, Richard Muscat and Dean Canto – fifth outright – ahead of the Vicious Rumour Racing Ferrari and the JBS Australia Lamborghini Gallardo.

The 20 safety car interventions (collectively taking 73 laps under the yellows) turned the half-day contest into a series of short, furious sprints; but the last two were the crucial ones.

The much-publicised clash of the 12 Hour with V8 Supercars’ official test weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park meant star drivers including Craig Lowndes, Rick Kelly and Shane van Gisbergen were effectively banned from racing at Mount Panorama.

While the local heroes were missed, the 12 Hour garnered a lot of support from motor sporting enthusiasts who tended to paint V8 Supercars and its television unit as the villains.

At different times Audi, Bentley, Aston-Martin, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan took turns up front.

Fifty cars fronted the starter at 5.50am Sunday, the field reduced by the huge crash of the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari F458 Italia of Mika Salo/Ben Collins/Tony D’Alberto on Friday.

Winkelhock in the pole-starting Audi R8 set a hectic pace in the opening couple of hours, slicing through lapped traffic in an adventurous way as he banged in a succession of lap records.

Local wildlife showed no loyalty to Australian competitors, with a rather large skippy bounding into the BMW E46 GTR of Anthony Gilbertson of Queensland on lap six. The badly crumpled BMW then speared into a wall to complete the carnage.

Fourteen cars were on the lead lap after two hours. But even though crashes cut a swathe through the ranks of the outright contenders, six were still in contention at the nine-hour mark.

A beautiful sunny day for spectators translated into sometimes oppressive conditions in the cockpits, especially when some drivers’ cool suits failed.

Bentley works driver Matt Bell was forced to pit from the lead when he was physically ill during his stint. The Brit returned later in the race to relieve the workload on teammates Smith and Kane and handle the vital last battle to the 5.50pm chequer.

The lone McLaren MP4-12C of Tony Quinn/Klark Quinn/Kevin Estre was retired after losing a bunch of laps repairing its underfloor diffuser, dislodged when it received a whack from behind.

Next year, it is expected that two full factory McLarens will be on the Bathurst 12 Hour grid.

The oldest driver in the race, 1991 winner Peter Fitzgerald, was hip and shouldered at the fastest corner on the track, the entry to The Chase, by the overtaking Bentley of John Bowe. Fitzgerald’s damaged Audi was sent on a wild, gyrating ride through the sand trap; Bowe was able to fight on.

Sadly, only a half an hour or so from the finish, David Brabham in the Bentley he shared with Bowe and car owner Peter Edwards was helped into the unforgiving wall at the cutting.

Another Bentley – one of the works Continental GT3s – also tagged the Mercedes SLS of Dean Grant/Ash Samadi/Max Twigg at the Chase, sending it on a scary flight backwards into the wall and out of the event.

The official crowd for the three days of the Bathurst 12 Hour was 32,290, the best since the annual enduro was revived in 2007.

International live streaming attracted huge numbers and Twitter traffic was impressive throughout the race.

RESULTS

As the Bathurst 12 Hour’s key competitors gathered for an early morning press photo yesterday something was amiss.

Neatly placed on The Mountain’s iconic Skyline were a winged McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini and Ferrari; all familiar gladiators in GT3 racing. Among them, however, was a Bentley Continental GT.

As you know on road Bentley’s 2.3-tonne luxury GT doesn’t have much in common with a Ferrari 458 or McLaren 12C. Although ever since Bentley began GT3 racing last year McLarens and Ferraris have not only been bedfellows with Continentals on circuit, but also regular victims of its speed in the Blancpain Endurance Series.

Assembled by M-Sport, Bentley’s technical partner and renowned rally specialists, in England, Bentley’s GT3 fighters are built from the tarmac up with one goal: to be cut-throat competitive.

To ensure a Continental could mix with such exotic competition, it had to drop kilos. “The road car door weighs 57kg and the racecar door weighs under seven. So there were obviously areas to save weight,” says Brian Gush, Bentley’s head of motorsport, speaking about turning the Continental GT in to a racecar.

However the Continental’s doors aren’t the only items significantly lighter than the road equivalent. Thanks to liberal technical regulations, almost all of the Bentley’s bodywork is crafted from carbon fibre.

Significant weight is also cut from the Continental’s drivetrain. Because GT3 cars are rear-drive only Bentley tosses the car’s front axles. Its centre propshaft gets replaced with a carbon fibre unit, and the Audi-derived twin-turbo V8 lightens the nose by 23kg compared to the Bentley W12.

The process lightens a road Continental by 995kg.

The Continental’s suspension is also redesigned, featuring four-way adjustable Ohlin dampers and double wishbones all ’round, while motorsport-grade Brembos do the hauling up. The brakes are so effective, we’re told, that at last year’s Spa 24 Hour they needed only one pad change.

