Subaru will introduce the jacked-up XV version of its forthcoming new Impreza as a stand-alone model to rival the Nissan Dualis and Volkswagen Tiguan.
According to Subaru Australia’s Managing Director, Nick Senior, the figures stack up in the XV’s favour against its key competitors. “On preliminary figures, our centre of gravity is 39mm lower than a Nissan Dualis and 22 mm lower than the Volkswagen Tiguan, and these are key competitors. Yet despite this the new Subaru XV has a ground clearance of 220 mm. That’s 32 mm more than the Dualis and 25 mm more than the Tiguan”.
Due here in January, the XV will utilise Subaru’s trademark all-wheel-drive. Also standard is seven airbags, 17-inch alloy wheels, and the same third-generation 2.0-litre FB horizontally opposed Boxer engine as regular Impreza variants, with a choice of a six-speed manual or Lineartronic continuously-variable transmission.
Expect pricing to mirror the previous Impreza XV, at $28-30K. Wheels will attend the international launch of the all-new Impreza range in late October, with details and drive impressions to follow.
Click here to read the full range review of the Subaru XV.
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It’s not often the Indian-made Tata Nano turns heads – except when a few early versions caught fire – but this one certainly will.
It might have no radio, no airbags and no power steering, but this model of the world’s cheapest new car is now worth some serious cash after it was covered in $4.6million-worth of gold, silver and jewels in Mumbai last week.
Billionaire businessman Ratan Tata – who recently bought Jaguar Land Rover to add to his collection of car companies – ordered the one-off design to celebrate the strength of his country’s growing wealth and mark the 5,000 year history of the jewellery trade.
A normal Nano will give you plenty of change from $3,000, but this is in a different league since 30 artists from Tata’s jewellery company, GoldPlus, got busy transforming it one of the most expensive cars on the planet.
Of course there will be performance issues. The normally lightweight car is now weighed down with 80kg of 22 carat gold, 15kg of silver and 10,000 semi precious stones and gems, so it’s going to take every bit of the 25kW of power from the tiny engine to move it one millimetre.
Still, we’re pretty sure the idea isn’t to race this Nano, but promote Tata’s jewellery stores and help boost flagging sales of the “people’s car.”
Launch of the all-new Hyundai i40 Tourer, the addition of cheaper, fuel-frugal Volvo V60 variants, and a hefty $3370 pricecut to Mazda 6 Touring signals mid-sized wagon warfare.
Wagons sell in limited numbers within the already small mid-sized segment here in Oz, but the new additions to the segment, and tempting value improvements to existing models, are good news for buyers who want practicality without SUV bulk.
The i40 lobs as one of the cheapest wagons in the class, starting at $32,490 for the base Active. Powered by a 130kW 2.0-litre direct-injected engine, tied to a six-speed manual, it’s equipped with 16inch alloys, cruise control and manual air-conditioning.
Add $2K for the six-speed auto, however, and it’s thick in Mazda 6 Touring territory. The price-slashed variant now costs $34,790 and includes climate control, leather trim, parking sensors and rain sensing wipers over its newer Hyundai rival. The 6 also gets a bigger 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine producing 125kW, and a standard five-speed auto.
Choose diesel, and the manual-only, 136kW 2.2-litre 6 Diesel wagon costs $35,790, or $1300 more than an i40 Active with a smaller 100kW 1.7-litre turbo-diesel mill.
To get the Mazda’s level of standard equipment in the Hyundai, buyers will need to choose the i40 Elite (from $39,490) or Premium ($44,490) variants.
Meanwhile Volvo has lowered the entry point to its V60 wagon (and S60 sedan) with a new T4 variant priced from $51,990 ($3K over S60). It utilises a 132kW 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine and six-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Similar to the cheaper Mazda and Hyundai, buyers can upgrade to a diesel engine for a further $3000, in this case a 120kW 2.0-litre turbo-oiler badged ‘T3’.
Between $30-60K there are, of course, other wagon options, including the staple Commodore Sportwagon, revised Passat 118TSI/125TDI wagon, and Peugeot’s new and much-improved 508.
We’ll have a first drive of the new Volvo and Hyundai, and find out where they sit in the expanding mid-sized wagon class, in an upcoming issue of Wheels.
Nobody saw this coming, and we had to check our calendar to check it was no April Fool’s joke. Nissan has taken the GT-R’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6, six-speed transaxle and all-wheel-drive chassis, and stuffed the complete powertrain into its Euro-only Juke compact SUV.
The Juke GT-R is currently in development and will begin testing in November. Despite being fully road legal, Nissan says there are no plans to put this, err, SUV supercar into full production. The one-off concept will be built by motorsports outfit RML with input from Nissan Technology Centre for Europe (NTC-E).
