March 2024

Wheels

Australia’s original motoring magazine.

Wheels3 min read
Upfront
BEING ONE OF only 16 people to have occupied the editor’s chair at Wheels magazine is an enormous privilege. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t remind myself of that fact. Yet there is one part of my job that fills me with dread. When I acc
Wheels1 min read
30 Days
1. First up, we’d like to wish the Volkswagen Golf a very happy 50th birthday. On 29 March 1974, VW officially started building the Golf. Thirty-seven million cars and eight generations later, it’s still going strong. 2. Strange comings and goings at
Wheels2 min read
The Wrap
Aston Martin’s CEO, Amedeo Felisa, has left the role after less than a year in tenure. The former Ferrari CEO, who oversaw the LaFerrari program, among others, and was instrumental in bringing the DB12 and Valour to market for Aston Martin, has taken
Wheels3 min read
A higher Vantage
ASTON MARTIN has revealed its new Vantage, which it claims is the most focused version to wear the charismatic nameplate. It features the same basic AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 but with extensive revisions to lift power from the old car’s 375
Wheels3 min read
Hilux Goes High Voltage
THE UPDATED 2024 Toyota Hilux ute has been detailed for Australia with a revised look, more cabin features, and fuel-saving 48-volt tech for some variants. Toyota Australia has confirmed that the updated Hilux will arrive at local dealers in March sp
Wheels4 min read
Inbox
Keep it tight (no more than 200 words) and do include your suburb if via email: wheels@wheelsmag.com.au You can also have your say on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (search for Wheels Australia) A MAZDA CX-60 for towing our 1.6-tonne single-axle cara
Wheels1 min read
The Question
Every F1 driver wants to drive for Ferrari at some point in their career, and all I can assume is that Lewis has heard something that makes him want to switch. Maranello has poached a lot of Red Bull talent.. Brian Hill, via Facebook What was he thin
Wheels2 min read
Down by Law
AUSTRALIA’S FAVOURITE vehicles are dual cab utes. Year-on-year, the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger battle it out for supremacy and in that sense, we’re not too different in the F-150-dominated United States. No surprise that Australian politicians are
Wheels3 min read
Squeaky Wheel
WHAT CONSTITUTES a good or bad car is clearly a polarising conversation and something us enthusiasts can argue ad nauseam and indefinitely. But an even more divisive subject (and I think more interesting) are those cars that don’t necessarily deserve
Wheels1 min read
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Wheels16 min read
“It Sounds Like A Joke But I’m Completely Underrated”
HE DIVIDES OPINION. Always has done. And it tends to distil to a single, fundamental question: are you for Senna, or are you for Prost? We can’t resist. We’ve just tipped beyond 30 years since that final podium they shared in Adelaide 1993. A little
Wheels1 min read
Prost On…
“Could he have been a world champion? He was very spectacular, his driving skill was unbelievable, but I don’t know if he would have been consistent enough to be a champion. Maybe he was not a driver for Ferrari. Maybe he was more of a driver for McL
Wheels7 min read
BMW E34 M5
WHEN IT COMES to classic cars, time is a distinctly mutable concept. Let me explain. There are some cars whereby the passing of time has a burnishing effect. It polishes away the rough edges, leaving a perception of something jewel-like and precious.
Wheels1 min read
Fast Facts
BMW only built 891 E34 M5 Tourings, of which a mere 209 featured the later 3.8-litre lump. If you want something genuinely exclusive, how about one of the 20 Elekta specials editions? Commissioned by Italian dealers, 10 Elektas are Sterling Silver, t
Wheels5 min read
Plug-in Hybrid Baby SUV Heralds A Fascinating New Era For Alfa
APLUG-IN HYBRID vehicle is a fiendishly complicated thing to get right. Think about it. You need the best parts of an internal-combustion-engined vehicle, the best parts of an electric vehicle, and then a whole extra entity that seamlessly blends the
Wheels6 min read
Style Over Substance? Maybe Not, But It All Comes At A Price
IT’S NO SECRET that the successor to Porsche’s 718 Cayman and Boxster range – due within 18 months – will be a pure electric vehicle though, unlike the Macan, this generation of 718 will likely get one last update and be sold alongside its replacemen
