Articles by Stuart Innes

Luxury car maker Lexus has distinguished its big four-wheel drive from the Toyota LandCruiser 200 on which it is based by installing a bigger V8 petrol engine. The new LandCruiser 200 has a 4.7-litre V8 petrol engine capable of 202kW of power and 410Nm of torque or, at a premium price, a 4.5-litre twin-turbo V8 diesel giving 195kW of power and 650Nm of torque. But the coming Lexus LX 570 version will have a 5.7-litre V8 petrol engine of about 270kW of power and around 530Nm of torque. This is 100kW more than the outgoing LX 470 wagon. The big V8 will run to a six-speed automatic transmission with sequential shift. The new Lexus is for people who want the tops in luxury yet with serious off-road abilities in a big and strong, yet comfortable wagon. And people who can pay for it. The outgoing LX 470 has been listed at $123,000 and we can't see the new one with its extra technology being any less. Although, for the first time, the Lexus LX will be offered in two grades of trim so buyers who don't want all the gadgets don't have to pay. Each version will have 10 airbags and vehicle stability system. The upper-grade model will have a wide-view front-and-side camera monitor to help in parking and easing through off-road obstacles. A crawl control introduced on the latest LandCruiser 200 also will go into the LX. It helps when driving over rough surfaces by allowing the driver to forget about accelerating or braking, while concentrating on steering. The upper model might even have a power-opening and closing tail gate, commanded by the key fob and a cabin switch. It will have adjustable height suspension, giving 225mm ground clearance, 31-degree approach angle and 23-degree departure angle in the top setting. Expect the 5.7-litre engine in a big, heavy car to get through petrol. It has a 93-litre tank.

Holden Astra has become Australia's best-selling European import for good reason - and the best-looking, best-value version arguably is the Astra CD Coupe.The Astra range of four-cylinder small cars is comprehensive. It starts at $21,990 for the CD five-door hatchback, although price reductions often are offered.The range includes the five-door hatchback, a stretched-wheelbase station wagon, a three-door coupe and goes to the $47,490 Twin-Top Convertible. It covers standard CD, better equipped CDX and the overtly sporty SRi models.And it includes four engines - a standard 1.8-litre, more beefy 2.2-litre, a turbocharged two-litre pocket rocket (all petrol) and a 1.9-litre turbocharged diesel. Five engines, if you count the different states of tune of the diesel for manual and for automatic cars.In the previous TS Astra, the three-door coupe was the best looking. It's the same again in this AH series. The coupe sits low, with an almost fastback-style rear bodywork, but still has the practicality of a hatch.As tested, the Astra CD coupe costs just $23,990 for the five-speed manual, a good gearbox to use with a light clutch and certain gearshift. A four-speed automatic is another $2000.For $23,990, you get airconditioning, 15in alloy wheels, ABS disc brakes, remote central locking, cruise control (albeit fiddly to use) and a seven-speaker sound system with steering-wheel controls.There is little obvious corner cutting to get it down to this price; it even has a gas-strut bonnet and touch-pad hatch release. The downside of the sloping rear and small rear window is the restricted rear vision for the driver.Parking sensors would help but they are unavailable as a factory-fitted option.The Coupe sits lower and has a firmer, more sporty suspension than the hatchback or wagon.It doesn't mind a bit of press-on driving on twisting roads. yet the 195/65 tyres have sensibly sized sidewalls so there's little harshness over potholes and ridges.The steering wheel has height and reach adjustment and the seats are comfortable yet supportive. The driver's seat can be adjusted for height.The front seat backs tip forward and the seat slides ahead to allow access to the rear. Headroom is adequate in the rear for average-size adults but remember this is a coupe and based on a small car.Astra Coupe is 4250mm long and 1753mm wide.The standard 1.8-litre engine is stronger than before - now 103kW of power at 6300rpm, which is a welcome 11kW more, and a touch more torque, now 175Nm.The Coupe meets Euro IV emission standards.There's not much urge below 2000rpm but between 2000rpm and 3000rpm, the Coupe has brisk enough acceleration without needing to thrash the car.The official fuel economy is 7.4 litres/100km. At 110km/h, it cruises at 3200rpm in fifth gear.Even the CD version comes with driver and passenger front airbags and front side impact bags (upper models also get curtain airbags).The usual Astra complaints remain; no temperature gauge, no cup holder, and some road noise intrudes.This is a good-looking, excellent value and economic Euro-built car that is pleasant to drive in city traffic or Hills and country.

