New Bentley boss Wolfgang Durheimer has revealed one of marque’s worst kept secrets, confirming that an uber-luxe Bentley SUV is currently under development.
The recently released Volkswagen Touareg and current Porsche Cayenne share common underpinnings, as will the next generation Audi Q7 that is due in 2013. For a company with Volkswagen Group’s technical might behind it, a fourth variant that would fit the brief for a Bentley SUV can’t be impossible.Ten years ago, the same move worked for Porsche during its sales revival, as the Cayenne continued the sales momentum started by the Boxster. Durheimer himself was instrumental in the SUV’s success during his time at Porsche as Research and Development boss.Currently, almost 60-percent of all Porsche sales in Australia are Cayenne purchases. Stuttgart’s successful model rethink, after building two-door sports cars exclusively in the early 90s, to churning out fast, premium SUVs suggests a similar move could also be a success for Bentley.The team at Crewe are already in thick of Volkswagen Group’s technical development projects, producing an all-new 4.0-litre forced induction V8 for the Continental GT, that will also sit beneath the nose of Audi’s S6 and S7.
Another F1 podium for Daniel
A STUFF-UP in final qualifying was not a great start to the British Formula One Grand Prix for Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo, but his unfortunate Saturday segued into a pleasing Sunday, a podium the result of a daring, opportunistic tyre strategy.
In an unpredictable qualifying under gloomy skies, the West Aussie elected to ‘sit’ on a Q3 time that had placed him fourth on the grid, believing the rainy conditions were worsening. And our Dan wasn’t alone in making that bad call that cost him a better starting spot: Lewis Hamilton aborted his final shot at pole, similarly believing he couldn’t go faster.
Soon after, both Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel made a mockery of those decisions by powering to last-gasp front-row qualifying spots for the GP, leaving Ricciardo eighth and Hamilton sixth.
For once at Silverstone, qualifying didn’t dictate race outcomes.
Rosberg’s pole converted into a gearbox issue and retirement while leading, allowing the determined Hamilton to charge through to a well-constructed victory in his home GP.
A surprise second was Valtteri Bottas, the young Finn showing all the signs of becoming a major force in F1. That’s two podiums on the trot.
On deteriorating medium compound tyres asked to do the final 37 laps, Ricciardo was third – just – with the flying Jenson Button closing fast.
“This is the best third place I’ve ever got,” enthused Ricciardo. “I’m not normally ecstatic with a third, but I really am today, obviously to redeem myself from yesterday and also the fact that I don’t think we had an awesome race car today, but we made it work.
“We used the cards that we had and played the game well, so I was really happy to make a one-stop work. For the last two laps, I saw Jenson coming and thought I was probably going to be a bit vulnerable, but we held on.
“The one-stop [strategy] wasn’t planned. We pitted quite early on the Prime because we were quite slow and it wasn’t working, so we came in for the Option, and at one point my engineer pretty much said, ‘All right, four laps to go on this tyre, then let’s box’. I said the pace seems OK, the tyres aren’t getting any worse and let’s try and stay out or at least think about keeping me out there, and he said, ‘OK, we’ll look at our options’. Then, a few laps later he said, ‘Do you think you can go to the end, there’s 15 or 20 laps to go?’, and I said at the moment I think we can give it a crack. And so, yeah, we did and it paid off!”
The fireworks in the last part of the race came from world champions Vettel (eventually fifth, and again outshone by his team-mate) and Fernando Alonso (sixth). The pair duelled ferociously, with each bleating on the radio about the other’s unfair driving.
Alonso’s Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen survived a massive first-lap crash, the impact of which was measured at a brutal 47G. He limped away to the medical vehicle and was later deemed okay.
At a time when Renault is under continued pressure from Red Bull Racing to improve the performance and reliability of its power pack, Lotus has announced its supplier from next season will be Mercedes, already the provider to its own works team as well as Williams, Force India and McLaren.
Next year, McLaren switches to Honda, which opened a slot for Lotus to switch from Renault.
There has been speculation that Red Bull might (take your pick) switch providers, develop its own engine, buy Renault F1, or do nothing.
Brabham penalised in Indy Lights
ROOKIE Matthew Brabham crossed the line fourth in a willing US Indy Lights Championship race at the Pocono tri-oval at the weekend – but officials quickly relegated the Queenslander to fifth for questionable on-track conduct. They didn’t like the way he kept rival Juan Pablo Garcia behind him.
“Tough day in the office,” Brabham declared on Twitter. “Showed some good speed early on but ended up finishing P5 overall in the race.”
The Pocono 100 was won Gabby Chaves from pole man Zach Veach and Jack Harvey. Chaves tops the series standings over Veach by 316 to 305. Harvey holds third on 272, followed by Brabham (262) as the contenders head to the streets of Toronto, Canada for round nine on July 20.
NASCAR: Rain the winner, then Richard Petty Motorsports
RAIN washed out NASCAR’s 160-lap, 400-mile Sprint Cup event set for Daytona on Saturday night, but it was worth the wait when the race took place on Sunday.
Fans were treated to a dramatic race punctuated by two huge crashes at the famed track.
