Practical, Accessible Perforance, with surprising handling ability – wrapped opinion-splitting styling.
 3.6/5

Pros:

• Premium Build Quality
• Comfort, Spacious
• Good all rouder

Cons:

• Option list quickly ramps up prices
• Perhaps not as dynamic as BMW counterparts
• A few engine choice and gearbox choices have faded away

             4.1

Initial Impressions

The C class has been a staple of mid sized luxury for as long as I can remember.

A direct rival to the 3-series, there has always been an indulgence associated with the three-pointed emblem that the c class embodied. They sit in a rather curious sector at the moment. Once upon a time, a Mercedes-Benz was reserved for the affluent whereas brand-diversity dictates that they are now somewhat more accessible. The CLA sitting below the C class however still gives it a status of endearment for the corporate crowd that wants to look and feel the part. With the 2019 model upping the pace again, we figured it was a great time to have a look at the run-out 2018 models.

The 2018 C class is no exception and builds and tweaks on the core competencies of the namesake. The exterior is adorned with LED lights front and back giving a sharp appearance crisp illumination. The body takes it styling cues from the S-Class giving it a large appearance parked up on the road. All of the elegant lines swoop towards the rear and it all comes together rather handsomely. With the right spec, this elegance can be directly substituted for aggression when you start dipping into the Pseudo AMG models. Much like the haloed M badge, it has however been diluted to somewhat of a spec level in many cases.

What’s the inside like?

Enclosed in the sleek German Auto-Body of this relatively base-spec C200 that sits in front of us today, is a well-rounded package. The manual-slide, electronic bolster and height controlled seats dominate the interior landscape. They are immediately comfortable falling into what feels like an optimum seating position.

Mercedes switched a while back – around the time of the C63’s debut – to a BMW-esque interface which resembles the i-drive. This was subject of mixed emotions when it replaced Mercedes’ older platform and I’m still of the opinion that they haven’t quite nailed it. The dial awkwardly tilts on its axis as if it doesn’t sit far enough from its pivot point. The dial clicks rather loudly rather akin to an old rotary telephone. That’s not to say it isn’t an effective interface, it just lacks a little finesse.

The interior is ever so slightly more cramped than it’s curvaceous exterior might suggest – I had two lets say – larger occupants in the kerb-side front and rear seat – and was surprised to see the person riding shotgun with his knees jammed up against the front dash.

Granted that’s not to say the vehicle won’t be more than apt for average sized

occupants; nor is it to suggest that it has any less payload than the equivalent 3-series, but it was unexpected. It’s testament to the scaled down S Class body. The interior does a fantastic job of feeling like a premium product. Leather and metal-finish controls adorn most angles of the interior. The interior is designed to cocoon the driver, with hard corners minimised by the curvaceous, elegant design of the interior finishes. A large piano black fascia sweeps down towards the centre console.

This example comes laden with the standard C class niceties. Satnav is available, assuming your car has its memory card installed. Mercedes’ dynamic mode selection allows steering and suspension to be setup for comfort, economy or sports and sports plus. But does it work?

What about kit and safety?

9 airbags, reversing camera, parking sensors, autonomous braking and not to mention auto headlights and wipers means that the C Class, hybrid excepted, achieves a 5 star ANCAP rating. There are also refinements such as fatigue monitoring.

What’s it like on the road?

The ride around town is cushioned and well damped giving smooth, enjoyable progress. The C class manages to be one of the quieter cruises out there, whilst the adjustable dynamics means that whilst it always feels more at home on the freeway rather than country roads it never feels completely out of water.

The C200 picks up surprisingly quickly. It retains the performance of the previous, larger, 2.0 litre unit whilst rewarding superior fuel economy (it is also less weighty that its angular predecessor).  Flick the adaptive air suspension to Sport + (if optioned) and the car’s handling will be tilted towards performance driving.  It’s a magical system, literally like riding on air; however the standard steel suspension is also very good. The standard comfort level leaves a little body roll introduced in excange for a ride that irons out bumps in the road.