It has announced the price of a new vehicle, due here in May, but not its engine type.Normally, it's the other way around.Nevertheless, Kia is wanting to get the message out that its new Rondo will be the lowest-priced seven-seater on sale in Australia - from $24,990.The Rondo is described as part-SUV, part people mover, part station wagon and part hatch. It rings a bell in that Ford Australia worked hard to get the overlap right of people mover, four-wheel-drive and passenger car when it created its Territory.Expect the Rondo, however, to be smaller than Territory. Yet it will have a high ride height that gives the visibility. “No other vehicle has quite the same configuration of seats, doors and body style,” says Kia Motors Australia chief Peter Nochar. “It combines the benefits of four conventional segments in one package.” He calls it an urban recreation vehicle.When details of the power plant and driveline are yet to be announced, Kia has at hand a 2.7-litre V6 used in its eight-seat Carnival. It has a two-litre, four-cylinder capable of 105kW of power and 186Nm of torque in the Cerato and a 2.4-litre of 119kW/221Nm in the Magentis. However, Kia might go for a diesel; its Sportage compact SUV, for example, has a turbodiesel generating 103kW and the 304Nm would be handy in hauling seven people. 

The Clipsal 500 pre-race drivers' autograph session has become a traditional highlight of race week.And hundreds turned out for the event in a closed-off section of Pulteney St, city, waiting in long queues to move along the Holden or Ford drivers' tables to get items signed.Adjacent was the Pit Stop Challenge of celebrities and grid girls trying their hand at quick-time wheel changing and visited by motor sport doyen Murray Walker, here from the UK again for the big race.“The atmosphere in Adelaide is second to none,” said current V8 Supercar champion Rick Kelly, of the HSV team, while signing fans' memorabilia."“We're happy to do these autograph sessions. It's all part of the job but it's fun."“I've signed just about everything over the years - you name it, we've signed it.”Fans yesterday had model race cars, the official 2008 Clipsal Adelaide 500 race program, V8 Monopoly boards, posters, photographs, car parts and clothing, including shirts, some still being worn.Holden enthusiast Brett Shillabeer, 35, of Greenwith, took a rear wing from an SS Commodore to be signed by the Holden race drivers.“It's from a storeroom at work,” he said.“It was taken off a company car.”Young race-fan mates Andrew Yoemans, 5, Ryan Mayo, 6, and his brother Liam, 4, also from Greenwith, were getting drivers' signatures and are all set for four days at the track starting this morning.“Mark Skaife is my favourite but Rick Kelly is the best,” Ryan said.

The 11th-hour withdrawal of a two-car team, WPS Racing, has left just 29 cars entered in this first round of the 2008 V8 Supercar Championship.It's the smallest field ever in the Adelaide 500, the inaugural race in 1999 having 40 starters, selected by qualifying from 54 entrants.Since then, the strict licence-franchise arrangements to have a car on the grid has capped the field at 32.In recent years, the sport's governing body, V8 Supercars Australia, has kept one licence in reserve as 31 cars have raced.However, the late withdrawal last week of the WPS outfit run by Queensland businessman Graig Gore has cut two cars from the field, not allowing enough time for any aspiring team to get the backing to take over the available licences.It also means that popular driver and former Bathurst race winner Jason Bargwanna has been robbed of being among the handful of drivers to contest all 10 years of the Adelaide 500. The other driver left marooned is Max Wilson.Gore, 41, cited health reasons and business commitments for pulling out. He suffered an inner-ear injury.V8 Supercars Australia spokesman Cole Hitchcock argued yesterday that a 29-car field would still provide a good sight and a good race in Adelaide.“It's not desirable,” he said of the late withdrawal.“But 29 cars is not an issue. It won't lessen the spectator appeal or the racing itself,” Hitchcock said.In turn, each of those teams will sell their current “level-two” licences back to V8 Supercars Australia who can then sell them to new entrants if approved.A level-one licence gives a team greater rights and a greater share of V8 Supercars Australia dividends.Team BOC, run by Brad and Kim Jones, was quick to pounce, yesterday announcing it had secured the WOW sponsorship that had been with the WPS team.The sponsor is making a last-minute move to the Team BOC stable, which already has new life breathed into it by switching from Falcon to Holden, getting two near-new VE Commodores from Holden Racing Team. Experienced Cameron McConville will drive one of the cars.Clipsal 500 chief executive Andrew Daniels said he would prefer a full grid but the matter was out of the hands of the Adelaide race promoters.“We would love a full field of 32 cars. But 29 is not an issue. They are all professional teams and they'll have good, close racing.“The privateers are disappearing from the top ranks, leaving the more-professional teams whose cars have greater reliability and aren't likely to fall out of he race.” 