Wet weather intervened again after 112 laps, so fate and speed combined to give Aric Almirola his first Sprint Cup win.
For Australians, it was a case of the wrong Richard Petty Motorsports Ford driver getting lucky, but Marcos Ambrose nevertheless enjoyed another finish in the Top 10 (he was 10th) after starting 18th following a weather-shortened qualifying.
Ambrose has moved up to 19th in the points after 18 races, but is still seeking the elusive win to give him a start in the Chase (aka playoffs). To put his situation into perspective, some big names are behind Ambrose in the standings, including former champs Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch.
Uh oh, here comes Jamie
OUT of the V8 Supercars mayhem in Townsville came the powerful resurgence of defending champion Jamie Whincup, a disastrous run by his Red Bull Holden teammate Craig Lowndes, and a solid points haul from nowhere for the series leader, Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom.
Whincup won two of the three races, including Sunday’s 250km double-points heat.
Winterbottom showed his mettle by overcoming ordinary qualifying results to race hard on both days. However, his lead has been reduced to 96 points as the show moves on to Queensland Raceway.
On Saturday, HRT’s Garth Tander became the 11th winner of the 2014 season.
Lowndes has slipped out of the top five in the standings and faces a tough challenge to claw his way back into contention in the second half of the year. Winterbottom (1634) leads from Whincup (1538), Fabian Coulthard (1361), Shane van Gisbergen (1355) and James Courtney (1354).
Son of a gun cracks podium
REMY Gardner, the older son of 1987 500cc world champion Wayne, has ridden to his first podium in the fiercely contested Spanish FIM CEV Buckler Championship, a serious feeder series to MotoGP.
In a nail-biter, the 16-year-old second-generation rider collected third in round five of the championship at the Albacete circuit.
“I wanted that podium so much today,” said an elated Remy. “I wanted it for my fantastic team [Calvo], my family, and all the people who have helped me so much over the past few months.
“I didn’t have the power of some of the other bikes I was fighting with, so it was really hard work to keep that third place for the last five or six laps. I kept losing it on the straights and then had to fight hard to get back in front.”
Illustrating the international flavour of the CEV Buckler is the presence in the top 15 of riders from Spain, France, Australia, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Belgium and Malaysia.
Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, and Marc Marquez have all come out of the series.
WHEN the three original Holden prototypes arrived from America on the SS Wanganella on New Year’s Day 1947, they’d spent only limited time at General Motors’ huge Milford proving ground. The Australian engineers, who had worked on the cars in Detroit, knew more testing was crucial. The three Project 320 cars, instantly recognisable as 48-215s but registered as Chevrolets – Victorian regos JP-480, JP-481 and JP-482 – quickly began their local lives as test mules.
In 1947 Melbourne’s population was a mere 1.3 million and, with just one vehicle per 7.8 people, the suburban sprawl created by the car was still in the future. The Holden engineers looked no further than a 138km public road route from Holden’s HQ in Salmon Street, Fishermans Bend, through the south-eastern suburbs along North Road to the Dandenong Ranges and the towns of Ferntree Gully, Belgrave, Kallista and Emerald, before heading back to the factory via Dandenong and the two-lane Princes Highway, then speed-limited to 70mph (113 km/h).
Holden estimated the route was tough enough to equal four times that distance in normal driving and would wear out tyres seven times more quickly. The roads included a mix of sealed and gravel surfaces with steep climbs and challenging corners. Test drivers were specially trained to push the cars ‘hard’.
This testing, often under the cover of dark, went on for 18 months, with one car completing almost 100,000km. Holden continued to use these public roads for its durability runs through the little-changed FJ to the truly new FE, until fast-expanding production – from 10 cars a day in 1948 to 300 a day by 1955 – and sales generated the profits to build a local proving ground.
In 1955, Holden bought 877 hectares at Lang Lang, 95km south-east of Melbourne, the high-security proving ground opening two years later. Now, as part of Holden halting local production in 2017, mighty Lang Lang, with its high-speed bowl, emissions laboratory and brilliant ride and handling track et al, the scene of numerous Holden new car launches and the location (every other year) for the first three days of Wheels COTY testing, is to be sold.
How better to mourn Holden’s transformation to purely a sales operation than to retrace that original durability circuit in a 48-215 – later dubbed the FX in line with Holden’s obscure naming regime – and, for context, today’s equivalent, a VF Commodore. Especially in the company of Leo Pruneau, the legendary American-born designer who initially worked in and then ran the Holden design studios from 1969 until 1983, and Richard Ferlazzo, the current studio boss most famous for Efijy, the outrageous hot-rod inspired million-dollar custom redo of the FJ.
Our 1950-build 48-215 (so early it has lever-action rear shock absorbers), with 88,633 miles (142,699km) on the odo, came courtesy of third owners Robyn and Brenton Creasey, members of the FX/FJ Club of Australia. The Creaseys paid a bargain $10,500 for the car a year ago.
