Articles by Stephen Corby - The Sunday Telegraph

Theoretically, HSV making a four-cylinder car is like AC/DC releasing an unplugged album. It wouldn't sound right, it would look stupid and have bogans up in tattooed arms.And yet, as unimaginable as it seemed a few short years ago, it's happened in the form of the VXR otherwise known as an Astra that looks as though it's dressed up to go on Gladiators (that show where lycra-clad muscleheads would hit each other with giant ear-cleaners).It really is an overdone bodykit and seems to have been created by the same guy who did Jordan's breasts.The strange thing about the $42,990 baby HSV was that, at first, it didn't feel that much different to the Holden-built SRi Astra I'd driven a couple of weeks previously, which costs just $34,990.Being merely plain rather than ugly, the SRi won't frighten horses or small children.But it does share the butt-ugly, exhaust-pipe-in-the-middle look that too many designers are borrowing from the Porsche Boxster, mistakenly thinking it looks good. A bit like Lindsay looking at Paris and deciding a mugshot was a neat idea.One would guess what you're paying HSV for is the butch looks and the badge, which is what makes the interior so strange. I couldn't find a HSV badge anywhere.You'd think they'd put in those funky dials you get in a Clubsport. But no, they've just left in the ones that say “Opel Performance Centre” and look a bit uninspired. There's even an Opel lightning bolt, rather than the Aussie Dark Helmet look, on the steering boss.These clues provide the giveaway that HSV has had less to do with this car than Milli Vanilli had to do with their songs.The VXR is fully imported from Europe, which is a good thing unless you buy HSV out of some strange sense of petrol-chewing patriotism.I did finally find a HSV emblem, in the decal on the back window, above the words “I just want one.”It seems a cruel way to taunt someone who's bought this car, making them read this every time they check their mirror. There are HSV badges on the exterior; they get stuck on in a holding yard before the cars go to dealers.Elsewhere in the cabin, there are two nice Recaro seats and a beefy steering wheel, but other than that it looks like the interior designer just shrugged and said “that'll do.” The thing that the letters HSV bring to mind most urgently, besides aggressive styling and loud clothing, is the thundering rumble of a V8.And you're just not going to get that in a car powered by a turbocharged 2.0-litre four cylinder. Sure enough, the noise the VXR makes is as far from a throaty V8 as James Reyne is from Pavarotti. It's more of a 'parp' than a rasp. Give it a bootful and it will start to wax lyrical, but it never really makes a noise you'd describe as pleasant.After tootling around town for a few days, wondering why its 177kW felt so similar to the SRi's 147kW, I finally took the HSV into more appropriate territory and was duly rewarded.Out on the open road, it was a revelation. Finally, I felt safe to press the Sport button, which, in the city, turned the VXR into one of those fierce little dogs that just has to attack every other canine it sees.Sport buttons are often mere frippery, but clearly this one really does what it claims, quickening the steering, firming up the suspension and improving throttle response.After being underwhelmed all week, the amped Astra took to the Old Pacific Highway with all the aggression the HSV name implies. This is a seriously quick car, a second faster to 100km/h than the SRi, stopping the clock at 6.4 seconds.An even bigger surprise was the chassis, which is wonderfully stiff, banishes bodyroll and generally takes responsibility for making this Astra so much fun through the bends.If you're up it, it really can carve a section of road, with its 320Nm helping you to punch out of low-gear corners. There's undeniable lag before the big turbo punch comes in, but if you keep it on wick, it just flies.The ride is still firmer than a cliched TV prison warder, however, thanks to the very HSV-looking 19 inch rims (the SRi has more practical 18s). The steering is good without being outstanding, It's no BMW 130i, or even a Golf GTI, but it's enjoyable.The one big thing this underling has over the entire HSV range is that it's the only one with a really good six-speed manual gearbox. What it really misses out on, compared to its big brothers, is not being rear-wheel drive.I expected a lot of torque steer, but it wasn't as bad as feared. It was there, you could feel the wheels scrabbling and the steering tugging slightly at speed, but it wasn't awful. Then I took a humble left-hand turn on the outskirts of Hornsby, got careless with that feathery throttle and nearly had both my arms rent asunder.Sorry, but you can't put 177kW through a set of front wheels and not have torque steer, no matter how many Mazda 3 MPS dealers tell you you can.Personally, I enjoyed the SRi Astra just as much, perhaps because it's not trying as hard to deny engineering principles and visually it's less offensive. So if I really wanted an Astra, I'd be pocketing the $8000 difference.Sadly, though, neither comes close to the hot-hatch class leader, the Golf GTI. Snapshot HSV Astra VXRPrice: $42,990Engine: 2L/4cyl turbo; 177kW, 320Nm0-100kmh: 6.4 seconds The rivalsHonda Civic Type-RPrice: $39,990Engine: 2.0L/4cyl; 128kW, 193NmEconomy: 9.3L/100 combined0-100km/h: 6.6 secs Mazda 3 MPSPrice: $39,990Engine: 2.3L/4cyl turbo; 190kW, 380NmEconomy: 14.5L/100km0-100km/h: 6.4 seconds Renaultsport R26Price: $43,990Engine: 2.0L/4cyl turbo; 168kW, 310NmEconomy: 8.8L/100km0-100km/h: 6.5 seconds (est) 