The steering however is not as sharp as that of the 3 series. It is nicely weighted giving good manoeuvrability at low speeds and around town; however lacks precise feedback. You therefore loose a little confidence at faster speeds which reduces the level of engagement that you would otherwise feel.

How Economical is it?

Whilst the 2019 face lift might not be significant on the surface, it introduced more engine ranges and removed others.

There’s a versatile selection of engines available, petrol and diesel. At the time of writing, C200, C200d, C250 and C250d. And lets not forget the C250e which, as you’ve probably guessed – is a hybrid. Both 250s deliver 155kw which is dragged along by 350Nm of torque but with the hybrid delivering an extremely frugal 2.2L/100km if driven with the right intent. The Oil Burning 250d delivers 155kw with a truckload of torque – 500Nm in fact, while returning 4.6L/100km. The “entry level” 200 which I took for a jaunt delivers 135kW along with 300Nm of torque delivered by a 1.5 Turbo Charged motor. It still achieves 6.5L/100km whilst retaining a good level of drivability both around town and in the twistier stuff. There are of course the C43 and 64 models but they deserve their own attention rather than being diluted here.

To Summarise

With the 18 C Class, Mercedes appear to have been trying to extend the reach of the model, shaking off some of the dull, stern-ness of models of old for an attractive exterior and polished interior. And it’s been somewhat successful. In my mind it’s more attractive than the equivalent 3 series or A4 – even though it might not quite drive quite as rewardingly.

The C200 is simply great value, feeling like a much more accomplished, exclusive vehicle than its circa $60k price tag  when new might suggest.  The end result is a well built, well paced bit of executive engineering. As always the spec list is a sprawling list of desires which will not only impact residuals, but also effect your enjoyment of the car from up-rated audio to additional comfort tweaks.

Lined up next to a 3 series, it not only is a viable alternative but a preferred one.

Top 5 driving roads by Bernard

What is the best driving road in the world? We don’t think we’ll ever unanimously answer that, since everyone seems to have a favorite, but we sure can narrow it down. A great driving road, for us, has to be one offering a nice mix of long, open stretches where you can really exploit the car’s top-end, with some sharp, slow corners to test out its turn in and corner exit. Australia offers lots of those, but unfortunately, unless you’re down for breaking the speed limit and getting a ticket, it won’t do, with our strict speed limits and Multinovas hiding out at each ‘fun zone’. A perfect driving road has to be fun regardless of your weapon of choice. A manual car with a clutch, blipping the throttle on the upshift has to feel just as good as a Supercar with a trick Dual Clutch box, because that’s the point. Driver Involvement. It’s a good driving road, it shouldn’t be down to the car. Without further ado, here are 5 of our favorites in no particular order.

Col De La Bonnette

The Col de la Bonette is one of the most famous roads in the Alps, simply because of how high it stretches. At 2,807meters, it’s the highest road in Europe. It offers amazing sceneries, lots of smooth tarmac and unprecedented driving rhythm. The actual road is relatively fast paced, but there’s plenty of grip from the surface. The view from the top is mesmerising. You can see the road down for 5 kilometres, looking more like a racing track rather than a mountain pass.  Seatbelt on, pop the Clutch, and turn into what feels like a turn in to a bend that feels like it will lead to heaven itself.

Black Forest

The Black Forest is considered by many to be the best driving road on Earth thanks to its incredibly smooth surface and fast sweeping turns where you can carry lots of speed in. It stretches south to north and it’s located just west of Stuttgart, birthplace of the Porsche. It’s actually the northern stretch of the elevated Schwarzwald Hochstrasse, route 500. The best trail pans out of Baden Baden in the north, but its popularity can make it crowded. Rise early to enjoy its fullest!

San Bernadino

Ah, the San Bernadino pass. The popularity has made this road somewhat crowded in recent years, but it’s still one of the best regardless. The buttery smooth surface, amazing landscapes and passing fellow enthusiasts make it a driver’s heaven. It’s the best pass in Switzerland, a definite must drive if you’re visiting the Swiss. Clip your seatbelt in, drop the windows and drop the clutch as you glide between apexes.

