Archive for December, 2009
E blows its top
December 15th, 2009 
Christo Mercedes-Benz officially launched its new E-Class cabriolet, set to go on sale in Europe in May 2010. It’s essentially identical in size to the E-Class Coupe and will be available with the same engine options as the coupe, a 3.5-liter V6 and 5.5-liter V8. Mercedes has elected to use a 0.9-inch-thick fabric roof for the [...]
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You win some, you lose some
December 15th, 2009 Christo With the global motoring industry slowly but surely beginning to show signs of recovery, it’s no surprise that there are a number of deals going on between the world’s major players. 2009 has already seem some interesting changes in ownership within the motoring industry, and this trend looks set to continue in 2010. One deal [...]
Z4 gets a new flagship
December 14th, 2009 Christo Take a standard sDrive35i, make the 7-speed DCT gearbox and M Sports suspension standard and modify the magnificent straight-six engine to develop 250 kW and 450Nm, with the ability to increase to 500Nm by means of an overboost function and you get the BMW Z4 sDrive35is, the new flagship model in the Z4 range. The [...]
Drive Group Test: Batten those hatches!
December 11th, 2009 Russell Just look at this lineup. In three cars we’ve distilled down to the cream of the current hot-hatch crop for the January group test, and let us tell you, this isn’t a meeting with anticipated consequences – at least for us! So we have with us Mazda’s latest 3 MPS, apparently churning out 190kW from [...]
Drive Test: Audi S4
December 11th, 2009 Russell All right, so it may not quite be as “all that” as a fully-fledged RS model, but after a week in Audi’s new S4 we can tell you that it’s not half bad either, although some of our discoveries did cause us to question the efficiency improvements of this supercharged 3.0-litre V6 as opposed to [...]
Roads. What roads?
December 9th, 2009 Steve I had scheduled Monday afternoon for a track session on the Triumph Speed Triple. I would have been a great day but I fell off – not on the track but on the road on my to Kyalami. It was particularly embarrassing since it was the first time that I have ever damaged a press [...]
Triumph Speed Triple
December 8th, 2009 Steve My ride this week is the spectacular Triumph Speed Triple. Triumph has managed to keep the Speed triple looking fairly similar since its introduction in the mid 90s. The so called “Bug Eye” twin headlights with retro feel chrome surrounds and the single sided swing arm have remained throughout the life of bike. The most [...]
Climate gate – The Great Global Warming Myth
December 7th, 2009 Steve So this week the Climategate scandal kicked off. It has been bubbling for a couple of weeks but has just hit the mainstream media. For those of you unaware, Climategate is what they are calling the conspiracy by the East Anglian University to fudge, misrepresent and falsify data to prove that man made global warming [...]
Drive Magazine December 2009
December 4th, 2009 Russell Our latest issue of the exciting Drive Magazine is here! And positively bursting with high-quality motoring content for enthusiasts like us to slaver over! Let’s just see, this month we blast an Audi R8 V10 out to Sun City from the new Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg, get our turn behind the wheel of The [...]
Butch has a new boss: VW Amarok
December 4th, 2009 Christo Besides the traditional family sedan, South Africans really love their “bakkies”, especially since double-cabs became a kind of status symbol. For decades already the segment has been dominated by the Toyota Hilux, followed closely by competitors from the Isuzu KB, Nissan Harbody and Ford Ranger. In recent years, double-cabs like the Nissan Navara brought something [...]
