Spotlight

There is a point on the road from Sydney to Batemans Bay where the experience switches from being merely a journey to becoming a proper drive, and it is at that point that you are truly thankful you're at the wheel of a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport.

In theory, it should be quite difficult to forget where you put something as large as a car. Losing your keys now and then seems acceptable, sure, but misplacing a whole vehicle? That seems impossible. And yet it happens.

Yes, we all love a sunburnt country. But that's not to say there aren't a couple of pretty significant downsides to living through an Australian summer, as anyone who's every jumped into their car after it's spent hours parked in the searing sun - and lived to tell the tale - will surely tell you.

It's hard to imagine now, but when the Apple App Store launched in 2008, there were just 500 apps available for download. Today, the number is uncountable and exponential, with 204 billion apps downloaded in 2019 alone, and more addedevery day.

It's incredible to think that, in our increasingly connected worlds, the two devices that are inarguably the most important to our lives - our vehicles and our smartphones - have somehow resisted talking to each for this long.

Picture the world ten years ago. It seemed a very different place, didn't it?

Time can feel like it's travelling at warp speed when it comes to new cars sometimes, with new technology appearing all the time, and cutting-edge features that were only yesterday the domain of the world's most exclusive, and expensive, vehicles popping up in even the most accessible of city cars of today.

If you've ever bought a second-hand car from a private seller, then you'll be familiar with the gut-wrenching nerves that can accompany the first month-or-so of ownership, and the questions that ricochet through your mind when you close your eyes that first night.

It's easy to get swept up in the surge of excitement that comes with buying a new car, especially if you're trading up from something old, clunky, and about as packed with modern technology and convenience features as your average two-man tent.