Seeing old and new together, it’s hard not to be surprised as the realisation dawns that after 66 years of evolution the Commodore still conforms to the same basic mechanical layout and family car formula of the 48-215: front six-cylinder engine driving the rear wheels. No revolution, then, though in every other way the chasm between the first and last Aussie Holdens is enormous. Not least because the original model is – height aside – virtually the same size as today’s small cars like the Mazda 3, VW Golf and Holden’s own Cruze.
Sitting alongside the VF, the 48-215 looks almost tiny in terms of length, width and wheelbase. It is, and looks, 572mm shorter and 196mm narrower, the wheelbase is 299mm shorter and its tracks are a staggering 246mm and 236mm narrower. Only in height does the original tower above the VF, the extra 104mm almost all accounted for by the 230mm of ground clearance versus today’s ground-hugging 137mm.
At 1685kg, the VF is 67 percent heavier than the 48-215’s 1012kg. Smaller car, no crash structure, minimal equipment – not even a heater or radio – and altogether simpler in its chassis and drivetrain.
In 1948, Australia was the only country outside the US in which General Motors had set up a manufacturing operation and only the third – after Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Germany, which it had taken over rather than started – to create a unique vehicle, in the case of the Holden one whose correctness was never in doubt from the moment it went on sale.
“The first Holden hit the sweet spot,” says Ferlazzo, adding that it slotted exactly between the bigger, traditional (and still separate chassis frame, six- and eight-cylinder) American Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge models and the smaller (mostly puny 1.0-1.5-litre four-cylinder) British cars from Vauxhall, Morris and Austin. “It was an A-size car with a B-size engine.”
The combination of a relatively torquey small six and low weight gave the 48-215 a winning power-to-weight ratio that ensured terrific performance and economy, by the standards of the early post-war years. The Holden, capable of 134km/h, was considerably faster than its British rivals and, with 0-100km/h in 19.0 seconds, took half as long to reach 100km/h. The big American iron was slightly quicker, but used 50 percent more fuel and cost half as much again.
Salmon Street, Fishermans Bend is home to what was Holden’s original 1936 headquarters – Holden moved out and into new digs down the street in 2004 – and at the time was the only building in the area. Next door is the Technical Centre, opened in 1964, once the proud home to 1200 engineers, plus the design studios for the teams that created the all-new HQ Kingswood/Premier, the VT and, again self-sufficient at last, the VE Commodores.
Even before the 2017 manufacturing shutdown, Holden plans to sell the Technical Centre. The good news is that Holden’s 140-strong design and fabrication staff remain, one of GM’s 10 global studios and, with Detroit, the only one capable of building full-sized concept and show cars in-house. Design, now sadly renamed GM Australia Design, is looking for new studios in which to design new models and proposals for Chevrolet, Buick, Opel, GM China and GM India.
Photographer Wielecki captures the obvious symbolism of old and new together between the two Holden buildings before our little two-car convoy sets off for The Dandenongs. Creasey drives his Humpy through the peak hour traffic, past St Kilda’s Luna Park just as the test drivers would have done six decades ago, and down to North Road.
It’s more than four decades since I last drove an early Holden and 56 years since my family’s FJ panel van was traded on an FC Standard Station Sedan, Holden’s name for a wagon. I’m instructed that to change gears you move the column-mounted lever up out of first, p-a-u-s-e in neutral, then push the handle towards the dashboard before pushing it up again into second. And warned that first has no synchromesh. Once, I could double-declutch even the Holden’s three-on-the-tree down into first without graunching the gears. Today, I decide to rely on the low gearing – top gives 30km/h per 1000rpm, the VF a once unbelievable 57km/h – and the engine’s low-end grunt and stay in second, unless we come to a halt.
We ease out into the traffic, find second, then quickly grab top gear and, anticipating the traffic lights, try to stay off the drum brakes. The 48-215 easily maintains station, engine rumbling quietly. Now we’re cruising. I’m sitting high, perched on a bench seat – remember them? – looking down on the other cars through the split windscreen. It feels so narrow.
Holden claimed the 48-215 was a six-seater. Maybe, but changing gears with two extra adults up front required considerable dexterity and friendship. There’s plenty of room in the rear, at least for two large passengers, while the vast headroom is obviously designed to permit the wearing of a decent hat.
The dashboard could hardly be simpler. The instrument cluster contains a central speedo and small gauge for the fuel, with a matching dial for three idiot lights. There are no seat belts or indicators. To dip the headlights you push a button on the floor. The pull-out handbrake and the bonnet release are under the dash to the right of a large, fixed, two-spoke plastic steering wheel with an ultra-thin rim. The pedals sprout from the floor. You insert the key in the ignition switch to the left of the instruments, then push a button to the right to fire the engine. Another chromed, knurled knob on the dash that looks completely different to all the other controls looks after the vacuum wipers. The dash barely intrudes beyond the base of the windscreen. In 1948 there were no airbags, air conditioning unit or sound system to package between the engine’s firewall and cabin. Ventilation is by front quarter vent windows and a lift-up aperture immediately in front of the windscreen.