Transfagarasan

The Transfagarasan is located in Romania, offering 90 kilometers of twists and turns, with steep drops and even steeper climbs. You may recognize it from Top Gear’s Romania adventure, where they drove an Aston, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini up it. The road surface is okay but not ideally smooth for fast driving, so keep your eyes open and reflexes ready at all times. The sort of road where you really need to be receptive to what your car is telling you.

Stelvio Pass

We said we weren’t going to include a favourite, but this would probably be it. Top Gear pronounced it the best drivingroad in the world, and after driving it yourself, you’d probably do so as well. It’s the best blend of scenery, surface, turns and drops out of all the other roads here. There’s just one catch: it’s nearly always crowded. The popularity Top Gear brought it isn’t doing it much good for the lone wolf petrolhead. To truly experience everything it has to give, get a good night’s rest in one of the nearby motels, and get up really, really early.

The Great Speed Debate. By Andy

 

You only have to flick open a newspaper or switch on your TV to find the next high ranking Police Representative making a comment on how new cameras are an essential to our safety on the road. But is all as it seems? Do speed cameras work or are there more risks that officials suppress in favor of easy revenue?

“Don’t speed, don’t get fined. Simple”

Or is it? We’re often told either ‘speeding causes more accidents’ or ‘speeding causes more fatal accidents’. But is it true?

I can’t attest to being unbiased. I am a motoring enthusiast first and a human being a distant second. I love track days, I love big motors and I love the smell of petrol. So admittedly I have a natural disposition for all things anti speed. That doesn’t mean I have a great respect for ‘there is a time and a place’ though.

The Road Safety Commission WA has today published its link to the latest set of speeding penalties

, with the justification of how many accidents are caused by speeding.

In Western Australia, 100% of all red light and speed camera infringements go into the Road Trauma Trust Account (RTTA). Those funds are then allocated to a diverse Program of Works to enhance road safety across the state.

Now, people believe that this fund goes to victims, but that is not the case. The Program of

works includes regional and remote road improvements; money which would have usually come from Sate budgets which thanks to the fund is freed up to be spent elsewhere. That means that there is every reason to be suspicious of the Road Authorities having a vested interest in increasing revenue.

And the alarm bells ring. Supposedly 24% of all road fatalities are as a result of speeding in 2015. This is a somewhat unquantifiable assertion and whilst we can’t be sure what statistics form this account, there is equally no true way to attribute the majority of accidents solely to speeding. The exceptions would be speeding to excess in unsuitable conditions; nobody is going to come out well from a hoon doing 120 through a 50 zone – but to attribute an accident to speed when in reality somebody changed lane and had a car hit them which couldn’t stop in time would be woefully inaccurate.

Which raises a major point. Habit. The root cause to arguably all accidents will boil down to habit. Whilst speeding could prove a factor in many accidents, it is essential to appreciate that if the road rules were followed closely, the risk would be intrinsically less. If people kept left, we would have less accidents. If people did not overtake on solid white lines, we would have less accidents. If people used their mirrors effectively, guess what. We’d have less accidents! And whereas speed may have heightened the effects of these accidents, it’s important to highlight that these accidents wouldn’t have occurred if the correct education and attitude was in the problem of course is that there is no profit in educating. A cynical view perhaps, but it is very telling that we see far less investment in this area of motoring as opposed to the huge anti speeding and texting campaigns.

The university of Arizona conducted a study on the number of Motor Vehicle Collisions that occurred along a 26 mile stretch of road in Phoenix. Whilst the results are stated to have not considered the severity of any accidents, the actual frequency of accidents did not change significantly with the addition of speed cameras. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3861844/ It stands to reason that more speed = more risk of injury but there are so many variables that may make that statement only true to vehicles of a certain age or driver type. So much so that we would never truly get a clearer answer than ‘the majority of accidents occurring at speed X in which people were injured, was more or less than the accidents occurring at speed Y’.

