car buyer

and the natural competitors line up.... It’s not due into the country until later next year, but already the Chevrolet C8 Corvette has tongues wagging, and GM fans saving their pennies. As Wheels understands, the C8 Corvette will be priced between $150,000 and $170,000 when it arrives on our shores in right-hook form. This gives us a well-defined price bracket to play in when it comes to finding its natural rivals. Before we get into some on-paper comparisons, we nee...
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THE FINAL VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE HAS ROLLED OFF THE PRODUCTION LINE 23m+ models later, the Beetle is no more VOLKSWAGEN is entering a new era as a car maker: for the first time since it restarted production after the Second World War, it won’t have a Beetle in its model range. Though the third-generation model you see here is only loosely connected to the original “people’s car”, the retirement of the long-running model brings to an end VW’s 81 year run of on-and-off Beetle production....
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Overall Rating Plus & Minus PlusComfort; discretion; great after-sales package MinusFeels old; no smartphone mirroring; questionable resale values The Wheels Verdict: Exhuming the Genesis and giving it a modest refresh and rebadge doesn’t seem a formula for success, but there’s a small market niche – and small is all that Genesis needs right now – that will adore the formula of this relaxed and refined highway cruiser. WHAT IS THE GENESIS G80?...
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Electric Hot Hatch LAST time Mini turned its three-door hatch fully electric, the rear seats vanished, boot space shrank and weight increased 300kg. That was back in 2008, just 600 were leased, but the Mini E did inform development of the BMW i3. Now the i3’s repaying the favour by donating its EV technology to a proper series-production electric Mini, the packaging compromises all but eliminated. Promisingly, ‘Cooper S’ has been inserted between ‘Mini’ and ‘E’. We’re driving...
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BMW’s all-new 1 Series range – front wheel drive is the discussion piece. BMW’s all-new 1 Series has been officially revealed and it’s sure to divide opinion. Let’s just say it’s deviated quite a way from the established 1 Series template that we’ve become used to ever since the car first launched in 2004. In the intervening 15 years, we’ve accepted the baby BMW as a rear-drive hatch, then spawning coupe and cabriolet variants. But BMW has finally realised that a rear-drive hatchbac...
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Small car imports from Ford and Holden in a face-off. As far as fair fights go, this one may raise an eyebrow from both the bookies and the managers of both combatants. In the blue corner is the box-fresh, fourth-generation Ford Focus, a car Blue Oval insiders tout as “the best Ford we’ve ever built.” In the red corner we have the seventh-generation Holden Astra, an accomplished small car, no question, but three years older than the Focus, and a perennial underachiever on the Aussie sales c...
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A facial makeover, plus safety and mechanical upgrades for the Triton necessitate a comparison to it's logical rivals. WHAT YOU see here is Mitsubishi’s new 2019 MR Triton. It’s not so much of an all-new model but more a mid-life refresh of the fifth-generation MQ that arrived in Australia four years ago. Most obviously the MR brings distinctive new styling, but there’s also new active safety kit and, the most significant mechanical change,...
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Nothing to hate - lots to like! What I hate most about Hugh Jackman is that there’s nothing to hate about Hugh Jackman. He’s just too much of a good bloke to be hated in any way. That’s pretty much how I’m feeling about the 6 Atenza wagon, which, after five months as its happy custodian, I’m begrudgingly returning to Mazda. It’s not perfect by any means, and there are things I dislike. The A-pillars are overly thick, the infotainment screen is small compared to a...
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Large upward steps for MB's small four-door coupe! Overall Rating Plus & Minus PlusSlick interior; handling poise; sleeker styling MinusClunky gear shifter; bloatware built into infotainment; no wagons for Australia The Wheels Verdict: From a relative bit-part player, the CLA has emerged as one of Mercedes’ quiet stars. The latest model is bigger, prettier and a lot more assured and, for the time being at least, makes a lot more sense to us than a C-Class. ...