Other GT-R-borrowed parts include 20-inch ‘Ray’ alloy wheels, and a 7-inch customisable display fitted to an upgraded Juke dashboard. The show car will also score race-seats with five-point harnesses sit and a roll cage – soccer mums might not find this too practical, though.
Forget the daggy Murano Cabriolet, which Nissan has confirmed for production. The Juke GT-R is one SUV that truly justifies the ‘sports’ part of that abbreviation.
The world’s largest Rolls-Royce dealership has opened, where else but Abu Dhabi.
Close to 10 percent of the brand’s global network of 82 dealerships are located in the Middle East and the latest and greatest in the Umm Al Nar area of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates features an intimate 900 square metre showroom including a multi-car display area, coffee bar and private customer lounge.
The occasion was marked by the unveiling of a Spirit of Ecstasy Centenary Collection Phantom Drophead Coupe. One of a collection of 100 individually specified Phantoms built to mark the Centenary of the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy bonnet figurine.
The collection cars feature a unique white-on-black double-R badge, Spirit of Ecstasy inspired coachlines and an inscribed figurine illuminated by a white light emanating from its base. Rolls-Royce says, “Discerning collectors across the world, especially in the Middle East, have shown great interest in these unique cars”.
Teenagers from a low-income school built a “badass” hybrid car that has outperformed other vehicles built by professional engineers and graduate students from Ivy League universities.
The “West Philly Hybrid X Team” is a group of 15 high school mechanics from West Philadelphia High School that built the 160 mpg (68km per litre) Factory Five GTM biodiesel hybrid kit car.
Yesterday, the ‘Hybrid X’ team were honored with the “Next Generation Award” at the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, which recognizes visionaries whose innovation in the fields of technology, medicine, space exploration, automotive design, and environmental engineering is changing the world we live in.
The Factory Five biodiesel hybrid Kit car was one of two vehicles submitted into last year’s Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize with the other being a converted Ford Focus petrol plug-in hybrid. Surprisingly, they made it into the semifinals beating over 80 teams.
Considering this “badass hybrid” was created by teens at a school where 85 percent of students are economically disadvantaged, the award-winning Hybrid X team surprised many including faculty advisor Simon Hauger who said: “Kids from West Philly aren’t supposed to win the science fair.”
“[In 2002], urban high school students realized that these cars were the future,” said Hauger. “But they felt like something was lacking — if hybrids were going to catch on, something needed to change. I challenged them to solve that problem and they came up with the idea of making a badass hybrid. Why can’t a hybrid be a sports car that’s fast and fuel-efficient?”
Not only was Hauger proud of their achievement but so too was US President Obama who recognised their success.
Obama said:
“These students, under the direction of some terrific teachers, entered a global competition against serious corporate and college challengers to build a production-ready car that runs on very little fuel. So as part of an after-school program, they worked to get their vehicles ready… At first, the adults didn’t really think their team had a chance — admit it. But then something strange happened. Where older and more seasoned teams failed, they succeeded…”
A heist needs a few things to be a decent heist: a plan, some guns, a guy to crack the vault – and a driver.
Driving’s a rudimentary skill, like reading and writing. Most of us learn how to do it pretty well at some point. So the driver doesn’t sound like much. But he’s important. You need him to be good enough behind the wheel to burn 200 km/ph and more through crowded city streets with the coppers on your tail.
In Drive, Ryan Gosling is one such wheelman. Well, his character is. Thing is, his character doesn’t actually have a name, so we’ll just call him R-Gos.
R-Gos is a top-shelf grease monkey, a professional stunt driver, and occasionally puts his talents to work as a getaway hound for less scrupulous employers. He’s got skills, and can double-clutch through a swiftly fading orange light like nobody’s business. It’s only right, then, that he eventually gets himself mixed up with the wrong crowd, the wrong bird, and the right car.
Cue automobile insanity. This bad-boy comes vroooming into cinemas on October 27th.
Dan Wheldon may not have received the F1 break that his considerable talent deserved, but that did not prevent many of the drivers he should have been racing against from paying tribute to him on hearing news of his passing in a 15-car accident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Wheldon, who was making only his third IndyCar Series appearance of 2011 after finding himself without a ride at the start of the year, was making his way through the pack after starting at the back in the Las Vegas Indy 300. The Briton was, somewhat controversially, chasing a $5m jackpot – which was to have been divided with a randomly-selected fan – when his #77 Sam Schmidt Motorsport Dallara was left with nowhere to go as it encountered an accident on lap 13. The car was launched into the air, caught alight and collected the outside wall at almost unabated speed, leaving Wheldon with what series CEO Randy Bernard later reported were ‘unsurvivable injuries’.