Whilst we’re on the topic of frequency, Whilst I doubt the government has any official stats, first hand I know that I’ve see an alarming 4 accidents at camera sites on various freeways. I’ve been cruising at the limit, knowing it’s a black spot. Neither gaining nor loosing speed with the rest of the traffic, I can only conclude that the other vehicles were at or around the speed limit. Yet one of the cars sees the sneaky camera in the bushes. He or She panics to this added stimulus and brakes because he or she doesn’t have the time to check their speedo first. THUD. They get rear ended and there are broken headlights everywhere. Now, seeing this to me not only highlights one of the risks of hidden cameras, but also the fact that normal road rules and their enforcement are practically non-existent at times.

Pump those brakes!

Another argument for tighter speed controls is braking. The Road Safety Commission will have you believe that:

“Stopping distance is the distance you get when you add your reaction distance to your braking distance. If you’re doing 60km/h, add 25 metres (best case reaction distance) to 20 metres (best case braking distance), and you should come with 45 metres. For the sports-minded, that’s the length of two cricket pitches.”

However you can’t ignore hard results. Taking for example the Ford XR8 as tested by caradvice. A stopping distance of 38.78 is achieved at 100km, a great amount in excess of the suggested range. Of course, many cars on the road are far from a brand new Ford Falcon, but the point casts shadows.

Looking further into the distance, we stumbled across some road tests from the UK’s AA. A 2001 ford puma (which is based on the wheelbase of the same age fiesta) will pull up from 80kph in an emergency in just 25m.

And this trend continues. A Hyundai Elantra? 27m to pull up from 80kph. A 1999 Honda Accord? 26.5m. A 2000 HRV? 27.5m.

Whilst there is no denying that more speed equals a higher distance, it is very difficult to swallow the suggestion that the speed limits and their enforcement is due to necessity why cars even as old as 15 years were rolling out of the factory with the capability to stop from higher speeds in the time that the officials are basing their statistics on. Undoubtedly there has to be compromise as there are many old cars on the road, but with a lack of transparency, it is quickly visible on how unclear statistics can be manipulated to back up a story.

It also raises the question of whether the focus should be on increasing the safety of these older vehicles; but that opens another can of worms in itself and nobody wants to see enforced safety checks or the expenses and rorting that would come with them.

Eyes on the Road

The University of Western Australia’s findings in a conducted study which highlights a particular concern that I have as a motorcycle rider. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-26/speed-enforcement-detrimental-to-road-safety-study-finds/7965082

Where they determined that in their small sample size, drivers responded

Taking a motorcyclist’s

perspective, and what we probably all learned in driving lessons, to maintain a speed in a vehicle not equipped with cruise control, we should glance at the speedometer every 5 seconds.

Hell, we only have to listen to the Government’s latest campaign for anti-drive/texting to know that taking our eyes off the road is lethal. Nobody argues that fact. But if glancing at a phone is lethal, then should we be encouraging a habit of speedo hypnosis? When you break it down, checking your speedo is a complex marvel of the human brain’s capacity. We glance at the speedo, focus our attention, interpret the reading, assess if it is acceptable, make adjustments to our feet’s position and repeat. A process which takes 0.5 to 1 second to complete. Added to re-checking your speed after the adjustment and it becomes easy to see how some people can take 1-1.5 seconds to verify and amend their speed. Every. Five. Seconds.

Now our motorcyclist has a lot more sensory stimulus attacking his eyes. Areas which are clouded from a driver’s field of vision in a car, obstructed by things such as the roof, doors and so on are in plain sight to a biker. That means the brain is processing yet more visual information, and re-focusing on a speedometer may take that extra split second longer. Everyone’s reaction times are different, but even at 1.5 seconds at 5 second intervals, that is an entire third of every 5 seconds spent looking down. Extrapolate that into a 2 hour journey and that is now 36 minutes spent looking away from the road. Not to mention the added eye fatigue that this constant change of focus adds to a driver, it is difficult to ignore the fact that tighter speed controls means more tendency to speedo gaze, which increases fatigue and the amount of time spent not looking at the road. Many speedos display other information nowadays, increasing the split second it takes to focus out the number pertaining to your speed.

