Articles by Paul Pottinger

I may have mentioned a recurring nightmare in which my second car -- gone these many decades after it tried once too often to kill me -- rematerialises.With the dry-mouthed unblinking anxiety that your sub-conscience is wanting to inflict on you, I'm stuck with this crapper as it rusts around me, understeers off sheer drops and generally sucks like an Australian-made car of the 1970s.It's very much like one of these zombie/undead/exploitation schlockers that comprise every second flick released -- except a 1971 Kingswood is far more horrifying than a brain snacking denizen of the undead. Apropos of which, Saab re-appeared in the news this week.The undead and unburied brand may yet be revived in a deal between that unlikely car maker Spyker and Chinese tractor maker Youngman. Possibly only Ernest Hemmingway, who was reported to have been killed twice before he ate the definitive buckshot, had as many obituaries.His death was mourned throughout the world. As for Saab -- really, who cares? While it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a Sino-Swedish prestige marquee of distinction might emerge from this Eurasian union (Lamborghini started out making tractors too), would this be a good thing?Let's face it, Saabs were never all that. They had their "quirks" as unvaryingly were described the oddly placed ignition key, turbos that took days to react and convertible roofs that required building permission to erect.If ever there was definition of “different don't mean better” it was the wares of Trollhatten. Even with the last and I suppose "current" 9-5 there was no sense of this “alternative to the Germans” (as Wheels tend to say) refuting that maxim. The dead ought to have the decency to stay that way. 

While VW managing director Anke Koeckler plainly call 2013 the "year of the Golf"' the current Mark VI is approaching the end of production. She says the new model  to be unveiled at the Paris motor show in three weeks then driven by Carsguide  is not due here until the "second quarter of next year". Prior to that VW have the new Up city car, Alltrack edition of the Passat wagon later this year and the newest Beetle in February  all interesting, but likely marginal. Hence the value adding to these two stalwarts, with the prices remaining the same. Rear view camera and sat-nav are standard on the model year 2013 entry level Passat with an automatic tailgate on the wagon. There's an optional package including  lane change assistant, bi-xenon headlights and Lane Assist. Model year 2013 Touaregs also get better lights, bigger wheels and nicer leather. Standard across the SUV range is the Driver Fatigue System that's capable of detecting waning concentration warns recommending you take a break. But it's the Golf that inevitably commands most interest. With some 900 sales it comprises almost a third of VW's monthly volume, which is up 30 per cent so far this year. Almost uniquely among the top 20 selling passenger cars, some 50 per cent of Golfs sales come from variants price at more than $35,000  although the range starts from as low as $22,990. While the Mark VI is essentially a makeover of the previous model, which dates from 2004, Koekler promises the Mark VII represents a "double jump" in terms of technical progress being the first VW-badged product on the group’s new MQB platform. This debuted with the closely-related but traditionally much more expensive Audi A3. The iconic Golf GTI, which makes up fully a quarter of sale as much or more than most markets  follows late in 2013. Asked if VW, which has been criticised for quality issues and service costs, was retaining customers, Koekler says: "According to Roy Morgan we are number one at keeping customers in the brand. Product satisfaction is there. "We hope to sell almost 60,000 this year, which is double in three years." VW Passat: $38,990 - $57,990 VW Touareg: $62,990 - $83,990  

Unveiled early this morning at the Moscow motor show, the third generation Mazda 6 could prove as bracing a tonic as its forebear.