The steering, heavy below 10km/h – no power assistance, remember – but then light and reasonably direct with 3.5 turns lock-to-lock, requires concentration if the car is not to wander on the skinny 5.6 x 15 Dunlops. With worm and roller steering gear, you vaguely guide the Holden – precise steering was decades away – and cope with a quick increase in weighting during cornering. The steering, sloppy on centre when cruising, feels quicker in corners and, despite the heaviness, there’s a perception that too much lock could provoke the tail to step out.
The brakes are hefty, almost rock solid in feel and completely lacking any modulation, but push hard for long enough and the 48-215 stops straight.
The ride comes as a pleasant surprise. Big bumps are absorbed well enough; it’s small corrugations that catch the tail out and induce hopping. Semi-elliptic rear leaf springs survived at Holden until the HQ in 1971.
To the east of Melbourne, what is now endless suburbs was orchards and fields in the late 1940s. Today, Australia has more than 18 million vehicles, and heavy traffic density levels only begin to decrease as we climb into the beautiful Dandenong Ranges. The gravel roads between the Princes Highway and Selby have long since been sealed and staying true to the original route proves difficult. Norm Darwin’s 1983 book The History of Holden Since 1917 contains a photograph of JP-480 oversteering through a gravel corner between Selby and Dandenong, but our search for the same section of road proves fruitless.
At every stop there is Holden talk. Ferlazzo and Pruneau, pondering the 48-215’s vertical grille, muse that, though it was modern in using a monocoque body, the styling owed more to the pre-WW2 cars than newer models from the post-war era such as the ’47 Studebaker, ’49 Ford and General Motors’ all-new 1949 range with their straight-through fenders and three-box styling. By 1953 and the FJ, the Holden was looking truly antiquated alongside rivals like the Ford Zephyr. It wasn’t until the much anticipated 1956 FE that Holden adopted a contemporary look.
“We made mistakes, of course,” admits Pruneau. “I’ll never understand why the HQ wasn’t engineered for left-hand drive. By the time we realised, it was too late; it would have cost too much money for the re-engineering. These things need to be planned at the beginning.”
Export markets lost – Holdens were sold in Europe and the Middle East during the 60s – it wasn’t until the VT Commodore that the company again got serious about selling left hook models. One obvious candidate was the LH Torana (launched in 1974), one of the very few cars in the world designed from a clean sheet to be built in four-cylinder, six-cylinder and eight-cylinder forms. Pruneau remembered how in the 70s, with the future of the HQ-developed variants in doubt, “we were told (by Detroit) that the LH Torana was to be the last indigenous Holden”.
That didn’t happen, of course, as the all-Australian-designed VF Commodore proves. The modern car represents six decades of automotive development: modern electronics, computer power, fuel injection, six-speed automatic, independent rear suspension, fast-ratio rack-and-pinion steering with electric assistance via an electric motor. Today’s car is light years ahead of the 48-215 in terms of refinement, comfort, performance and handling, let alone crash protection and safety. The VF offers a range of seemingly essential gimmicks – telephone, navigation, trip computer – that were beyond the horizon of even futurists in the 1940s.
And yet the first Holden was near perfect for the Australia of those early post-war years. Nothing came close to its value or its suitability. Waiting lists grew and grew, stretching to three years before production finally caught up. At one stage Holden had a backlog of orders for 90,000 cars and 70,000 utes. It wasn’t until the early 60s, when Holden’s market share topped 50 percent, that you could expect immediately delivery.
Ferlazzo, coming to terms with the manufacturing shutdown, is sadly philosophical: “It’s down to pure economics. Fortunately, it doesn’t cost any more to design cars here than anywhere else in the world. We are in a global design competition and we think we can win often enough to justify our continuing.”
Cars badged Holden, probably sourced from Europe, Korea and the US, will continue after 2017. But they won’t be created here or made for and in Australia. Joni Mitchell said it best: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
REMOVING the roof from a smallish car like Audi’s A3 can be nonsensical for a bunch of reasons. Fitting a folding fabric top in place of a fixed metal roof lowers the body’s rigidity, reduces refinement, evaporates rear seat room and cuts boot size in half.
According to urban myth, it also says something about your sexual persuasion, but Audi’s new-generation A3 Cabriolet is determined to debunk all of the above.
This all-new, metrosexually charged, sedan-based version is here to set the record straight, so to speak.
As the first convertible based on the VW Group’s excellent MQB platform (that also underpins Golf, Audi TT and Skoda Octavia, among others), it’s a great test of just how good this architecture is.
And after a terrific launch drive down South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula to Victor Harbor, then across to the magnificent Kangaroo Island, it’s impossible not to be deeply impressed with Audi’s handsome new ragtop.
Our first taste was in a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel version running 18-inch wheels and sports suspension. The diesel is expected to make up just 10 percent of A3 Cabriolet sales (which will account for 15 percent of total A3 numbers). But given the 110kW/320Nm TDI’s solid torque and surprising refinement, you can see why someone might choose the $51,900 oiler over the cheaper 103kW/250Nm 1.4-litre turbo-petrol ($47,300).
The TDI is slightly quicker to 100km/h (8.8sec versus 9.1) than the 1.4TFSI and marginally more economical (4.7L/100km versus 4.9), yet its abundance of torque makes progress deceptively brisk.