Aerodynamics haven’t been ignored either. The Continental GT3 features a CFD honed front splitter and rear diffuser, while its massive rear wing adds downforce to the equation.

The Continental’s 4.0-litre V8 has no problem making power, unrestricted it produces 447kW. But with such speed, it’s important the Continental GT3 can accommodate the wide range of talent seen from GT3 drivers. “We have the engine mapping to soften the engine’s response under wet conditions and various levels of traction control and ABS intervention… it allows you to get gentlemen drivers in the car and cope with the conditions,” tells Gush.

However, this Sunday Bentley won’t be taking any chances with their two-car effort, only experienced international drivers will steer the factory Continental GT3s. With some of the world’s finest pilots in GT3 cars built by Ferrari, Audi, Nismo, Mercedes-AMG and McLaren, in a race lasting 12 Hours, you wouldn’t want something amiss.

For an in-depth look at Bentley’s foray in to the world of GT3 racing, check out MOTOR’s March issue on sale now in both print and digital formats.

HOLDEN has promised 24 new vehicles and 36 new powertrains over the next five years as it goes on the front foot with its newly confirmed MD and chairman, Mark Bernhard.

The product onslaught, confirmed by visiting vice-president of international operations, Stefan Jacoby, includes a new entry-level Barina Spark city car, as well as an all-new Captiva to strengthen its SUV offering.

Holden also re-affirmed a sports offering in the Holden line-up, as reported by Wheels at the 2015 Detroit show last month, as well as the addition of European-sourced Opel models by mid-this year.

Those models include the Astra and Insignia VXR models, potentially robbing go-fast division HSV of sales, as well as the Astra-based Cascada convertible. It’s not yet clear whether the new Barina Spark will be sourced from Korea, as the current model is, or whether Holden will take up the Opel Karl/Vauxhall Viva that’s set for release in Europe in the first quarter of 2015.

He said Holden would still hold on to its target of overtaking Toyota as Australia’s largest full-line importer in Australia by 2020.

However, Jacoby reaffirmed the lofty target that would require a significant boost over the circa 10 percent market share to catch Toyota, which is hovering around 17 or 18 percent share.

“We still have the aspiration to be number one,” said Jacoby. “It’s the iconic Australian brand … We have success and we want to continue with this success.”

But Jacoby said the brand was not only targeting sales leadership but also leadership in quality, service and customer satisfaction, among other measurements.

“When we say we want to be number one, we want to be number one not only in terms of sales … we are moving on all the elements of this business … we are improving customer satisfaction,” said Jacoby.

Despite a 5.3 percent drop in sales Jacoby said the January sales figures were ahead of expectations.

“The signals are going towards north.”

Jacoby also reiterated that Holden’s Lang Lang, Victoria, proving ground is not for sale and will continued to be used for General Motors’ global vehicle development, in addition to the design operations of Holden contiunuing post-2017, when local manufacturing ceases.

Ford, who will close its Australian manufacturing operations in 2016, has also previously confirmed that its local design studio will continue once production of its local models has ended.

It’s the Bathurst 12-Hour this weekend.

In the space of a few short years, this event has exploded in popularity, with this year’s grid featuring over 50 cars, including top-level entries from Bentley, Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari and Aston Martin.

The GT3 category is exploding globally, as we discovered when we visited the final round of the Blancpain series at the Nurburgring last year, its popularity a result of relatively low costs, close competition and cars that look and sound sensational.

With professional and amateur drivers allowed to compete, the drivers’ skill sets can be as diverse as the cars involved, which can occasionally lead to incredible action like our featured video this week.

Kiwi Shane Van Gisbergen shows why he is one of the finest drivers ever to come out of New Zealand (no mean feat!) by monstering the field in a GT race at the sensational Highlands Motorsport Park circuit.

SVG wastes no time carving through the field, overtaking cars under brakes, around the inside, around the outside, wherever he can. The video culminates in an incredible battle between Van Gisbergen and another young gun, Richard Muscat driving a Mercedes-Benz SLS GT3.

Incredible cars, incredible drivers, incredible action – is it any wonder GT3 racing is exploding in popularity?

HOLDEN has confirmed longserving GM employee and Australian expatriate Mark Bernhard as its third chairman and managing director in 13 months – and the sixth in seven years.

Bernhard started with Holden in 1986 and was most recently the vice president and CFO of GM Shanghai, based in China.

He will remain in China until mid-year due to school commitments for his children before taking up the Holden posting in July.

“Mark’s knowledge of GM Holden, our region and GM’s global operations will serve him well in his new role,” said GM executive president and president of GM international, Stefan Jacoby.