...and BMW 328i Sport Line.Two old enemies fight a perennial civil war on the Australian frontIt's almost tediously inevitable yet the comparison between the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class has also never been more pertinent nor so closely fought. Hitherto the BMW has embodied the compact sports sedan, the rear-drive, perfectly balanced corner carver - the driver's default choice. The Benz signified aspiration, entry to the prestige touring club, a step to the E-Class.In terms of performance and perception, the entry levels of both were pretty parsimonious. A bit try-hard. Overpriced and underdone. You needed to drop closer to $100,000 than $60,000 to get a decently kitted 3 or C, or one with an engine to keep a Corolla honest.In terms of go for your dough and fruit for your finance package, these longstanding adversaries have never been better value. That you can say “value'' in this context without dislocating an eyebrow says much in itself. The 320i and C200 CGI are not only nothing to sneer at, they're almost too good for you to spend more money.Yet people will and do, climbing to the mid-range 328i and C250. These have the full-cream versions of the turbocharged fours that fling along their respective entry level cars. The Bimmer and the Benz have coalesced in more ways than similar engines and newly non-extortionate options list.What was once the undisputed choice for those who fancied themselves behind the wheel now enjoys not so nearly clear cut an advantage. In this regard BMW has kicked some own goals, four of which are found at each corner.Value remains a pertinent formula at this end of the prestige equation. As tested the C250 Avantgarde's list price climbs some nine grand north. None of the contributing options are are necessary, perhaps only metallic paint (a fairly outrageous $1600) is desirable.The 328i starts and finishes significantly lower, but the $1692 Adaptive M-Suspension is crucial and $1538 Sport Line package includes smart 18-inch alloys. Previously M kits have, in concert with run-flats, ruined many a 3 Series. This one is of the essence. Without it, the 3 Series is shockingly poor at dealing with bumps and corners simultaneously.The smart suspension imbues the Comfort and Sport settings of the Driving Experience Control with real meaning, making the latter the one to select at every opportunity. Am I alone in thinking it’s not good enough that a BMW should need artificial enhancement to deliver on the drive that badge promises? The C-Class needs and is equipped with no such frippery. There's the default Eco setting or the Sport mode. The seven-speed auto is slower than BMW's eight, but kicks down emphatically and informatively. The Tristar car is simply less adulterated, something that extends to its cornering attitude. Its slightly greater mass is felt, but not negatively, even next to the Bimmer's more alert turn-in and adroit stance.Run-flat tyres have become more pliant than the first-generation shockers but their presence is still felt, though more in the ears than the spine. In contrast, the Benz is as aurally ambient as it is absorbent of the road's irregularities.The C-Class's cabin insulation is A-plus as are its material quality, fit and finish. It's sombre in there but this cabin is as sure a sign of the marque you've bought into as the Tristar emblem in the grille of this Avantgarde edition sedan.Having a wonderful time driving a 328i Sport Line in Spain last year at the model's international launch, I still expressed mild misgivings about the pre-production car's cabin quality. Nine months later in this identically specified South Africa-built example, I've made up my mind - it's pretty damn ordinary. As I write this a $31K Ford Focus (German-made as it happens) is parked by the 328i in my garage. The former's cabin is demonstrably superior.The Sport Line is the most popular 3 Series trim package but none are worthy of the sum asked. The accents and plastics are strikingly tacky and cheap. The 3 Series' sole advantage is its driver's position, which wraps you in a cockpit as opposed to the more upright and alert C-Class pew.But in the latter car you're not gripping an unpleasantly scratchy wheel. All the Merc's materials are more tactile and - crucially in a country where staring at the speedo is held to be more important than watching the road - the Bimmer lacks the Benz's digital readout. Nor, incredibly irritatingly, did the 328i accept the Apple lead for the iPhone.Neither has rear seats in which to spend interstate trips, though you've a slim hope of seating a human in the middle of the Merc. The BMW's Himalayan transmission tunnel renders it a four-seater. Better use of space extends to the C-Class's boot, which accommodates a temporary use spare. As ever, the 3 Series has none, although there's room for one. In Europe this matters not. Cop a serious rubber malfunction in this part of the planet, though, and it'll matter a whole lot.The 3 Series is the one that encourages you to seek out bendy stretches of bitumen where - at least when equipped to the optimum - it more readily conveys that sheer driving pleasure cliche. Some moan about the eight-speed auto, but they're wrong.This is a brilliantly adept transmission that's impossible to catch out, so much so that you might as well chuck out the paddle shifters. It slurs though the middle gears without the obvious shifting sensation of a box endowed with fewer gears but - as the speed dial tells you - with deceptive rapidity. The 3 is by far the quicker car.Mercedes steering remains lighter in all circumstances. Equally it is a little more linear that BMW's although the electronic set up with Servotronic imparts distinct and worthwhile feedback. Again though, why not simply have one setting that works? It’s passed the point where tech is unnecessary. Now it’s merely irritating.When equipped with its full optional panoply, the 3 Series remains the recreational device of choice. But its advantage is marginal. The Merc is vastly more than adequate on most roads most of the time and of discernibly higher quality within. The C-Class is, simply, a better prestige car.