All the Victorian teams in the V8 Supercar Championship, along with those from the division-two Fujitsu Series, took to the twisting Winton racetrack in north Victoria yesterday.It was the first time they were allowed to track test their new or rebuilt cars for 2008, with the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.New champion Garth Tander's move to HRT, with a few senior engineers from HSV going with him, already looks successful.In a brand-new racing VE Commodore, Tander set the fastest lap time at Winton, 1min 23.6sec.Next was another Holden driven by his former team-mate and 2006 champion Rick Kelly, still with HSV, on 1:23.88.Lee Holdsworth, in a Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore, was a good third quickest (1:23.89) and Mark Skaife, Tander's HRT team-mate, fourth fastest (1:24.02).Team BOC has ex-HRT Holdens and its driver Andrew Jones was high on the charts early. The best Ford driver through the day was Steven Richards, although FPR team-mate Mark Winterbottom's late lap of 1:24.29 was .02sec better. Tander was happy with the new car and its lap speed as he eyes the Clipsal 500, the opening round of the 2008 championship.“Today's been great preparation for the Clipsal,” he reported late in the day.“We've been ticking all the boxes in time for the event."“The new car is great and we've been doing long runs to get miles on the new car and test all the components."“I believe we're in very good shape - even better than last year, so I'm confident of a good result.”HRT has been the most successful team in the past 10 years of the 500 in Adelaide.HRT team manager Rob Crawford said the Clipsal 500 was the toughest race of the year for drivers, cars and teams and Winton's test had been used as much as possible to replicate the Adelaide conditions.“Adelaide is Holden's home and it's important to Holden and HRT that we perform well,” he said.“I don't think we could have had a better preparation.” 

You want cool wheels? Then stick a car into a big tank of water and turn it to ice. It has to be the ultimate ice block for car enthusiasts on a hot day.The car here is an Aston Martin. The British maker of flashy sports cars provided this image to mark its award as the Britain's Coolest Car for the second year running.The award comes from the CoolBrands Council, which combines opinions of experts and consumers on Britain's strongest brands.“On the one hand, things can become cool by virtue of their necessity or prevalence in your life,” says CoolBrands Council chairman Stephen Cheliotis.“On the other hand, it can be the things you really want but may know you'll never get.”In August, Aston Martin unveiled the long-awaited DBS, seen for the first time in the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale.Aston Martin says the DBS bridges the gap between its road and track cars, the DB9 and DBR9.Aston Martin proud of its award. “To be voted the UK's coolest brand for the second-year running proves that the growth of our brand is consistent and ongoing,” says Aston Martin's Dr Ulrich Bez.“Our exciting, design-led program of new models and unparalleled attention to detail has made a major impact in the world of international culture.”Which car in Australia do you think should claim the cool brand status? (comment below)  

