Articles by Karla Pincott

Tough guy Willis is doing duty for Honda’s Super Bowl commercial, highlighting that the Japanese carmaker builds more cars with top safety ratings in America than any other brand. To underscore his point, Willis emphasises the importance of the people around you. Friends, family, loved ones, "everyone you care about". They’re not test dummies, he points out. So he wants you to give them a hug. Right now ... go on. "You’re probably expecting me to crash a car or blow something up," he says. Yes, actually we were. And now we feel a little superficial because of that. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott Watch the Bruce Willis Honda ad on our desktop site.  

The times they are a changing. Of all the superstars that would seem an unlikely bet to ever advertise cars, iconic musician Bob Dylan would be the unlikeliest. And yet here he is for the Chrysler 200 sedan at the 2014 Super Bowl, his gravelly tones singing about how well America builds cars, providing a soundtrack for a cavalcade of glorious stars-and-stripes imagery. "Is there anything more American than America? Cos you can't import original," Dylan intones. "You can't fake true cool (cue image of James Dean), you can't duplicate legacy … because what Detroit created was a first, and became an inspiration to the rest of the world. "Yeah… Detroit made cars. And cars made America. Let Germany brew your beer. Let Switzerland make your watch. Let Asia assemble your phone. We will build your car." The ad follows in the pattern of previous years' appeals to the heart of America, with rap singer Eminem also touting for Chrysler and his hometown in Imported From Detroit two years ago, and 2013's poignant And God Made a Farmer. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott Watch the Bob Dylan 2014 Super Bowl ad

A London-based Aston Martin specialist dealership has launched a petrol-powered child-sized DB convertible, based on the classic 1960s convertible designs from the iconic British brand. The upmarket kiddie car available from Nicholas Mee and Co is aimed at children aged 10 years or older -- or at least, aimed at the wallets of their parents -- and sells for £16,500 ($30,900) which is a lot cheaper than the $231,000 entry level V8 Vantage we get here, but a sizeable ask for a child's plaything. Let's face it, for $30,000 you can get a Toyota 86 that will leave a permanent smile on your face, and to hell with the progeny. But the Aston Martin is a lot of toy for the money. Powered by a 1.1-litre petrol engine with a three-speed automatic gearbox driving the rear wheels, the pint-sized convertible is quite capable of getting speeding tickets out on the street -- reaching up to 74km/h. Happily, the dealership says the speed can be limited by concerned parents. There are thousands of exterior paint options, and the cockpit trim can be either vinyl or leather, with a wooden steering wheel adding an extra classic touch. On the features list are an electric starter and working lights, horn and indicators, while the underpinnings include Brembo disc brakes, coil-over suspension and a fully adjustable pedal box "to suit any size of driver, young or old". Watch the desktop version of the Aston Martin kiddie car with petrol engine video here.  This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Maserati has showcased the launch of the four-door Ghibli sedan with a debut appearance in the world’s biggest advertising slot – the Super Bowl. The footage stars 10-year-old Academy Award-nominated child actress Quvenzhane Wallis from 12 Years A Slave, directed in this piece by David Gordon Green.The moody piece builds with an underlying current of suspense, with Wallis intoning a poetic voiceover about being small but dealing with giants. “We were small but fast, remember? We were like a wind appearing out of nowhere. We knew that being clever was more important than being the biggest kid in the neighborhood,” she says.“We wait until they get sleepy, wait until they get so big they can barely move, and then walk out of the shadows, quietly walk out of the dark—and strike.”The overall effect is closer to a movie trailer than a car ad, and in fact you don’t get to see the Ghibli until the closing frame. The dramatic approach was previously used to effect by Chrysler with Eminem a couple of years ago, but it remains to be seen whether it will resonate as well for the imported Maserati. Watch the desktop version of the Maserati Super Bowl ad here.  This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

The Nurburgring is the benchmark for performance testing, so Hyundai decided to throw their coming Genesis -- which we'll get here -- at the track to prove that 'performance is no longer solely reserved for the Germans.Watch the 2015 Hyundai Genesis at the Nurburgring video on our desktop site.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

BMW will unveil the new 4 Series Gran Coupe at Geneva motor show in March, but until then we've already got full details, images and this video of the 'four-door coupe'.The 4 Series Gran Coupe is based on the same platform as the 4 Series coupe and convertible and will join them later this year adding some extra sports flair to the line-up with a lower-slung stance and sleeker profile.The engine line-up echoes the coupe, with the petrol entry point a 420i with a 135kW/270Nm turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol four-cylinder, followed by a 428i with a 180kW/350Nm turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder and a 435i with a 225kW/400Nm turbocharged six-cylinder petrol.Turbodiesel versions are a 420d with a 135kW/380Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder and a 418d (not available here in the coupe) with 105kW four-cylinder. Watch the desktop version of the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe video here. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