Gore Vidal, a man is given to passing sentences as making them, said the "three most dispiriting words in the English language are Joyce Carol Oates". Though having managed that novelist, I feel the equivalent trio in my less hallowed sphere of endeavour would be: "continuously variable transmission".Indeed, a survey of my fellows would find that any sentence starting with the exclamation "F***," would like as not be followed by "I hate CVT". While the manual is history in all but a niche of affordable cars (these are not coincidentally the most fun of any type to drive) and that automatics are of ever increasing sophistication, CVT is apt to bring out the inner luddite.It's not that it doesn't work (though Graham Smith has his reservations). It's not that it isn't clever and generally efficient (though no more so than a torque converter or twin clutch auto). It's more that this increasingly prevalent transmission is yet another technology that deadens the sensation and so diminishes the experience of driving. To the uninitiated, a CVT looks like an auto. This is so in that you needn't change gears, indeed there are no gears. CVT constantly changes the relationship of engine speed to car speed. There's no informative transmission shift as it builds up revs, just a sound like a crow that's caught its foot in a rabbit trap. No cogs, rather a pair of variable-diameter pulleys, shaped like a pair of opposing cones, with a chain connecting, One pulley is connected to the engine (input shaft), the other to the drive wheels (output shaft). Clever. Deuced clever. And damn depressing. Look, at some point we'll all be mere passengers in autonomously driven capsules, so let's enjoy our independence while we can. 

Two sports coupes released within weeks of each other represent unprecedentedly polar extremes of two-door fun. One you see on this page. The other wouldn't normally be mentioned in a review of a prestige car. Having just returned from as legal a fang as it's possible to have on public roads, I'm wondering whether Audi - and its uber-sophisticated rivals - might not learn something from Subaru's BRZ?Chalk and cheese, you say? Industrial beer to Dom Perignon? Ignoring the $130,000 disparity, the game-changing Soob shows us that less can be, if not more, then enough.Autobahn-stormingstyle acceleration means little unless you've regular recourse to a track. Certainly I can't claim to have had any less fun in the much “lesser'” car. Rather more, actually.That said, the RS5 is, of course, clinically excellent, a rousing muscle car with naturally aspirated V8 stonk and sound to deliver on its aggressive and now mildly enhanced lines. “Muscle car”' is the motif. In a sense, the A4/A5 range hero car doesn't have a direct competitor. Sure, it's always slapped up against BMW's M3, but lack of imagination doesn't make a comparison valid.The Renn (Racing) Sport 5 is more an uber-HSV, more American in its visual and dynamic execution - a kilometre-crushing grand tourer and ballsy boulevard cruiser. Despite being a midlife remake rather than a new model per se, it is discernibly improved.Purveyor of the least satisfying steering feel of any car maker to call itself "sporty", Audi's new electro-mechanical set-up flouts convention of bettering the old hydraulic system. But you will want to tick the $2400 dynamic steering option that imbues the tiller with a sense of feedback.Our tester was optioned up to $176,140, with $6300 bucket seats and a package including 20-inch alloy wheels. Take these if you must, but don't whine about getting a numb bum from the unforgiving pews and the terse ride.Also newish, despite the familiar 4.2-litre displacement, is the naturally aspirated V8 that revs to a sky-high 8500rpm, a bit more powerful and markedly cleaner than the previous motor. That's driven through a seven-speed twin-clutch auto that's been successfully recalibrated for smooth delivery at low speed. No DSG-like stuttering here.Hard to complain of the newest quattro all-wheel-drive transmission, which can send 70 per cent of torque to the front wheels and 85 to the rear, enhanced by a sports diff. Again, it's clinically excellent but not the most visceral or engaging get-up.Even ignoring the naughty launch control trick (one warning from the constabulary in a day is enough for me), the RS5 gets from zero to licence-shredding velocity in less than 5.0 seconds with the gear lever in Sport, triggering all the aural response you could want.This is two distinct cars or three or even four, depending on what combination you dial up via the drive select modes, now selected via a dash button rather than by distracting knob-twiddling. Most are redundant. Auto leaves the various suspension, throttle, steering settings to the car's mighty brain; Dynamic engages sport and loosens the leash, but never to any eye-widening degree.Traction is cat-on-curtain adhesive. The bulky two-door isn't easily shifted from any well-chosen line, carrying highly impressive speed with next to no body roll through the tightest bends with a wide open window before the stability control sticks its nose in. After years of absurdly touchy brakes, these mighty stoppers have real feel through the pedal.VERDICTThe RS5 is an inherently well-balanced, hugely capable and deeply forgiving device. It's also one that - ignoring the scandalous Subaru comparison - doesn't offer much more than the $30K cheaper S5. Nor, for that matter does it crease the corners of the mouth in the same way as previous RS gambits. As we say, that's, well...clinically excellent.Audi RS5 CoupePrice: $161,400Warranty: 3yr/unlimited kmResale: 56 per centService interval: 12 months/15,000kmSafety features: 6 airbags, ABS, EBD, EBA, TC.Crash rating: 5 starsEngine: 4.2-litre V8 petrol, 331kW/430NmTransmission: 7-speed dual-clutch auto; AWDThirst: 10.5L/100km, 270g/km COf2Dimensions: 4.6m (L), 1.9m (W), 1.4m (H)Weight: 1753kg