Thanks to the fact that a sparkling, new car is delivered and then taken away and detailed every week, there’s not much need for damaging their tender, type-tapping fingers on cleaning products.This is how I first knew that Porsche’s 911 really was something special, because many years ago my boss, slightly salivating, told me that he’d washed his Porsche press car, not once, but four times - in a week.Sadly, he wouldn’t let me drive it – in fact he laughed heartily at the very idea – but he did take me for a fang in it, and a fascination was born.One definition of a work of art would be that you stare at it repeatedly, even though you already know exactly what it looks like.It’s like that with the 911. During my most recent motoring affair with one, I found myself making excuses to go outside and gaze at it. I even took up smoking for the week to help with this.One night I found myself on the balcony, lost in reverie as I looked down on its roof.And it’s the roof, in particular, that was special about this 911 – because it was the Targa 4 model.Porsche has more variants of its 911 than Jacques Villeneuve’s hairdresser has had bad ideas and the Targa has been part of the line-up for 40 years.The traditional Targa top had removable roof sections and was about as practical as a brown-paper umbrella if it rained.The modern version has a seemingly smarter idea, with the entire roof made of glass.And yes, you could just call it a massive sunroof, but Targa is a far sexier word, obviously.Hold down the button between the rear seats and the whopping great glass panel slides back so that it sits flush with the rear window.This takes just six seconds and leaves you with a gaping hole through which you can sunburn your bonce (there’s also a perforated sunscreen that can be opened and closed separately).While this all sounds lovely, the problem is that when you then look in the rear-view mirror you are looking at the traffic behind you through two thickish bits of glass, with the result being a world view that’s fuzzier than a hungover man’s tongue.I don’t want to harp on about it, but seriously, it’s so, so rare for Porsche to stuff up anything that I was taken aback.Obviously, you can use your side mirrors, but this is hardly the perfect solution and perfection is what you expect when you’ve paid $233,600 (or $259,900 for the S version) for a car.Fortunately, just about everything else about driving it does bring the P-word to your lips.The Targa version of the 911 is based on the Carrera 4, which means it gets a stunning all-wheel-drive system, mated to the 239kW 3.6-litre flat six engine (or the 261kW 3.8-litre in the S).There is something that happens to your face when you corner quickly in this car, and I watched it happen to a passenger on a run up the Old Pacific Hwy.First, your jaw drops open, then you shake your head, causing your cheeks to wobble in the breeze, and finally you grin, irrepressibly, like a leering mad man.Time and time again we were both stunned into a silence broken only by the occasional snort of disbelief as the 911 hung on and hung on and then belted out of corners like an incendiary device.Its all-wheel grip is so prodigious that it makes the word prodigious seem entirely inadequate.And all the time the car is talking to you through its wondrously supple yet muscular steering.Going around the bend just shouldn’t be this much fun.By the by, it’s also quite quick – with a 0 to 100km/h time of 5.8 seconds, but straight-line speed is merely a sideshow to the cornering experience.All the while, that growling, howling engine spits its noise at you through the open Targa roof.After a while I must admit I really didn’t care whether I could see out the rear-view mirror.The car’s only other failing was the Tiptronic gearbox, a $5,500 option that I seriously can’t believe anyone ever pays for (but they do, about 50 per cent of Porsche buyers have lazy left legs, apparently).Porsche makes one of the world’s best six-speed manual gearboxes, but its five-speed semi-automatic effort is more serviceable than stunning.Left in auto mode around town it is far too quick to grab top gear, although its 370Nm of torque means it can get away with it.Changing gears using the buttons on the steering wheel is the only way to go, but in terms of tactile joy it’s like wearing nylon pants compared to denim.Frankly, though, I would wear a nylon sack, forever, if it meant I could have kept this car.Combining the joys of open-top motoring with the rigidity and practicality of a coupe is what the Targa model is all about, but frankly it’s the 911 DNA that makes it so deeply desirable.I could almost wash it. Almost.