Dr Vanessa Bowden came to the conclusion that the University of WA’s study above found that people with a lower threshold at which they would get a penalty, were less likely to detect objects in their peripheral vision. Driver’s capacity to process the world around them gets smaller, the more they need to focus on the task of monitoring and modulating their speed.

“Don’t speed, don’t get a ticket’’

may not be that simple afterall and is about as valid as “don’t crash, don’t get hurt”. The split second it takes to verify and micro adjust your speed could be the split second a child wonders into the road, or a car changes lane in front of you with potentially fatal concequences.

Reflection

We’re not for a second saying that speed cameras don’t have their place. Around schools, in towns and around vulnerable areas, they capture people who refuse to do the right thing. The problem is, they also capture the unaware or those wanting to focus on the road.

It is hard to justify speed cameras honestly and openly, as a mechanism that is more for safety than it is revenue raising.

A hypothetical that I always fall back to after a friend of mine was killed in a road accident: What would have slowed the speeding car down on that fateful day. The driver seeing a speed camera sign so slowing down? Or the driver continuing to speed and getting a letter two weeks later. If speed cameras were solely about safety, we would still have them signposted and they would face a stricter set of criteria under which they could be installed. Signposted Speed cameras DO slow people down at that point whereas the current trend of hidden cameras DOES rise a generation of drivers that might drive slower some of the time, but are heavily distracted the rest of the time.

Our statistical analysis of speed camera sites will follow and be linked back to this page, but until then, happy motoring and stay safe!

There’s not always a reason, but sometimes it’s worth looking at the detail.

The Ford and Holden debate rages on as we near the end of the production of their staple vehicles. I’ll admit that I went into driving the XR6 wary. Wary that I’ve always had the tendency to lean towards Ford in the past.

I collect the keys to the chunky, three buttoned, flip key remote, flip open the doors  and slam the clunky door shut. I’m

greeted by dials sporting a simple yet pleasing blue hue, surrounding an oblong LCD display giving you the vitals. The build quality is typically Ford. Clunky, chunky, and plastics which while aren’t the soft-touch that you’d expect in some premium vehicles, are firm yet, somewhat warming. Some piano black inserts feature in the passenger’s side of the dash and doors, with a silver plastic facia surrounding the central computer and media centre.

Turn the key and you get a little blip of the motor as she springs to life. The engine is keen to rev, with a nice low range torque pull and the handling is very compliant.

The XR6 does a very good job of remaining nimble, seeming like a smaller car than it is. It corners relatively flatly given it’s type and girth, with the traction control kicking in to stop things from getting too out of shape, with all the sideways rotation you could ask for with it disengaged.

The styling is sharp  if not a little to neutral towards the rear, but the muscular front, reminiscent of the new Mustang, wrapped in gorgeous, angular, almost art-deco-esque LED daylights is amongst the high points here.

You’d think then, that the Ford is ticking all of the right boxes – a suitable end for the lineage. But it’s from there that the holes start to surface. Little things, the sum of which dampens the overall package.

I’ll start with the motor. The Autobox is by no means bad, but it does feel like an old Olympian showing his age. Nail your foot to the floor and you’ll get a slight hesitation and then kickdown, and unless you hit it at just the right time, after a second of thinking about it, you’ll get kickdown again. That means rather than an instant pull into the back of your seat, you have a second, which feels like an hour of hesitation as the box second guesses itself.  And speaking of the gearshift, although the manual mode wasn’t too slow to respond, the action of the lever was stiff, rigid and with little motion. As if it was never expected to be used.

