Articles by Laura Berry

Laura Berry
Senior Journalist

Laura Berry is a best-selling Australian author and journalist who has been reviewing cars for almost 20 years. 

Much more of a Hot Wheels girl than a Matchbox one, she grew up in a family that would spend every Friday night sitting on a hill at the Speedway watching Sprintcars slide in the mud. The best part of this was being given money to buy stickers. She loved stickers… which then turned into a love of tattoos.

Out of boredom, she learnt to drive at 14 on her parents’ bush property in what can only be described as a heavily modified Toyota LandCruiser.  

At the age of 17 she was told she couldn’t have a V8 Holden ute by her mother, which led to Laura and her father laying in the driveway for three months building a six-cylinder ute with more horsepower than a V8.  

Since then she’s only ever owned V8s, with a Ford Falcon XW and a Holden Monaro CV8 part of her collection over the years. 

Laura has authored two books and worked as a journalist writing about science, cars, music, TV, cars, art, food, cars, finance, architecture, theatre, cars, film and cars. But, mainly cars.  

A wife and parent, her current daily driver is a chopped 1951 Ford Tudor with a V8.

Why is Australia's road toll still so bad?
By Laura Berry · 30 Apr 2023
Why is the annual national road toll increasing despite cars being safer than ever before? CarsGuide spoke to road safety policy makers and accident experts who know why more people are losing their lives, and they have revealed new tech coming to cars that will force us to slow down.
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Chery admits Omoda 5 needs fixing
By Laura Berry · 29 Apr 2023
Months after scathing reviews of the new Chery Omoda 5, the Chinese brand admits the model was faulty at the time of its Australian launch earlier this year but tells us the problem has now been fixed.
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Porsche 718 2023 review: Cayman GT4 RS
By Laura Berry · 20 Apr 2023
The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS was never meant to happen, but this 'Franken-Cayman' is alive with the beating heart of a 911 GT3 - the howling 4.0-litre flat-six, making 500 horsepower and pushing you to a top speed of 315km/h. There are lots of questions, and we've answered them all for you, but there's one you need to ask yourself: could you live with this beast?
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You're using roundabouts all wrong!
By Laura Berry · 09 Apr 2023
Think you’re using a roundabout correctly? Well, there’s an almost a 100 per cent chance you’re not. But don't worry, everybody’s doing it wrong and that’s why it works.
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Should Peugeot do a Volvo and go EV only?
By Laura Berry · 02 Apr 2023
How much longer can Peugeot continue to sell almost no cars in Australia before its headquarters in Paris gives the signal to retreat from that faraway land populated mainly by kangaroos?
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Peugeot 308 2023 review: GT Sport Hatch Plug-in Hybrid
By Laura Berry · 29 Mar 2023
Peugeot's plug-in hybrid version of its 308 small hatch has arrived in Australia and we sampled it at its launch to discover its range, safety features and price compared to fully electric cars such as a Tesla Model 3 or Polestar 2.
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List of the last manuals!
By Laura Berry · 26 Mar 2023
Manual gearboxes are being killed off by the soulless, unromantic savages who want a car with an automatic transmission. Which is nearly everybody. So, the car manufacturers are making hardly any manual cars now. But for the few beacons of hope trying to save this rare animal from extinction we’ve made a list of new cars still with manuals that are for sale in Australia. But for how much longer?
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Is the new Honda ZR-V SUV better than a CX-5?
By Laura Berry · 25 Mar 2023
The ZR-V is Honda's long time coming answer to the Toyota RAV4 and here what we know about this mid-size SUV so far.
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BMW X1 2023 review: xDrive20i M Sport
By Laura Berry · 21 Mar 2023
We're pretty sure a team of parents designed the new BMW X1 xDrive20i because only mums and dads would know that little families need a small SUV like this.
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Chery Omoda 5 2023 review
By Laura Berry · 20 Mar 2023
Chinese carmaker Chery is back and it wants its Omoda 5 small SUV in your driveway, but is this rival to the MG ZS, Haval Joilion and Toyota Corolla Cross worthy of your hard earned? We've tested it over hundreds of kilometres to find out what it does well and also not so well.
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