The IndyCar community naturally led the tributes, abandoning its championship showdown in favour of a five-lap salute to its fallen comrade, but Wheldon’s death ricocheted around the motorsport world, eliciting homages from series as diverse as Australia’s V8 Supercars – where he was due to have made an appearance in next weekend’s Surfers Paradise event – and F1, where many drivers were contemporaries of the Briton as they made their way through karting and the junior single-seater formulae.
Despite having the ability to become an F1 driver, Wheldon suffered from the usual British malaise of failing to come up with sufficient backing to break into the top flight and, after a brief evaluation run with the BAR team, opted to ply his trade in America. Although he subsequently turned down the offer to become reserve at BMW Sauber in 2006 – the year Robert Kubica replaced Jacques Villeneuve – the decision proved to be a wise one, as he went on to become a household name in US open-wheel racing, claiming two Indianapolis 500 crowns – including this year’s – as well as the 2005 IndyCar Series title. Despite sitting out most of the 2011 campaign, he was among those tipped to replace NASCAR-bound Danica Patrick by returning to the Andretti Autosport team next season, and was in the middle of developing the next generation IndyCar with Dallara and Bryan Herta Autosport.
“Just woken up to the most horrific news… Dan Wheldon RIP,” Jenson Button, who beat his former karting rival to the 1998 Formula Ford UK title, wrote on his Twitter feed, “I have so many good memories of racing with Dan in the early 90’s, a true fighter. We’ve lost a legend in our sport but also a great guy. I can’t begin to imagine what his family are going through and my thoughts are with them at this very difficult time.”
Button’s McLaren team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, also broke off from winding down after the Korean Grand Prix to pay tribute to a driver he followed up the ladder, issuing a statement through the Woking team.
“This is a tragic loss at such a young age,” he wrote, “Dan was a racer I’d followed throughout my career, as I often followed in his footsteps as we climbed the motorsport ladder in the UK. He was an extremely talented driver. As a British guy, who not only went over to the States but who twice won the Indy 500, he was an inspirational guy, and someone that every racing driver looked up to with respect and admiration. This is a tragic loss at such a young age. My heart goes out to his family and friends during this extremely difficult time.”
Australia’s Mark Webber raced in Formula Ford while Wheldon was cutting his single-seater teeth in Formula Vauxhall Junior, but recalled their days on the TOCA package in the UK.
“Rest in Peace, Dan,” he wrote on his Twitterpage, “I remember our early days in the UK 95/96.. Miss ya…”
Rubens Barrichello, several years Wheldon’s senior but who knew the Briton from his appearances in Brazil’s end-of-season karting extravaganzas, was another to pay his respects.
“Just got out of the ‘plane and got the terrible news about the death of our friend,” he tweeted, “Will always remember the great times we had at karting in Brazil, my friend. Rest in peace.”
McLaren, Lotus and Mercedes – the latter an evolution of the BAR outfit with which Wheldon got closest to F1 – led the tributes from F1’s teams.
A man from Michigan, US, was arrested on two charges of child abuse after having his nine-year-old daughter drive his van to a nearby petrol station because he’d been drinking, police said on Tuesday.
The drunken dad, Shawn Russell, 39, was caught on station surveillance cameras showing off his designated driver to the attendant: “I got a designated driver”, he said”
“Nine years old. Nine! Listen, we’re leaving and she’s driving. I’m drunk.”
Stumbling back to his van, Russell’s 120cm-tall daughter took the wheel and they drove off. Luckily for them both, they didn’t get very far after a good Samaritan witnessing the fiasco followed the van and called police.
According to police reports, the nine-year-old driver was caught sitting on a booster seat while driving and when pulled over she said: “what did you stop me for? I was driving good!”
Since the incident, Russell was prohibited from seeing his daughter and has additional charges pending relating to being a habitual offender in connection with past convictions on four felonies.
Driving game Gran Turismo 5 narrows the gap between virtual gaming and real-life racing. But by how much? We sent PlayStation hot-shoe Glenn Butler to Laguna Seca in an Audi R8 V10 to find out.
Snapper Chris Benny compares Butler’s GT5 lap with his real-life lap at Laguna. The results were surprisingly close … and the game graphics stunningly on the mark. Except for the Corkscrew. (Brake-brake-braaaake). And the fact that brakes don’t fade on the game and there’s no ‘reset’ button if you crash in real-life. Just a smash repairs bill longer than the 3.6km circuit itself.
For the full Pixel Elation feature story, check out the Wheels, November issue, on-sale now.