On the lumpy, snaking Inman Valley Rd, the sports-suspended TDI proved that stiffening up the chassis and fitting large wheels couldn’t rattle the A3’s roofless body. The barest hint of windscreen shimmy over rough surfaces was the only evidence of the Audi’s missing top.
Roof up, the Cabriolet’s refinement was even more impressive. All launch cars were fitted with a $450 acoustic roof option (why isn’t it standard?) that proved so quiet you almost couldn’t tell you were in a convertible. That said, a city tunnel, surrounded by trucks, is the true test of a fabric roof’s credentials.
Swapping to the 1.4TFSI highlighted the lighter, smaller-engined Cabriolet’s sweeter balance and suppler ride.
Whereas the TDI can be quite firm and slightly biased towards its front end until you really load it up, the 1.4 feels more naturally poised and completely unflappable, even over the challenging dirt roads on part of the drive route.
Throwing a convertible onto a fast, unsealed surface seemed risky, but proved the car’s worth, even with the roof off at 120km/h.
The flagship A3 Cabriolet – at least until the S3 Cabriolet arrives later in the year – is the 132kW 1.8-litre turbo-petrol, available in a front-drive version ($51,900) with 250Nm or an all-wheel-drive quattro ($54,900) with 280Nm.
We drove the top-line 1.8TFSI quattro with seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox (standard on all A3 Cabriolets), 18s and sports suspension.
Compared to the occasionally flaccid 1.4TFSI, the 1.8-litre drivetrain is the most capable of combatting the Cabriolet’s 80-100kg weight increase over the sedan on which it’s based.
Tipping the scales at 1540kg, the 1.8 quattro is 110kg heavier than its front-drive sibling, and 160kg heavier than the base 1.4, but that isn’t enough to temper its engine’s sweetness or its brisk pace (7.6sec to 100km/h).
The extra weight does increase consumption – the quattro’s 6.6L/100km fuel average is significantly thirstier than the front-drive 1.8’s 5.8L/100km – though, like all MQB-platformed cars, Audi’s A3 Cabriolets are among the most efficient of their type.
What they also offer is impressive all-round ability. They’re sprightly, refined, efficient, beautifully built, comfortable and about as practical as you could expect of a convertible this size.
Best of all, though, the A3 Cabriolet has universal appeal. This pretty German ragtop is certainly no handbag.
Model: Audi A3 1.4TFSI Cabriolet Engine: 1395cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power: 103kW @ 5000rpm Max torque: 250Nm @ 1500-3500rpm Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch Weight: 1380kg 0-100km/h: 9.1sec (claimed) Price: $47,300 On sale: Now
AFTER teasing its next-generation roadster with a buck-naked chassis three months ago, Mazda has decided to show the completely new MX-5 clad in all its metal-skinned glory on September 4.
The Japanese car maker will reveal the highly anticipated two-seat sports car simultaneously in Japan, the US and Europe – but sadly not Australia.
Little is known about the form of the new MX-5, an important halo model in Mazda’s global showroom, despite the chassis reveal at the New York motor show in April that gave only a few vital pointers as to what we can expect.
The fourth-generation MX-5 will use the same double-wishbone front end and multi-link rear suspension as the current model, but includes more aluminium to cut weight, with the full car expected to tip the scales at slightly over the 1000kg mark – an important benchmark for the program.
The more rearward position of the gearbox suggests a BMW Z4-like layout for the sports car, with a longer bonnet leading back to a short rear overhang, and with wheels pushed closer to all four corners of the body.
Under the bonnet, Mazda is expected to use a 1.5-litre four-cylinder SkyActiv engine that draws on the car maker’s growing suite of fuel-efficient technologies, with a larger 2.0-litre four-cylinder expected to cater to the US market.
Australia is one of the star markets for Mazda globally, the brand having established a strong foothold among private buyers, where most of profit lies.
In June last year, the Japanese car maker selected Melbourne as one of four sites worldwide to host the reveal of the third-generation Mazda 3 hatchback.
WERE it at school, the Australian new car market’s half-year report would read something like: “Tries hard, but more effort required, C minus.”
The latest VFACTS sales data for June, released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries today, shows buyers flocked back to some corners of the new-car showrooms last month in the traditionally strong finish to the financial year, with Toyota’s Corolla hatchback and sedan fleet special snaring the top spot for the month with 4648 sales.
The Corolla’s result – a 10.8 percent jump on last June and enough to push year-to-date sales 5.7 percent ahead of 2013 – comes in a month where a big push into trade utes helped to round out the best-selling models list.
Toyota’s HiLux, the ageing Mitsubishi Triton due for a ground-up makeover next year, Ford’s Ranger and Nissan’s soon-to-be-renewed Navara ute all helped to flesh out a month that still has the market lagging 2.4 percent compared with the first half of last year.
However, Toyota’s strong result, which also marks slightly more erosion of its dominance to just 18.1 percent of the Australian new-car market compared with 18.5 percent for the same six-month period last year, comes as the Japanese brand called for an end to luxury car tax.
Toyota’s range-topping Kluger seven-seat SUV models, the range-topping V6-engined Tarago and almost all the Prado and LandCruiser range, are all slugged by the tax.