Longtime stalwart of The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, comedian Rob Riggle is performing a bit of transformational magic for Ford during the Super Bowl. The key ad showcases the Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan, claiming to have double the fuel economy of the average vehicle.That's the take-off point to a series of magical morphs that show just having the Fusion in your driveway can do wonders for house and yard -- not to forget your wardrobe and pets.Riggle ultimately upgrades himself to Hollywood heartthrob James Franco, and the whole shebang should help put you in the mood for the Fusion's arrival in Australia next year, badged as the 2015 Mondeo mid-sizer.Watch the Ford Super Bowl ad on our desktop site.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

The massive sinkhole, measuring 9 metres deep and about 4.5 metres wide opened up overnight in the driveway of a home in Walter's Ash, in the Buckinghamshire region of the UK. The owner's Volkswagen Lupo -- a 3.5-metre long city car based on a shortened version of the VW Polo platform -- was swallowed by the sinkhole, falling deep beneath the surface. Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service officers attended the incident, and checked to make sure nobody was inside the vehicle when it fell. A cordon has been placed around the sinkhole, at the bottom of which the car is still covered in rubble. The Volkswagen is expected to be retrieved later this week. The emergency services told media the sinkhole was a rare event in the area. “We get few calls of this nature, mainly in the south of the county. Historically, holes have appeared in the area due to clay mining,” Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service watch manager Stuart Grosse told Bucks Free Press. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

For those who want a reminder after the smoke has wafted away, video has been the favourite medium to capture their burnouts for posterity. But that could be overtaken by a new trend that will allow you to wear your burnout heart -- if not on your sleeve -- at least on your arm.Mercedes-Benz' tuning arm AMG has teamed with hipster fashion brand Destroy Vs Beauty to create bespoke bags and luggage. The fashion house is already known for a range of shirts and leather goods that have been given the tyre treatment, and their (not) bulletproof series that's shot up with a 44 Magnum.But the venture with AMG offers personalised design -- by you and your car. The process is simple, as shown in the video above: tape some leather to the ground, do a burnout over it, send to the fashionistas, sit back and wait for bag to arrive in mail.The catch is that you have to be signed up for the AMG Academy to get your own bag made, otherwise you're restricted to just browsing their anonymously created burnout range -- and wondering how you get the job as their next leather destroyer.Or you could brand your own strips of leather anyway, and then head around to grandma's house to see if she still pedals that tough Singer treadle sewing machine. And you needn't stop at burnouts. How about a brake test wallet ... with the massive anchors on something like the SLS AMG, you're only going to need a small piece of leather anyway.This reporter on Twitter: @KarlaPincottWatch the AMG burnout personalised luggage video on our dekstop site. 

BMW was just getting set to unveil their new 4 Series Gran Coupe over the weekend, but were beaten to the reveal by images of the new car leaking online. However the full set of images and some details of the new 'four-door coupe' followed pretty swiftly.The 4 Series Gran Coupe is based on the same platform as the 4 Series coupe and convertible and will join them later this year adding some extra sports flair to the line-up.The images show a lower-slung stance and sleeker profile, with the extended and steeply raked rear roofline echoing coupe styling while still offering a semblance of four-door practicality -- although the side views suggest that tall people will have to duck if sentenced to the rear seat. BMW says the boot space is 480 litres -- 35 litres more than the coupe.The drivetrain line-up largely follows the coupe, meaning the entry point for us is likely to be a 420i with a 135kW/270Nm turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol four-cylinder. Also in the petrol line-up are a 428i with a 180kW/350Nm turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder and a 435i with a 225kW/400Nm turbocharged six-cylinder petrol.Turbodiesel versions are a 420d with a 135kW/380Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder and a 418d (not available here in the coupe) with 105kW four-cylinder.Echoing the price positioning of its bigger sibling, the 6 Series Gran Coupe, expect prices for each variant to slot in between that of related coupe and convertible, meaning a start price of somewhere around $75,000 if the range kicks off with a 420i (which doesn't get a convertible version here) or around $80,000 if the Australian entry level follows the 4 Series convertible in opening with the 420d.BMW has also released details of optional all-wheel drive versions for the 428i and 420d, both of which will be offered with the brand's xDrive system -- although there is no confirmation yet they will arrive here with the rest of the Gran Coupes, expected to hit later this year.“We’re looking at the 4 Series Gran Coupe arriving just after mid-year, early in the third quarter,” BMW Australia spokeswoman Lenore Fletcher says, confirming that we’re unlikely to see the 418d lower level diesel here.“We think we’ll see a similar drivetrain line-up to the coupe, opening with the 420i. What we do look at is that we like to offer quite a lot of variety, but also need to be conscious of the complexity of product range. So it will certainly closely shadow the 4 coupe, which has been received extraordinarily well by the media and public.“What we’re doing at the moment is finalising pricing and specification -- which we’ll be announcing later this month – and we think people will be pleasantly surprised by the prices and the amount of spec for the Gran Coupe.”Watch the desktop version of the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe video here.