Articles by Karla Pincott

The five-door Brio hatch would sit under the $14,990 Jazz, giving a cheaper entry point to the Honda brand. The car hit the Asian and Indian markets in 2011, but while Honda Australia told Carsguide in January the Brio would not meet our Australian standards for at least four years, that time span may now be halved. "It won't come in this generation. It is at least four or five years away," the managing director of Honda Australia, Satoshi Matsuzawa, said at the time, adding that "the current design is dedicated for India and Thailand, which is difficult to meet for the ADRs (Australian Design Rules that largely regulate safety standards). However this week Honda has better news. "Certainly the regulations haven't changed, but we're much further down the track in terms of specification for the Brio and the safety level we can get in the car," Honda Australia director and general manager of sales and marketing, Stephen Collins, says. "We're now more advanced in the study of the car and the business case -- we're not across the line by any means but we're further down the track. We can't give a firm time frame but we're hopeful that it will be an earlier date than originally planned. We'll have more information over the next month or two." He says the business car should continue to stack up well as their plans for the Brio develop. "We think the sub-light segment is growing and likely to grow more in the future. Our predictions are it will be quite strong over the coming years, especially as urban customers are increasingly looking for small, efficient -- but still practical -- cars." There's no indication yet on exactly how low the Brio price will go, but there's fierce - and growing -- competition in the city car field. The new $13,990 Volkswagen Up has just arrived stacked with features to battle against Holden's cheaper Barina Spark at $12,490, the even sharper-priced Suzuki Alto at $11,790. Chery's J1 still holds the price lead at $10,990 but recent publicity about asbestos in the car's engine gaskets may deter even the dollar-watchers who would normally sacrifice spec for budget. "Clearly it would need to be positioned under the Jazz, and the reality in that market is somewhere between $13,000 and $14,000 for us," Collins says. "Our strategy is really to provide good spec and good safety. Price is obviously important as it is in any segment, but we're not interested in a base model without much in it. We need to provide the features. The Brio is built in India and Thailand, and sold overseas with a choice of two four-cylinder petrol engines: a 65kW/109Nm 1.2-litre and a 73kW/127Nm 1.3-litre petrol, with either a five-speed manual or CVT automatic gearbox on offer. Collins says the Australian spec would definitely include the automatic, which is seen as being crucial for the target young and budget city buyers. However it's likely we will get both transmissions with only one engine choice. "Our view is that it is critical to have a CVT -- we think to have only a manual would be very restrictive and would deter those types of buyers. We haven't made a decision on engines, but we try to keep our line-up relatively simple," he says.    

Body Crash was created by Adelaide artist Emma Hack, who painted the bodies of 17 men and women to be assembled into a human wrecked car. The final result took 18 hours for the five layers of paint, the posing and photography shoot.The work was created for South Australia’s Motor Accident Commission, as part of a campaign to stop low-level speeding. “This is part of a broader anti-speeding campaign to change people’s attitudes to low-level speeding,” MAC general manager of corporate affairs, Ben Tuffnell, says.“People think ‘speeding’ is drivers doing 30 or 40km/h over the speed limit. But there are a lot more people travelling just a little over the speed limit and they contribute to crashes on our roads. “Even travelling at just 5km over the speed limit can double the risk of an accident -- 36 per cent of fatalities have speed as a contributing factor and a lot of those have low-level speeding.”Tuffnell says the Body Crash piece aimed to engage people with its unusual execution and emotive appeal. “This is something that hasn’t been tried before from an artistic and road safety point of view – so it has a chance of getting the message across,” he says.“We want to show we’re all part of the problem and we can all be part of the solution -- we can all work to bring the road toll down. “Our toll is consistently coming down but still there are too many accidents and people dying. So we’re hoping that a more emotive approach will have further results in reducing the toll.” 

General Motors ran the ad a couple of years ago to promote the 2010 GMC Terrain -- a small crossover SUV – with the tagline: Ideas are sexy too. The court case was brought by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which claimed the ad violated its right to the use of Einstein’s likeness which he’d left to them in his will. Einstein died in 1955 – 55 years before the ad ran – and at the time the estate was settled, a 50-year limit applied to copyright. In a complicated legal argument, the University essentially asked for a ruling to extend their copyright to the 70 year limit that exists under California law today.  The case – heard not in California but in New Jersey, where Einstein died – was decided in GM’s favour, with the ruling that New Jersey’s 50 year span after a celebrity’s death was sufficient time for copyright use of their image. Even if the use was deemed “tasteless”. “The obviously humorous ad for the 2010 Terrain having been published 55 years or more after Einstein’s death, it is unlikely that any viewer of it could reasonably infer that Einstein … was endorsing the GMC Terrain,” the ruling says.  