Australia's longest motor racing track, the 6.2km circuit up and down Mount Panorama at Bathurst is a lot of real estate to cover in a 12-hour race.Especially in a little four-cylinder Japanese buzz-bomb.But Adelaide real estate identity and motorsport enthusiast Michael Brock will squeeze his tall frame into his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII to take on the mountain in Sunday's 2008 WPS Bathurst 12-hour.The race is for GT Performance cars based on production cars and more closely reflects road cars than does the Bathurst 1000 race for V8 Supercars in October.Brock is a winning name at Bathurst. And not just the late Peter Brock. South Australia's only driver in this year's 12-hour, Michael Brock, has won there before, taking out the two-hour race in a 46-car field in 2002 co-driving his Evo VIII with Garry Young.Young, a championship-rated driver in the category, has been signed as a co-driver this time too.The third driver will be former rugby league star turned car racer Jack Elsegood, who only missed winning the V8 Utes title last year because of a flat tyre on the penultimate lap of the last race of the year.“The car has been totally rebuilt,” Brock said yesterday of his Coopers-green Lancer.“Steve Knight has prepared the car, the turbo has got more boost and it's now quicker."“What's exciting is that a few months ago at Mallala in a one-hour race it beat the car that won the Bathurst 12-hour last year.”That Mallala result encouraged him to enter the Bathurst 12-hour and he has secured sponsorship from Coopers Brewery, which used to back Brock in V8 Ute racing.Other sponsors are his own real estate firm Brock Harcourts and the Wellington Hotel at North Adelaide. “We're expecting to be competitive,” Brock said.Brock has been on an intensive gym program to get fit and ready to take the physical stress of racing the mountain track in a very hot cabin on a February day.He acknowledges that Elsegood and Young are more race-ready, and younger, and might do the greater share of the driving.The plan is for drivers to do 90-minute stints - quite a task in the heat when you come out to do it again and again over the 12 hours. 

If the new-car buyers' swing is to smaller vehicles, how come the medium-size models are getting bigger?The latest Ford Mondeo now rivals the Falcon for paces along the showroom floor. Even in the Toyota Corolla sedan you no longer sneak into the “small cars only” corner in the car park.And now Honda's Accord will become a Commodore-sized big sedan with a lusty V6 engine.The 2008 Accord will have a 3.5-litre engine (which we suspect is borrowed from its big brother, the Legend) and from which you can anticipate 200kW of power to shade Commodore and Falcon six-cylinders and rival the Toyota Aurion.A feature of the new Accord's V6 will be VCM - variable cylinder management which shuts down cylinders according to demand, saving fuel and lowering exhaust emissions. The new Accord will be unveiled by Honda in Australia, at the Melbourne Motor Show. It will go on sale end of February then, too. Honda Australia is unable to give us many details of the new model or price; “We haven't even told the dealers the information yet,” a spokesman says.But it's understood the new Accord V6 sedan, to be built at Honda's factory in Thailand, will have the same specifications as the model already on sale in the United States. Honda already sources cars from Thailand, allowing Australian buyers the price advantage of the zero import tariff agreement with that nation.It is known the Accord to come to Australia will be offered with a four-cylinder petrol engine (probably a 2.4-litre unit) as well as the V6.“It will be bigger than the existing car, more of Commodore and Falcon in size,” says the Honda spokesman. “It will come as only an automatic, a five-speed.”The spec sheet of the U.S. Accord shows the new car is bigger. At 4930mm long, it is 100mm longer than the current Accord V6 released in 2003. The new car will be 27mm wider at 1847mm, plus 21mm taller at 1476mm and sit on a wheelbase that is 60mm longer at 2800mm. The 1580mm track has the wheels 25mm farther apart than the current model.By comparison, a Holden Commodore is slightly shorter at 4894mm, on a 2915mm wheelbase, 1899mm wide and the same 1476mm height as the new Accord.Inside, the 1080mm front legroom shades the 1071mm claimed in a Commodore/Calais, although the Accord's 945mm rear legroom is bettered by the 1001mm of the Adelaide-built car. However, the Honda is front-wheel drive so will not have the transmission hump intrusion into rear foot room as do Falcon and Commodore.Expect the Accord to have a big boot, too. It will have a drive-by-wire throttle system and vehicle stability control.The current model Accord V6 runs a three-litre engine delivering 177kW power and 287Nm torque. The coming model's 200kW and expected 331Nm should more than cover the 100kg extra weight for the predicted 1625kg new car.The U.S. version of the new car allows the driver to use the key fob to not only unlock the doors on approach but also to lower all windows to let the car ventilate.Much will be written about the new Accord's variable cylinder management and Honda claims the model will be the first in its segment in Australia to use the technology. Under high load, including firm acceleration, all six cylinders are at work. For mild demand, it cuts back to four cylinders. And for light demand, such as gentle low-speed cruising, it will run on three cylinders, shutting down the rear bank of the transverse V6.The variable valve timing system is used to close intake and exhaust valves (spark plugs keep firing) and cylinder shutdown is determined from monitors on vehicle speed, engine speed, gear selection and throttle position. Small torqueHonda Accord V6Price: To be announcedEngine: V6, 3471cc, 24-valve, petrol, with variable cylinder management, sohc. Bore 89mm, stroke 93mm. Red-line 6800rpm.Transmission: Five-speed automatic. Front-wheel drive. Stability control system.Power: 200kW at 6200rpm (estimated).Torque: 330Nm at 5000rpm (estimated).Suspension: Double wishbone (front). Independent multi-link (rear). Front and rear stabiliser bars.Brakes: Four-wheel discs, front ventilated 30cm diameter, rear solid 28.2cm with anti-lock.Dimensions: Length 4930mm, width 1847mm, height 1476mm, wheelbase 2800mm, track front and rear each 1580mm; weight 1620-1636kg.Wheels: 17in alloys.Tyres: 225/50 by 17In its classMitsubishi 380 GTL: $44,990.Holden Calais V6: $45,490.Toyota Aurion ZR6: $42,990.Toyota Aurion Presara: $49,990.VW Passat V6: $54,990.Hyundai Grandeur Limited: $46,990.* Specifications based on U.S. model Accord. 