The Australian Tax Office raised the threshold to $61,884 from July 1, an increase of $1568 on the rate set for the 2013-14 financial year.
“Australian motorists are already heavily taxed with GST, stamp duty and registration fees when buying a new car, as well as road tolls and a hefty tax on fuel,” Toyota executive director sales and marketing Tony Cramb said.
“New-vehicle buyers should not be singled out to pay the additional burden of a so-called luxury tax, especially one that is so inefficient and poorly designed,” he said.
The tax office has left the threshold for fuel efficient cars that use no more than 7.0L/100km of fuel at $75,375.
More than ever, buyers are skewing away from traditional passenger car fare. Hardest hit, though, are the city car specials – the likes of the Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Micra and surprisingly popular Fiat 500 – where sales are down 33 percent so far this year.
Slightly larger city cars such as the Hyundai i30, Toyota Yaris and Mazda2 are also down by 11.9 percent so far this year, reflecting similar falls at the cheaper end of the small (Corolla and Mazda3, down 1.2 percent) and medium (Toyota Camry, Mazda6, down 13.2 percent) segments.
Those segments making inroads include the cheaper end of the large car segment, buoyed mainly by storming Commodore sales that pushed the locally made Holden to number seven in the top 10 list, people-movers (up 28.6 percent year to date) as buyers warm to the new, boxy Honda Odyssey, and small luxury cars such as the Mercedes-Benz A-Class.
Overall, 118,309 new cars were sold in June, a slight fall on the number of cars sold last year. Converted to a financial year, the last 12 months have bumped total sales above 1.1 million cars to near record levels.
While market leader Toyota sold a strong 20,808 cars in June, Holden firmed up in second spot with 12,332 sales – its highest turnover in three years.
Hyundai posted record sales of 10,008 for the month that helped elevate it to the third best-selling brand for June, pushing top three stalwart Mazda, on 9374 sales, down to the number four spot as the Korean car maker’s i30 small car matched the pace of market leaders.
In the luxury stakes, Mercedes-Benz leads the pack with 15,006 sales so far this year, up 14.0 percent on the first six months of last year, followed by BMW (10,856 sales, up 8.7 percent) and Audi (9661, up 18.5 percent).
As the countdown well and truly starts to the demise of Australian manufacturing, the three remaining brands held steady for the first half, although buoyed significantly by Holden’s Commodore.
Ford last month significantly wound back production of the Falcon large car and Territory SUV, which both softened in June with 552 sales for the large sedan range – its fifth-worst result on record – and 1135 for its SUV cousin. Sales are down 32.5 percent on the first half of last year.
Commodore, meanwhile, continues to mask the soft performance of its sibling, Holden’s locally made Cruze small sedan and hatchback range. The large car range snuck back into the top 10 with 3156 sales, up almost 60 percent on the first six months of last year, while Cruze has fallen 24.8 percent after pegging only 2146 sales for June.
Toyota’s locally built Camry and Camry Hybrid mid-size sedans dominated their segment, although with 2378 sales for the month the models are barely treading water compared with last year. Aurion sold well for the month, shifting 798 units, but is still down 19.1 percent on the first half of last year.
Australian car makers have lost a further 2.5 percent of their market share to the full-line importers so far this year. They represent only 51,286 of the 559,951 cars sold in the last six months.
The VFACTS data shows that New South Wales is the only state or territory in Australia to increase its new vehicle numbers in the last six months.
A slowdown in the number of business and government buyers so far this year has been offset by the shift of private buyers into SUVs and trade utes.
TOP 10 SELLERS FOR JUNE
MODEL SALES 1. Toyota Corolla 4648 2. Toyota HiLux 4276 3. Mitsubishi Triton 4124 4. Mazda3 4059 5. Hyundai i30 3243 6. Ford Ranger 3210 7. Holden Commodore 3156 8. Toyota Camry 2378 9. Volkswagen Golf 2261 10. Nissan Navara 2262
TOP 10 BRANDS FOR JUNE
BRAND SALES 1. Toyota 20,808 2. Holden 12,332 3. Hyundai 10,008 4. Mazda 9347 5. Ford 8715 6. Mitsubishi 8281 7. Nissan 7992 8. Volkswagen 6597 9. Subaru 3851 10. Honda 3115
HOLDEN will contact almost 3500 Commodore and Caprice owners and ask them to visit service centres after noticing performance problems and a potential fire risk in vehicles converted to run on LPG.
According to the car-maker, the hose feeding LPG gas to the engine in about 1100 vehicles, including a corporate taxi-friendly version of the Caprice long-wheelbase limousine, could develop a “durability condition” that results in a “very slow” leak towards the end of the vehicle’s lifetime.
“In this circumstance, fuel may leak at a very low rate of one or two millilitres per minute,” Holden said in a statement posted with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which handles vehicle recalls.
“If this defect occurs, it may pose a fire hazard to consumers. However, due to the slow rate of the leak, Holden believes the risk of combustion associated with this defect is very low.”
Holden’s figures show that if the line for the LPG tank does spring a slow leak, under worst conditions it could empty itself within a month at the rate of almost three litres of fuel a day.