"Youse journalists 'ave killed orf the Foulcuhn," reads a perpetual missive which, though sent via email, still somehow resounds of appalling diction and reeks of a beery aggro.This flagrant reality denial used to amaze and amuse me. It's the equivalent of claiming the Soviet Union collapsed because one spring day Pravda ran a narky headline. Now -- as with all shouty and empty rhetoric -- it merely bores me.Both edifices crumbled because they were no longer relevant and the people, having breathed a lungful of free choice, weren't about to go back on the collective farm.With the financial Berlin Wall that was the tariff barrier removed, suddenly state financed sedans were seen to have little allure and all the stale patriotic propaganda in the world can't change that. Look at the cars that have made up the top five since the Falcon, and of late, the Commodore, began the long slide toward oblivion.Because it has not a single fleet or rental sale, the Mazda3 can be seen as one of the world's most remarkable automotive success stories. Not much regarded in most countries, here it is truly the national car  and a more glaring polarity to those trad Aussie sixes is not to be had.The paradox is, as noted last week in Carsguide, that some versions of the big Strayan made cars have never been better. The SS Commodore is one of the world's bargain performance cars. The EcoBoost Falcon is an inspired marriage of Euro powertrain tech and made for local conditions know-how.And both are far too little, far too late, to save -- as some correspondents fancifully suggest -- either model in its current form. The people have been permitted to speak and none of them want a return to the pre-Glasnost era. 

The new Subaru BRZ sports car -- a highly sought after version of the same Toyota 86 sports car -- goes on sale this Monday at noon. With supply of just 201 cars available until 2013, Subaru expect their version of the car to sell out almost immediately. The waiting list for the Toyota version already stretches into the new year. "We believe this is a world first," Subaru spokesman David Rowley said. "Essentially it is being sold online because supply is so limited at the present time that we do not have enough cars to give even one to all of our dealers. By going online buyers will be able to specify colour and equipments levels, and take care of insurance." The BRZ has a national drive-away price of $37,150 for the manual and $39,730 for the automatic. It comes with free servicing for three years or 60,000km. The jointly-developed Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ has been hailed as the best affordable sports car since 1989's original Mazda MX-5. Toyota planning chief Yoshi Sasaki has called it an antidote for "boring modern sports cars that do everything for the driver". Even with Toyota limiting supply of its version of the car to 250 a month and sales beginning only last month, the 86/BRZ is expected to become Australia's best selling sports car in 2012. In the UK the first year’s allocation of 4000 is understood to be almost sold out. Though not as fast as some hatchbacks - it takes more than seven seconds for the manual version the 86/BRZ to reach 100kmh from standing - it is winning acclaim for exciting dynamics.  