Nissan believes the Juke, which would sell against a wide range of trendy rivals including the Kia Soul and Mini Countryman, might be right for Australia as people start looking for something different in a city car. Nissan has included influences from across its line-up for the Juke – which is based on the platform of the previous Micra, and tips the measuring tape at just 4.13 metres long and 1.57 high. It’s available in both front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive overseas, with a choice of four engines: an 81kW 1.5-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder, 80kW 1.5 and 84kW 1.6-litre petrol four-cylinders, and the 140kW turbo petrol four-cylinder that will power the coming Nissan Pulsar SS. Sadly, we’re unlikely to see one here with the 357kW 3.8-litre in the Juke-R – borrowed from the Nissan GT-R – with the top-shelf Juke in a very limited run and selling at around $600,000 on special order. The Juke we get will be far more affordable, with the base model two-wheel drive likely to start somewhere around $25,000, adding a premium for the all-paw version. Nissan Australia spokesman Peter Fadayev says production for our market will begin in the later half of next year, with more details on pricing and spec to be announced closer to launch.  

Mini Coopers, Mini Clubmans, Mini Countrymans … hatches, convertibles, ultra-compact SUVs – even a model with an extra door on one side. You’d think Mini had done everything they could with the heritage of the iconic little car they turned into a modern sales success.But there could still be uncharted waters out there – with a Mini boat floating up among their press blurbs over the weekend. Mini in the US challenged their network to come up with something different for a special sales event, and this is the brainchild of their Eastern Region dealers."We challenged our regional staff and the dealers in their respective areas to identify 'Not Normal' ways to celebrate this Motor-Tober by engaging the Mini community and demonstrate why it's an exciting brand family to be part of," Mini USA marketing manager Tom Salkowsky says in the press statement. The boat was the brainchild of the Eastern Region dealer network.The Mini boat – riding on a small pontoon and powered by an outboard motor -- was launched over the weekend during the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With a member of the regatta committee at the helm with the task of keeping an eye on the competing rowers, it makes the little Mini the first safety car for the boat race. We have never before allowed a company to float a car on the Charles during racing," the regatta's executive director Fred Schoch says.Sadly for you nautical types, this is a one-off concept and won't be headed for the showroom -- unless Mini truly runs out of ideas for new models. And on that score, we’re looking forward to seeing what the brand comes up with to top this. Mini helicopter, anybody? 

These grainy images are our first look at the next Mazda 3 – Australia’s top-selling car last year -- wearing the carmaker’s latest ‘Kodo’ design language.The renderings showing the Mazda3 in both sedan and hatchback bodies appeared in the UK, with Auto Express being told by Mazda that the images are simply in-house renderings to show how the design cues could look on the next car.However, since the Kodo styling means the family face is going to be virtually identical across the range, you can be pretty sure this is close to how it will look on the Mazda3. There’s the same large grille and swept-back headlights. However the highly stylised foglight cluster and LED daylight running lights could – sadly -- simply be the artist’s imagination.The 2014 Mazda3 will carry the company’s new Skyactiv technology, with a focus on improving economy and efficiency. In the next Mazda6 Carsguide has recently test-driven overseas, the Skyactiv features included a 129kW/420nm 2.2-litre twin turbo diesel and a 141kW/256Nm 2.5-litre direct injection petrol four-cylinder – with smaller versions of both destined for the Mazda3In Australia, the Mazda3 will face off against the new Toyota Corolla (being launched today – check back later for our first drive impressions), Holden’s Cruze and the Hyundai i30 as the nearest rivals in the small car field. 