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Which one is for You? There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, where small cars from the premium brands could justify their dizzying prices because of not just their badges, but clear superiority in terms of design sophistication, perceived quality, higher grade materials, and extra safety and convenience features. But that was then. In 2019 we’re dealing with a very different paradigm; the arrival of the new, fourth-generation Mazda 3, and the steadily refined VW Golf, are two ...
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The GT coupe gets an update for 2019. Overall Rating .. 4/5 stars PLUS & MINUS Sense of occasion, improved agility, classier cabin Cumbersome at low speed, awkward gear selector, no more power THE WHEELS VERDICT The AMG GT slides into 2019 with a slicker presentation but the dynamics haven’t stepped forward quite so markedly. For those who like a loud and slightly brash coupe or cabrio, that won’t matter. If you really extend the latest GT you’ll find additional...
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7 Seats.....and space to burn..... It’s over-size and about to be over here, so could BMW’s flagship SUV be your new luxo seven-seater family hauler? Ash Westerman delivers the Wheels verdict WHAT IS IT? BMW’s new flagship SUV. WHY ARE WE DRIVING IT? BMW’s USA-based launch program saw waves of journalists driving a fleet of X7s from Florida to Palm Springs in California over six weeks. Wheels was given the 550km leg from Baton Rouge in Louisiana to Houston in Texas. No alligator...
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Colorado and Triton kicking goals..... Holden is taking a hit as it restructures some of its passenger car line-up to focus on SUVs, but the Colorado ute is already on the way up. Slipping to tenth spot on the ladder in March, the Lion Brand is picking up some of the pieces to rebuild itself as old faithfuls like the Commodore and Astra continue to drop market share. First quarter-2019 sales figures show the Colorado has enjoyed the strongest sales increase quarter-on-quarter of ...
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Here's the logic - straight from the source...... Vinesh Bhindi is all about offering choice. Mazda Australia's CEO sits back and smiles when asked why the CX-30 is here. “It fits in very nicely with our strategy which is to offer as broad a choice as we can in Australia. If you look at what's happened in the past few years, it's clear that consumers enjoy choice,” he says. “Australia has the most comprehensive SUV choice of any Mazda market.” “It's still too early to t...
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As we wait patiently they will die...... We’re an inclusive bunch here at Wheels, celebrating cars in all shapes and sizes. Well, almost all. No matter how hard I try to be accepting of the things, I’m really struggling with SUV Coupes. You know the ones – high riding trucks with a gently raked rear window – that deliver the dynamic compromises of an SUV with the packaging shortcomings of a fastback. They’re like a perfect storm of ineptitude. Porsche is entering the fra...
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Some tweaks to looks and drive train! HSV has confirmed it will sell the updated MY19 Chevrolet Camaro 2SS in Australia later this year, with new styling and two new transmissions, one of which features a Mustang-shaming burnout mode. The updates accompany the arrival of the wild-new Camaro ZL1 and mean that Aussies will finally be able to access MY19 Camaros via HSV.  The legendary US pony car was updated Stateside last year, but HSV has until now been converting pre-facelift ...
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Toyota Australia remains unconcerned.... Until recently, the Toyota Corolla has been a venerable sales juggernaut, providing Toyota Australia a license to print money. However, now sales have begun to slow, with rivals like the Mazda 3 and Hyundai i30 eating into the Corolla’s sales dominance. Worryingly for Toyota Australia, the introduction of a new generation Corolla seems unable to stop the slow-down, with a number of poor sales months since it was introduced l...
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When Chris Goffey tested the Lexus LS 400 for Top Gear in 1990, he claimed that it was “petrifyingly good”. A rather appropriate turn of phrase, because the bosses at Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar must have felt a little petrified when Japan’s first global luxury car wafted into view at the 1989 Detroit Auto Show. Twenty years on, it would be easy to be a tad dismissive of the LS 400, maybe rolling out the tiresome reference to the ‘Japanese S-Class’ as...
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