When Subaru's BRZ goes on sale Monday by novel online only means, it'll be tempting to say that you can now have the car of 2012 with its rightful badge.The auto parlor game of the year is arguing what bits belong to which  car maker. In either guise - Toyota 86 or Subaru BRZ - the sum remains the same: that's two thirds Subaru technical know how plus Toyota design (and an engine tweak) equals the best affordable sports cars in decades and currently the best under $100,000.Suffice that while Subaru supplied the heart and limbs, Toyota's provided the soul, the will and the financial way.  So let's call it a draw and crack on in the far smaller brand's version.VALUEJaws are even now being scraped off the floor at Toyota's stunning introductory pricing - $29,990 for the base model; $35,490 for the top spec GTS, plus $2500 on both for the why-on-earth-would-you optional automatic.Subaru, nettled by Toyota stealing the march on sales and supply (250 cars a month to Subaru's 201 for the rest of this year), has sharpened their pricing pencils to the point of pricking blood. Apart from the remarkable initiative of selling  these 201 online only, the price point thereby arrived at sits the Soob neatly between the entry and top spec 86. The BRZ is $37,150 for the manual, $39,730 for the auto.But these are driveway prices, plus a free three years or 60,000km free servicing deal to trump Toyota's capped plan. This for a car that anyone with the merest milligram of petrol in their veins would cheerfully pay double and think themselves possessed of a bargain. The only option is a $1500 leather/alcantara upholstery deal with heated front seats. Clearly a long stride over the base 86, it lacks the GTS's sat nav. But what matters this when the only direction in which you'll head is an open road with many, many curves?TECHNOLOGYThe heart is, as we say, pure Soob - a flat four 2.0-litre Boxer four, though enhanced by Toyota dual injection. Its modest outputs make for unremarkable 0-100km/h sprints (a fair 7.6 seconds in the manual, a cardigan wearing 8.2 in the auto) but this car is about speed off the mark in the same way as a Porsche 911 is about family transport.Revving raspingly but oh so cleanly to 7400rpm, maximum torque arrives barely  beforehand, but there's almost always enough  to prevent rowing - though this is no chore with that lovely short throw, close ratio Lexus IS-derived gear shifter.So far, so similar to the 86. In so far as there is substantive difference between the GTS and BRZ - which both wear low profile 17-inch shoes - it's in Soob's suspension settings. The cars share to the same struts at the front and double wishbones at the back with Torsen limited slip differential.The BRZ's stiffer springs make for what's claimed to be a quicker rear grip response (though you'd want a track to test that) and, more tangibly, even more fulsome steering. The bantam curb weight is anchored by a centre of gravity that's drawn comparisons with Ferrari's 458. And yes, it is the only two-wheel-drive Soob.DESIGNWell, it looks like a Toyota 86 GTS with a slightly changed air intake, a different badge and ... that's about it. It's the most photographed car of 2012 so you probably already get that the rear seats are for parcels not persons and that the cabin ambience isn't going to frighten Audi's TT - though in every other respect it renders that car embarrassingly obsolete. As it does any number of dearer devices, front-, rear- and all-wheel-drives alike.SAFETYThat there is an odd and not an even number of BRZs for sale is down to ANCAP crashing one. Maximum five stars duly won.DRIVINGWe drove the BRZ immediately after a top spec 86 auto, an entry manual and before the near perfect Porsche 911. The BRZ has the best electric steering set up to be had, ever so slightly meatier than the Toyota's and perceptibly more connected just off centre than the $230,000 Carrera. A bit special then.The BRZ is brilliant, addictive and deeply depressing. You need to drop six figures to find something comparable or better - Mazda's able but aging MX-5 is finally surpassed, but then so for sheer driving pleasure are cars with badges like BMW and Mercedes-Benz.Embracing an old formula - light weight, small and willing atmo engine, manual trans and rear wheel drive - it feels fresh and invigorating against a field of ever more sophisticated and heinously expensive sports cars, devices  that are technical tours de force but which can be emotionally bereft. No track day intro for the BRZ, so no lurid power sliding. But during a nocturnal fang on one of the nation's  best bits of sinuous blacktop, the Soob more than fulfills it's part of the two-brand partnership.Swarm into a tight bend, the note of that chuntering four rises to a wail,  the merest throttle input shifts to impetus from nose the tail.  Yet there's acres of space and ample signals between control and untidiness. The BRZ is highly sensitive and entirely intuitive.VERDICTPlease don't drive this car. You won't be able to get one till at least next year and you'll really want it yesterday.Subaru BRZPrice: $37,150 (man) $39,730 (auto) drivewayEngine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder petrol 147kW/205NmTransmission: 6-speed man or auto; RWDSafety: 5 star ANCAPDimensions: 4.2m (l); 1.8 (w); 1.2 (h)Weight: 1216kg (man); 1238 (auto)Thirst: 6.4l/100km 181g/co2 km (man); 5.6l, 164g (auto)Spare: 17-inch

Indeed, if Sumerian inscriptions lamenting the behaviour of young men in their chariots have been correctly deciphered it was ever thus. At least those hot blooded proto-Iraqi lads could handle horsepower without the aid of an automatic transmission.While not of the fundamentalist cabal that demands learners master a manual, surely there must be a point at which ticking the auto option renders you by definition unfit to drive vehicles of a certain sort. I refer to the sensational Toyota 86.I have at last - well only a matter of days after the launch but it felt longer until I got into one of these. Unsightly anticipatory slobbering was dried up on discovering the test vehicle lacked a clutch pedal. The six speed auto is entirely a decent thing, but cannot diminish the sense that the main event comes Monday when the entry level manual becomes available to Carsguide. For this is a sports car in the vein of the similarly diminutive, lightweight rear drive MX-5 another car that while amusing in auto guise feels akin to being massaged while wearing a driz-a-bone.Satisfyingly the MX-5 remains almost unique in that autos are in the distinct minority. Surely this would be the case with the 86. Not, it seems, if the buyer is of today's pampered and dissolute youth.According to the young enthusiast in the pod adjacent, his three mates to join the queue have all shamelessly stipulated slushers. The shifting paddle function, they are apparently convinced, is quite enough manual interfacing. If they can be bothered lifting a finger.At moments like these that one begins to wonder if the reactionaries at whom one used to sneer didn't have a point when they demanded compulsory military service for under 20s. Or perhaps forcibly brand their social media sites with “soft cog''.