Melbourne mates Nick Habib, Jonty Aspinall and Aaron Blanche are the Phat Kebabz – and this is how they do it Gangnam Style. Inspired by the Korean singer Psy’s viral hit, they’ve produced their own version ‘My Car Won’t Start’, sparked by a vehicle breakdown. “It was just for a bit of fun, and also because the original song is Korean you can’t really understand what he’s singing, so we thought we could make a song Aussies can relate to more easily,” Phat Kebabz front man Habib says. The idea was sparked by car detailer Blanche, when his boss's car was having trouble. "It wouldn't start and the song was playing in the background and it all just somehow rhymed in my head, Blanche says. "Then Nick and Jonty were around one night when the song came on, and I started singing 'my car won't start' along with it -- and it went on from there." Aspinall says he has done some DJ work, but otherwise none of the trio has had any experience performing. "None of us had ever done anything like it and we just had a good time mucking about. We were just being silly in front of the camera," Aspinall says. Habib says they recorded the voice parts over a week and then headed out on a Friday night to do the video. It was filmed mainly in the Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne around midnight, with Habib's girlfriend Kellie Vella doing the shooting and editing duties with a borrowed camera, using the headlights of a friend’s Nissan Patrol to light the scene. And the song? It starts with “Stuck in the street in my fully sick Toyota …” and goes on to suggest “We’ll take our mum’s car, we’ll burn her rubber, let’s go – hey – she wouldn’t know.” You get the picture.  

The Nano micro car sells for the equivalent of around $2770 in India, making it the world’s cheapest production car. However that price could rise for a new model Tata is talking about taking into the US and Europe.Tata chairman Ratan Tata told industry journal Automotive News he plans to launch the Nano in the US within three years, and will follow with a venture into European markets. The Nano was originally designed to compete in the Indian market against scooters and motorcycles, but relatively higher prices compared to two-wheel rivals has seen just 175,000 sales to India’s population of 1.2 billion.Launched in 2009, the Nano uses a range of cost-cutting measures to keep the price down. The boot doesn't open – you access it by folding the rear seats down from inside the car -- there is no power steering (deemed unnecessary because of its light weight), a single windscreen wiper, one side mirror instead of two and three nuts instead of four or five on the wheels.There is no airbag or ABS and the tiny 624cc two-cylinder rear-mounted engine puts out just 24kW and 48Nm with a claimed economy of less than 4.0 litres per 100km. The Nano has a four-speed manual transmission, driving the rear wheels.In the Indian home market there is a mid-specced model with air-conditioning while the luxury LX adds power windows and central locking. The models being developed for export markets are expected to be slightly larger with a bigger three-cylinder engine, ABS and at least two airbags to meet safety regulations.Tata’s plans for export are for the moment looking only at left-hand drive markets, so it’s unlikely we’ll see the Nano in Australian showrooms – even if it passed Australia’s fairly stringent design and safety regulations. 

When Renault first introduced the Clio Williams nearly 20 years ago in 1993 (to celebrate Nigel Mansell’s F1 championship triumph in a Williams-Renault) the little hot hatchback swiftly became a halo hero.It was also a sales hero, with Renault producing the original limited edition of 3800 three times over. And we may see the rebirth of the Williams Clio, according to a report on Autocar – with the Williams F1 team having last year signed an engine supply contract with Renault.Autocar cites "well placed sources" confirming that a Clio Williams is coming, based on the latest Clio RenaultSport 200 revealed at the recent Paris motor show, but powered by a tuned version of its turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine (replacing the 2.0-litre in the outgoing car) to squeeze out an extra 10 per cent of power, raising it from 147.5kW to 165kW.The report says it will be around 18 months before overseas markets see the new Clio Williams – and likely longer for us if Australia is on the cards to get it. 

We’ve seen an invisible car in a James Bond movie – and more recently, the same trick on a promotional Mercedes-Benz, with video cameras projecting the surroundings onto the car to camouflage the vehicle, making it seem transparent.But now the technology could be moving into the real world, with researchers in Japan using it to render the rear seat of a car ‘invisible’ for increased safety while reversing.The team at Japan’s Keio University fitted the rear car seat with a material that incorporates tiny retroflective beads, that project the footage captured by a video camera at the rear of the vehicle – which is also fed to a small display screen attached to the driver’s seat.When the driver is reversing, the rear seat appears to be transparent and with the video footage aimed to dovetail with the view through the rear window, offers a real-sized image of the area – and obstacles – behind the car.The system is being showcased at the 2012 Digital Content Expo in Tokyo, and the rapidly plummeting cost of video technology could see it on the market in a few years.“The driver will feel like he’s driving a glass car,” research team leader Masahiko Inami told a Japanese government science newsletter.