Fuel economy compared to the SV6 on a similar run seemed to be heavier. After doing the same run, the Holden needed $58 of fuel, the Ford needing $75. But then familiarity breeds confidence, and confidence breeds more flat out acceleration. Perhaps in hindsight a better test would have been to have taken both cars on an already familiar run to ensure the same steady progress. There is of course the confidence in the car which has a similar effect and I feel this was a little higher in the XR6, with the SV having a slightly greater tendency to understeer.

A mixed bag then.

Then we have the interior. The plastic facsia, whilst firm and sturdy, is made of two halves, I suspect to allow the same parts to be used for Falcon’s supplied without the computer/sat nav. This means there is an unsightly line between the two halves. Again, menial – but something that was in constant sight. The Dash, lacks the soft backed leather that the SV6 we drove recently had. The media centre features a messy mess of buttons which although I suspect will become second nature with time, for the short term did little but take my eyes off the road. ‘’no problem. Use the voice control!’’ I hear you cry. Well yes and no. Although on  the basic level the voice control works perfectly – change temperature, set radio station etc. But where it becomes clunky and frustrating is when you try to use the satnav. It requires an extremely rigid set of commands, no ‘navigate me to spud shed please’ here. (as a note – another issue was that several locations were mis-spelled. “spuo shed anyone?’’) You have to go through each menu step by step which often features the sat nav asking you to repeat yourself with added frustration as it fails to recognise words like ‘Airport’. This is of course not a unique problem to ford, more a qualm with voice activated naviagion in general. The rest of the voice functionality works surprisingly well and unlike the SV6, the bluetooth connected each time without drama.

So the XR6 offers an armchair driving experience, ample legroom for passengers whether in the back, or tied up and blindfolded in the ample boot, and comfortable if not truly sporty handling. The bland exhaust note is no doubt the result of the eco-fairies sprinkling their pixie dust, but the car delivers ample if not excessive power.

I simply can’t call it a bad machine, because it isn’t.  All in all it ticks a lot of boxes and comes at a good price point; As a driving experience, the XR6 does what you want. It delivers in my opinion a slightly more settled ride than the SV6, with ample power to keep things entertaining, albeit with less modulation. But as a package, the one touch down only driver’s window, the lack of keyless start, the lack of controllable parameters from the centre, the finish – all hints at ‘less effort’ put into the final product which is shown up by Holden’s all guns blazing approach.

Slam ”budget sports car” into a google image search, and the first response (at least as I write this!) will contain a snapshot of a Mazda MX5. In fact, bring up the concept of a budget sports car to any motoring enthusiast and it won’t be long until Mazda gets a mention. Unfortunately, ”hairdresser” is never far behind it – but is that fair, or more to the point; should you care?

The MX-5 was released as the Miata for our US friends and the Eunos for our Japanese neighbours and without a doubt there is a reason why it continues to be the best selling two door sports car in history. From an era renowned for Jap Muscle, the original Mx5 came fronted by a 1.6 DOHC 115bhp motor, but weighing in at a shade over 960 kg and sporting a 0-100 sprint time in excess of 8 seconds, it’s very clear that the intent was never out and out pace.

Through several  facelifts, the MX-5 has stood the test of time, in a similar way that the Porsche 911 has.

Perfection through evolution rather than revolution; with each generation sculpted, chiselled, moulded to be that little modicum more compliant than the last. But with the release of the latest model slamming us into 2016 where we have sub 5 second (to 100) hatches, do you have to shell out tens of thousands in order to find a fun roadster?

The short answer would be ‘No. Thanks for reading.’ But for the less easily convinced, you first have to look at what makes the MX-5 so iconic and that is simply that it ticks the boxes that drivers love about the art of driving; and that’s without thinking about the huge aftermarket availability, super and turbocharger kits and mad v8 conversions. My first MX-5 experience came some 10 years ago now. I was being ferried to an office to undertake some pretty critical photocopying and to make up for it, my boss offered to play chauffeur. He was your typical middle aged small business owner – first trimester beer belly, bald as a badger and smoked like a locomotive. We hopped in, he dropped the roof with a flick of the left wrist and we went on our way. Five minutes in amidst a heated discussion with a supplier he pulled over and promoted me to pilot..

