2017 was a big news year but mainly for the wrong reasons. The closure of local manufacturing dominated the news agenda, we had the lingering rumblings of Dieselgate casting a shadow over the industry and Tesla discovered that selling a dream was far easier than teaching a robot to spot weld.

In amongst the doom and gloom were a number of big stories that got us interested. Here are our top five for the year.

1. Walkinshaw Wildfire

Who doesn’t like the idea of a 300kW+ mega-ute? We certainly do, and if we can no longer buy a Maloo, a LF3-engined Colorado sounds a pretty exciting Plan B. Any news on Walkinshaw or HSV certainly got the attention of Wheels readers, with this news story almost melting down our social media pages.

MORE more about the Walkinshaw

2. HSV GTS-R W1 revealed

hsv gts-r w1

Read about the HSV GTS-R W1 reveal here.

3. Mazda SkyActiv-X tech

Mazda skyactiv x
MORE Skyactiv-X tech

4. Jaguar goes all electric for the F-TYPE

fpace electric

Read the scoop here!

5. JLR-s three-pot Ingenium engine

Ingenium engine
MORE Ingenium engine