The liftee looks mysteriously younger and more fabulous, but you, the untrained eyeballer, can't quite put your finger on why (and it's just as well because if you could it would feel gross, like a turkey's neck).Cher, for example, has had so much skin lifted above her head over the years that you could make a Lindsay Lohan out of it. In fact, maybe someone did. But to you and I, she looks pretty good, for a 90-year-old.So, it would be fair to say that Ford's Falcon facelift, known as the BF Falcon MkII, is, in cosmetic surgery terms at least, a success.If you can spot the differences at one glance, you clearly spend too much time reading CARSguide.In fact, if you are one of these people you should put this section down right now, go outside and sniff some flowers. Please.The BF II is, as Paul Keating would say, the facelift the Falcon had to have.With several hundred forests having been denuded to tell the world how wondrous the new VE Commodore is, the very existence of the not-so-new-any more Falcon has been in question.Thus, Ford has spruced it up, priced it down and added some new, bargain-priced fruit to put itself back at the forefront of buyers' minds. Or at least those buyers who are still interested in large, Aussie cars.The changes the trainspotters will be oohing over include a "new, stylish tapered bonnet", a revised grille, a new front bumper, some shiny chrome bits and new headlights.These nips and tucks give the car a slightly more sophisticated face, but from a distance it would be fair to say that the BFII looks a lot like a BF Falcon.Some cars in the range, like the sporty XR series, also get some new bits of trim, but I forgot to look for them and, as a result, didn't actually notice.There are also some new colours from Ford's violent colour palette, as usual, which sound like they were named after female wrestlers and look like they'd be more at home on leotards.Neo, Octane, Breeze, Obsession and Flare are their naff names and if you've seen the kind of lurid, lunch-disturbing colours Ford has been producing in the past few years, you can imagine what they're like.The model with the most changes is the Fairmont Ghia, which gets all the bonnet bits the others get, XR-style side skirts and bumpers, a chrome exhaust pipe and "new block font 'GHIA' badging".When they mention that sort of thing, you know they've really run out of stuff to say.The Ghia also gets new trim, a new steering wheel, new instruments and an onyx command centre, which, rather ingeniously, is so Darth Vader's helmet shiny that it reflects sun right into your eyes.Oh, and Bluetooth is now available across the range.Frippery aside, the good news is that the Fairmont Ghia, which is actually a pretty slick drive with the excellent six-speed ZF automatic, has had its price cut from $52,860 to $46,490, in an effort to make it competitive with the new VE Calais ($45,490).Better yet, the XR range has gone into battle with the SS, copping price cuts of up to 12.4 per cent.The already outstanding value XR6 Turbo drops from $46,405 to $43,990 and the big-nosed XR8 from $51,330 to $44,990.Holden's SS range starts at $45,490.The biggest benefit of this facelifting frenzy, however, is that the six-speed auto will now be available across the range, which is a major thumbing of the nose to Holden.On its own, the ZF box would be a $1500 option, but Ford is offering a steak knives and kitchen sink deal, called a Euro Sports Package, which includes the six-speed box, Dynamic Stability Control, sports-tuned rear suspension and 17-inch alloys - worth a claimed $3900 - for a piddling $250.Of course, this sounds like Sale of the Century, but it's actually a slightly desperate bid for market share, it's not available to fleet buyers and it's only available on vehicles purchased and delivered between November 1 and December 31.It also means that Ford has failed to match Holden in making the potentially life-saving DSC technology standard across its large-car range.Ford says it is merely listening to its customers and giving them the choice they want. Road-safety experts might point out that people are idiots, they never know what's good for them (customers will always choose alloy wheels over airbags, given the option) and that car companies should be doing the right thing and just giving them DSC, like medicine.Oh, the other thing we're meant to be very excited about is that Ford claims to have cut fuel economy by vast amounts, or was it 2 per cent?They're also keen to point out that if base model buyers opt for the six-speed auto they'll save even more on fuel. Four-speed-auto fitted XTs drop from 10.9 litres to 10.7 litres per 100km, but if they choose the ZF it drops right down to 10.2 litres.All fascinating stuff, except that over some 500km driven in various models, we returned figures of between 11.2 and 13.8 litres, which just goes to show you that real-world figures are all that really matter.The surprising thing is that car companies still think they can sell big blunder buses like this on fuel economy, when they'd be better off just not talking about it at all.The overall impression after a day of driving, however, was that while the Ford Falcon BFII range may look a little dated and taxi-like inside, it's still a pretty contemporary, and capable, engineering package. And the ZF box should be an automatic choice.Stephen Corby is a senior roadtester for the CARSguide team whose work also appears in the Sunday Telegraph. A version of this review plus more news and analysis can be read in the Sunday Telegraph.