In a separate problem identified for a wider number of LPG-powered Commodores and Caprices, and including those identified as at risk of the gas leak, Holden said it had noticed that the fuel system’s excess flow valve in almost 3500 vehicles “may restrict fuel supply to the engine, resulting in reduced engine performance”.
“In this circumstance, the driver will no longer be able to increase engine speed when commanded, potentially posing an accident hazard to the driver and other road users,” it said.
The latest pair of recalls brings the number of locally made Holden large cars brought back to workshops in the last two months to almost 87,000 vehicles, fixing problems including incorrectly lubricated wiper motors and fraying seatbelt harnesses.
However, Holden’s recall problems pale in contrast with its US parent, General Motors, which this week issued yet another recall covering 8.4 million vehicles, bringing its running total of pending fixes to 29 million vehicles this year alone – equivalent to two years of US new-car sales.
The latest recall for GM bumps up the amount of money it will need to spend on fixing the problems, which in some instances have been linked to a handful of deaths and injury, to $US1.2 billion ($A1.26 billion) for the second quarter alone.
FOR as long as there have been sumptuous S-Class Mercedes-Benzes, there have been S-Class coupes.
Over the decades the model name may have changed – from CL-Class, it reverts to S-Class Coupe for the new W222 generation – but the tradition of an opulent two-door, four-seat, upper-crust coupe is fundamental to Mercedes’ presence in the ultra-high end segment.
And nothing BMW or Audi offers comes close. The S63 Coupe’s natural rivals really emanate from Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati. Probably even the Ferrari FF.
None, however, match the Mercedes’ peerless blend of refinement and lavish four-passenger comfort, combined with agility, crushing performance and a ride/handling combination that makes this the most desirable of all S-Class variants.
Flowing confidently from limousine standards of luxury to belting sports car, without compromising either personality, the Grand Turismo just took one quantum step into the future.
The S63 Coupe is lighter than the CL63 it replaces, thanks to a steel-aluminium body, a lithium-ion battery, a lightweight brake system and, especially, lighter wheels.
The Coupe sits on a 2945mm wheelbase, 90mm shorter than the sedan, is 58mm lower and 89mm shorter, but weighs a hefty 1995kg. Still a massive size, then.
Most people love the swoopy styling, with two crease lines peeling back from around the front wheel arch in convex and concave conflict that seems to work. It’s laden with chrome, clearly intended to appeal to Americans and Chinese buyers who will make up a large percentage of the customers.
I’d like 10percent bigger glass all round, especially for the rear window, to improve visibility to the rear, and for back-seat passengers. The ratio of shallow glasshouse to deep side flanks works for stylists in creating an exaggerated, super-sleek shape, but surely goes too far in practical terms.
In the name of style, boot capacity is reduced from 490 litres to 400 litres. Still, it’s great to see Mercedes persisting with a B-pillarless design that suggests a cabriolet is not far away.
The Coupe drives like the sedan, only better. The difference in agility is profound. It rides 10mm lower, with greater negative camber at the front, wider tracks and quicker steering rack, while the air suspension uses firmer settings.
Steering offers more feedback and weighting and feels quicker and more precise around the straight ahead (2.4 turns lock to lock).
For a car of this size and weight, the handling is brilliant. Its brake-based torque vectoring means it changes direction superbly, the air suspension minimising squat, dive and roll.
The wheel itself is a superb new three-spoke flat-bottom design in place of the sedan’s weird two-spoke item.
The two-stage exhaust is quiet, but under full throttle the V8 rumble pierces the otherwise silent cockpit. The engineers claim this is the quietest Mercedes ever. I believe them.
The S63 Coupe can be ordered with four-wheel drive in left-hand-drive markets, but in terms of steering precision and handling balance, the rear-driver is preferable, only losing out when driving on a slippery surface.
Expensive rubber – 255/55R-19 up front and 285/40R-19 in the rear – normally ensures plenty of grip.
The seven-speed AMG Speedshift MCT transmission (with a wet starting clutch instead of a torque converter) is quick to shift and responsive to small throttle inputs. Only at parking speeds does it hesitate.
Even the Coupe lacks launch control, a strange omission given that this only involves programming and not hardware.
Thanks to the fearsome M157 5.5-litre twin-turbo V-8, there’s plenty of thrust. To be precise, 430kW at 5500rpm and a near monstrous 900Nm from just 2250rpm. Monstrous in terms of performance, yet smooth and responsive, so never intimidating.
That’s the S63’s secret ingredient. No car in memory better delivers both brutal performance and precise driving manners, combined so fluently with refinement and true luxurious comfort.
Model: Mercedes-Benz S63 Coupe Engine: 5461cc V8, dohc, 32v, twin-turbo Max power: 430kW @ 5500rpm Max torque: 900Nm @ 2250-3750rpm Transmission: 7-speed auto Kerb weight: 1995kg 0-100km/h: 4.2sec Price: $430,000 (est) On sale: December
If the eye-widening, hair-raising, sphincter-clenching all-new M3 (sedan) and M4 (coupe) are anything to go by, BMW’s revered M division is back! And it’s an all-turbo affair – yours for $156,900 for the four-door M3 or $166,900 for the two-door M4.