First thing that hit me, after the realisation that now could be the time to scare him into that pay rise I wanted, was the simplicity of it all. Whereas the supra like in our last bargain buy (which, coincidentally, I owned at the time!) made a point of cocooning you and recreating a feel of a high tech fighter bomber, the MX-5 had a simplicity and comfort like sliding on your favourite pair of slippers. The seating position, low but supportive. Sporty. The wheel at the perfect height, each lever ergonomically reachable. It all added an element of plug and play that you simply don’t get with many modern and lets face it, complicated sports cars. Slam in the clutch and the satisfyingly mechanical gear change homed in on first and we were on the way. Peppy engine with enough poke to prod us back in our seats, open roof leaving us exposed to the elements.

The 50:50 weight distribution is evident as the roads start to get a bit more transverse, and the steering is direct without feeling sharp. The gear change – like a well oiled rifle bolt – no middle earth where you’re in the limbo between the world of the living and accelerating; or the underworld of crunching gears and slowing to a halt. The beauty of the simplicity of the Mex is that reliability comes as standard. The market is awash of higher kilometre examples, but they shouldn’t turn you off too much. Simple routine servicing should see the 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 work horses into several hundred thousands of happy kms. This particular racing red, black roofed version looked cleaner than a work bathroom. You expect it to be horrific due to the age and sheer number of people using it, but the cleaner has done a great job of ensuring that it smells of pine and sparkles like a dime every morning. Everything was tight despited the 250,000 on the odometer, the few electrics operated quibble free and everything just.. was..

All the above combines to make the Mazda, the icon, every bit of worthy of the accolades it has come to be associated with. There is no better feeling than the lines between man, machine and the outside world being sufficiently blurred leaving nothing more than an overwhelming feeling of motoring satisfaction.

There is a MX-5 for all budgets, from the older aged, early 90’s mk1’s (retro pop-up headlights add a certain charm that we love!) in 1.6 guise, or early to mid 90’s models with face lifted headlights in a 1.6 or 1.8  are all achievable from $5,000 to just under the $7,500 mark. The early versions have aged with a charm that the Toyota MR2 can only dream of; without the awkward engine bay to work in or vague steering. If you can push the budget to around the $19k price point, you can treat yourself to a FSH SE from around 2004. That’s the turbo with around 180bhp, and most likely, some choice mods which will further reduce the mid 6 second 0-100kph sprint time. Whatever the budget, one thing is sure, all models come with a pure driving experience, which is unparalleled.

Until next time..

Normally reserved for those who like to be driven rather than to drive, featuring legroom and rear seat opulence the  7 series normally finds favour amongst executive fleets and private charters, but that is all change for the latest M creation. The new M760i xDrive is as monstrous and technical as the 8-syllable bade might suggest, with it’s brawny 6.6 litre, twin turbo v-12 engine in place of the previous v8, the 2017 M760 catapults from zero to 100kph in just 3.9 seconds. Let that sink in. An executive cruiser that accelerates like a GTR.

The mind boggling specs are due to the 600 bhp V12 which produces a sensational 590 lbs/ft of torque from just 1,500 rpm with peak power hitting at 5,500rpm. It is a showcase for the first twin-power turbocharged v12 from BMW, with other tweaks including air to water intercoolers, a lightweight aluminium block and forged engine internals.

Although on paper the Alpina matches the V12’s power output, it won’t reach maximum output until 3,100 rpm.  Still a remarkable achievement, it will of course be a close sprint between the two. The M760 being factory fresh will be limited as per all BMW’s to 155 mph that said, with the Alpina sporting a claimed 190+ mph.

The 7 comes equipped in this guise only with an 8 speed auto transmission and launch control for aggressive starts. The transmission is honed to the driver; that is, never over-riding the driver’s commands if they desire to bump the rev limiter!