Bernhard, the first Australian appointed to the top role at Holden in quarter of a century, steps in for Gerry Dorizas, who left suddenly in October 2014 just eight months into the difficult job of repositioning Holden as an import-only brand and winding down the local manufacturing operations, which are due to shut by the end of 2017.

Since late October CFO Jeff Rolfs has filled the top position at Holden.

As a near-30-year veteran at GM Bernhard said he was ready for the role

“I am a Holden man, always have been,” said Bernhard. “Managing director of this company has always been a dream job.

“While I know that the company is going through a very challenging transition, I also know that it is has a very bright future.”

But Bernard acknowledged the substantial challenges ahead.

“I understand that the transition from being a manufacturing company to a National Sales Company is not easy. We need to ensure that those that leave us as a result of this change are treated with dignity, respect and most of all, support.

“But I am really looking forward to leading the re-making of our iconic company as we bring in great new product, continue to revitalise our aftersales service and re-establish ourselves as Australian customers’ favourite car company.”

The announcement was made by visiting GM International Operations boss Stefan Jacoby.

The last Australian Holden boss was the late John Bagshaw, who ran the company from 1987 to 1990.

Since then there have been nine imported bosses, the longest running of which was Bill Hamel from 1990 to 1997.

Some of the most influential were Peter Hanenberger, who revived the Monaro in 2001 and spent big on a product offensive that included a locally-produced four-wheel-drive and a dual cab ute, something insiders say was an expensive exercise.

Another was Mark Reuss, the current boss of product development for General Motors, who in his short tenure at Holden helped save the company in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Holden’s sales have been in a steady decline since the early 2000s, largely off the back of a shift in demand away from the once dominant Commodore.

General Motors admits it focused too heavily on providing life support for the local manufacturing business – which will shut down by the end of 2017 – instead of building a diverse and appealing product portfolio.

“I think we took our eye off the ball of where the customer was going,” said GM president Dan Ammann.

Commodore sales have dropped 70 percent over the past decade contributing to a 40 percent sales slide for the brand overall.

Recent sales performances have not been much better.

While Holden narrowly held on to second place in the 2014 sales race, the January new car sales figures show Holden in third position with a 5.3 percent drop in sales. The last time Holden ranked lower than first or second in Australian sales was in 1997 when Ford topped the charts and Toyota finished second.

And in the exclusive 2014 Wheels Report we revealed Holden is a real chance of sliding to fourth position in 2015 – its worst ever sales position ever, behind Hyundai.

THE next Porsche 911 will be powered by a 2.7-litre turbocharged flat-six engine producing 260kW, Wheels can reveal.

Just a month after Wheels leaned that Porsche is looking at going turbo across its 911 range, the company’s motor sport legend Walter Rohrl revealed details of the next base 911 Carrera, and that the Carrera S will boast a 320kW 3.0-litre six.

Speaking to Wheels in Sweden, Rohrl said that testing of the facelifted 991-series 911 is already well underway at Porsche’s Nardo Technical Centre in Italy.

The current Carrera produces 257kW from a 3.6-litre naturally aspirated flat-six, while the Carrera S uses a 3.8-litre version to produce 294kW.

“I’ve driven the new 911 and they will be 2.7, and 3.0 litres in S form,” he said.

“At least it’s not a four-cylinder turbo like in the next Boxster. That sounds like a Volkswagen Beetle, I’m not kidding you! I tell the guys, ‘You’re joking with this sound, right?’ But they just say they are working on it. I’m sure they will get it right.”

Porsche engineering chief Wolfgang Hatz said at the Detroit auto show in January the next Boxster and Cayman will use a four-cylinder turbo.

Rohrl wouldn’t be drawn on how much torque a turbocharged 911 will produce, but we guarantee it’ll be considerably more than the current Carrera’s 390Nm and the Carrera S’s 440Nm.

The need for greater efficiency and fewer emissions is behind Porsche’s move to turbocharging, much to the disappointment of Rohrl.

“We need to go to turbocharging to reduce emissions,” he said. “How else can we get C02 levels below 95g?

“But no matter how good a turbo engine is, it can never have the pure response of a naturally aspirated engine. This is the reason I bought a Boxster Spyder, because engines like this won’t be made anymore.”

Porsche has a long history with 2.7-litre flat-six engines, stretches back to 1973 and the homologation special Carrera RS 2.7. By 1974 all 911s used a 2.7-litre flat six.

Porsche hasn’t totally finished with naturally aspirated engines just yet, though.

The company has confirmed it is building an all-new and very powerful ‘atmo’ unit for the next 911 GT3 RS, which will be revealed at the Geneva motor show next month.

Rohrl also confirmed that, unlike the PDK-only GT3, the RS will offer a manual transmission.