No, the model names don’t make sense but people will get used to it. Ditto the abandonment of 28 years of M3 natural aspiration for a pair of single-scroll turbochargers. While the M3/M4’s new 317kW 3.0-litre twin-turbo six might not please the purists, it’s a fantastic engine.
Not only is it great to hear a straight-six soundtrack return to an M3 (or M4), the S55 boosted six is blessed with multiple personalities. Between 2000 and 4000rpm, there’s no escaping the engine’s boosted nature. It whooshes and whistles like no turbo-six Beemer we’ve ever driven, yet there’s an edgy straight-six howl lurking in the shadows, waiting to be unleashed.
Nail the right pedal and it hauls you to ‘very frigging illegal’ faster than you can say “I’ve forgotten all about the atmo V8”. With 550Nm of torque smeared across such a vast rev band (1850-5500rpm), the old V8 doesn’t have a hope of keeping up.
BMW claims 4.1sec to 100km/h for the seven-speed dual-clutch (with launch control), and 4.3sec for the six-speed manual. Yes, unlike many modern sports cars, you can still change gears yourself if you choose to, which is bloody terrific.
Backing up the M3/M4’s supersonic six is a chassis to pine for. The parameters between the adaptive dampers’ Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus settings have been tightened, to the point where even with the cushiest suspension and steering selected, the new M3/M4 feels like a proper sports car.
Damping is tighter, steering is meatier and the overall impression is one of being ‘manned-up’, yet these new-generations Ms still manage to achieve a marvellous balance between refinement, ride comfort and body control. And that’s on the 19-inch wheels fitted to the Aussie M3/M4, clad with Michelin Pilot Super Sports – 255/35ZR19 front, 275/35ZR19 rear. And for another $500, you can have them in black. Swoon.
In the mid Sport setting, you can tackle rough-ish roads in the M3/M4 without flinching, yet there’s a distinct elevation of the chassis’ cornering poise and a level of steering weighting and response that’s close to perfect. Rare is a level of chassis balance as delicious as this.
Not surprisingly, BMW’s high-performance twins are just about identical. The two-door is marginally lighter (by 23kg) and 41mm lower than the sedan. But the four-door’s body is fractionally stiffer, and it gets the same CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer) roof that was exclusive to the coupe in the old-generation V8.
The M3 is also roomier inside, though both cabins have plenty of personality – glossy carbonfibre trim, loads of stitched leather and the world’s coolest-looking front seats – making this supreme pair feel as premium and up-to-the-minute as their price tags suggest.
So, while the twin-turbo M3/M4 may not sound quite as arousing as the V8 version did when revving to oblivion, they’re incredible cars – category-defining superstars even. AMG’s next-generation C63 (also twin-turbo, though a 4.0-litre V8, due next year) would want to be good.
Model: BMW M3 sedan Engine: 2979cc 6cyl, dohc, 24v, twin-turbo Max power: 317kW @ 5500-7300rpm Max torque: 550Nm @ 1850-5500rpm Transmission: 6-speed manual Kerb weight: 1520kg 0-100km/h: 4.3sec (claimed) Price: $156,900 On sale: Now
MERCEDES-BENZ plans to develop the dormant Maybach brand as its luxury arm, in the same way AMG is Mercedes’ performance division. The first S-class Maybach, due in 2015, adds a fourth wheelbase to the S-class offering, with an additional extra-long wheelbase for the 2016 Pullman. And there’s a chance it’ll come to Australia, despite being built primarily for the Chinese and Russian markets.
“The current long wheelbase version of the new S Class is doing very well here, and while the regular car is still popular, buyers are starting to shift to the longer car,” said Mercedes Australia spokesperson Jerry Stamoulis. “So an even longer, more premium car could do very well in Australia and attract new customers. But we’ll have to wait to see a final production version before making a decision.”
To distinguish the Maybach from lesser S-class models, the sedan gets a unique and more formal roofline and window treatment, with a third side window in the D-pillar, behind the rear door. The Maybach will also have a more premium interior with a higher seating position in the rear.
Maybach, Mercedes once stand-alone, ultra-luxury variant aimed directly at Rolls-Royce, was discontinued in 2012 after building just 3000 cars in the decade after it was revived in 2002.
“Look pricing played a key role in the number of vehicles we tried to sell,” said Stamoulis – hinting the new Maybach won’t be priced as a Rolls Royce rival.
Alongside the S-class Maybach, Mercedes plans a super-luxury long wheelbase version of the next generation GL SUV, due in 2017-2018. Rumours of a Maybach E-class are denied by insiders, who suggest Maybach variants will be reserved for absolutely top end models.
“You’ve only got to look at the GL63 and the increases in total GL sales to see there’s a market for a bigger, more luxurious SUV,” said Stamoulis. “So there’s a possibility for both areas of the market in sedan and SUV.”
While a high-end Maybach SUV would have no current rivals, Mercedes see it going up against cars like the upcoming Bentley SUV due in 2016.