The Focus Coupe-Cabriolet is a breath of fresh air in the Ford camp. Motorists have shown great interest in convertibles. Not just the traditional little two-seat sports cars but the four-seat versions.And especially with the advent of the hard top that folds away - a two-door hard-top coupe one minute and an open-top convertible the next.Or the next 29 seconds, in the case of this convertible version of the Focus, derived from the Focus hatch and sedan already familiar to Australian motorists.It was a bit remiss of Ford not to have a convertible in its range for more than four years.Ford Australia used to make a soft-top convertible, the two-seat Capri in the early 1990s.This new Focus Coupe-Cabriolet brings open-air motoring back into affordable reach - $45,490 for the five-speed manual and $47,490 for the four-speed auto. These are the same prices of rival Holden Astra Twin-Top.Considering the extra expense in building the car and in the roof mechanism, these prices aren't bad when also looking at the equipment list. It has dual-zone climate control, leather-trimmed interior, variable front seat heating, six-stack CD with eight-speaker system and 17in alloys.Safety is addressed with ABS brakes, stability control with traction control, front and front side airbags and, should things start going upside down, twin rollover protection hoops that spring from behind the back seats.The front windscreen sweeps back so far that drivers who need or prefer to sit closer to the wheel have the windscreen just about covering their heads.The two rear passengers cop a lot of breeze with the roof off and do not get the heated seats of the front occupants. However, we tried a country drive one chilly night with the roof off and found that with the four side windows up and the heater blowing through floor vents under the front seats towards the rear, it was tolerable. And fun.Fun is what this car is about, not performance. The Focus two-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine drags a lot more weight, the result of cross-bracing and the roof mechanism. At 1465kg, it's about 160kg more than the Focus hatch.It means that come to a hill and this car struggles. At least in the automatic version we drove. It has a manual sequential mode but the transmission control unit takes an age to think about changes. Maybe the manual is the go for people who want some zip.There's only a trace of scuttle shake when the roof is off. It's no Audi when it comes to body control, but Audi doesn't sell such cars for $45,000. Rear-seat leg room is tight, but boot space is good for this type of car.The two-litre Duratec engine delivers 107kW of power at 6000rpm, 185Nm torque at 4500rpm and uses petrol at a rate of 8.6 litres/100km.