Wheels6 min read
AGGRESSIVE NEW FACE, MORE HARDCORE DYNAMIC FOCUS FOR DAD-BOD i30 SEDAN
WITH THE inexorable creep towards widespread electrification looming heavily in the minds of petrol-loving enthusiasts, being able to report on an even more hardcore, yet still affordable, performance sedan is something of a Taylor Swift moment in 20
Wheels5 min read
Security And Value Prevail But Some More Punch Would Be Welcome
WITH THE proliferation of SUVs and electric cars, you’d think car manufacturers might’ve given up on small combustion-engined hatches. Yet Volkswagen is launching a heavily revised Mark 8.5 Golf this year, and Honda’s excellent new-generation Civic h
Wheels7 min read
Suspension Of Disbelief
WE’VE SAMPLED the Ioniq 5 N in preproduction form on ice, and on South Korean roads in production guise, but Hyundai has finally called us an hour north of Sydney for a first local taste of an Aussie-spec 5 N. Short on distance but not on bumps, the
Wheels8 min read
A Very British Coupe
THERE’S SOME debate about exactly who invented the grand touring coupé but very little about where, in national terms, it happened. The popular response to the question of what the first and defining example was is the 1951 Lancia Aurelia B20 GT. It
Wheels1 min read
When Less Is Not Always More
IT'S ALL ABOUT DOWNSIZING, right? By common consent, we have the technological know-how to be able to do the work of a big engine with a small one. And so it proves in this instance. Here we have a 4.0-litre V8 in the DB12, a 3.9-litre V8 in the Ferr
Wheels1 min read
Inner Focus
THINGS ARE A BIG improvement over Aston's recent efforts, ringing in Aston Martin's, allegedly, 'in-house' operating system, featuring dual 10.25-inch monitors, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and, thankfully, physical hard switches for many
Wheels9 min read
Nine Greatest Golfs
FIFTY YEARS ago this month, production began on the Volkswagen Golf, with sales starting in May. Few who worked on development project EA337 would ever grasp the scope of its success, but everybody who was involved realised what was at stake: the ver
Wheels8 min read
Shades of Grey
The editorial meeting is a bit like an AA meeting: we petrolheads are still struggling a bit with withdrawal problems. We find it hard to accept that a Lotus doesn’t handle much better than the rest. By all rights it should, but that’s just what we’v
Wheels1 min read
Inner Focus
THE SQ8’S CABIN is a good deal more familiar. The digital array comprises a 10.5-inch central infotainment touchscreen, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and an ancillary 8.6-inch monitor that takes care of climate-control duties and driving mod
Wheels14 min read
Rock Star
OFF-ROADING in a Porsche hasn’t implied anything remarkable since 2002, when the former sports-car specialist wheeled out its Cayenne SUV. But in the four decades prior, the company’s signature 911 coupe had been making storied excursions away from t
Wheels1 min read
911 wins Paris-Dakar
INSPIRED BY ITS 1981 911 Cabriolet 4x4 concept and no doubt noting the Group B success of Audi’s Ur Quattro, Porsche adopted all-wheel drive for a 1984 assault on Africa’s already-legendary long-distance off-road race. Since the Paris-Dakar’s 1978 de
Wheels3 min read
Chief Urban
IF FAMILIARITY breeds contempt, then maybe I haven’t spent enough time indulging in the MG 4 Excite 64 yet. Every time I walk towards it, my broad affection for what it brings to affordable EVs seems to expand infinitesimally. Bit by bit, its handy s
Wheels2 min read
A Pony By Any Other Name…
Every once in a while, I’ll shlep along to the Highball Cars and Coffee meet at Bosch’s plant in Clayton. It’s a great opportunity to see what Melbourne’s magnificent car tragics will bowl up and it’s never boring. Someone will have plumbed a Barra e
Wheels1 min read
Databank
PRICE Recommended retail figure at time of publication (asterisk indicates driveaway price) ENGINE TYPE L, in-line; V, vee; F, flat. Number of cylinders. T, turbo; S, supercharged; D, diesel; H, hybrid; E, electric SIZE Litres or kWh POWER kW TORQUE
Wheels2 min read
Sport Turismo
CELEBRATING THE WAGON is a stereotypical carguy trope, alongside lauding weight reduction, championing the manual gearbox, and talking about polar moments of inertia without any basic understanding of physics. With that in mind, it’s with much gnashi

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