In April I had the chance to review the BMW X3 M40i on a long weekend to Martinborough with our 5 month old daughter. BMW came back to us to see if we would be keen to test the new diesel M40d in a similar scenario over the Christmas break. And as luck would have it, we had planned to go Masterton for the week to my parent house, making...
The Camry is one of the most common sedans that you can find on the road. It is the workhorse of the sedan world, so much so it is one of the more popular choices for sedan sized taxis in Wellington. I was intrigued to see what the Camry had to offer that made them so popular.The RangeToyota has a lot to choose from in its...
Four door coupes, they are really not my thing. When you look up the definitions of a coupe you find that it revolves around two doors. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I still feel that if you want a coupe it should have 2 doors, not 4.As you can imagine, the 4 door CLS Coupe would be an interesting review for me.The...
The last time we saw a Kia Picanto was back in 2015 during our $20k Challenge. I was intrigued to see how it had grown in the last 3 years.We’d be taking the 2018 Kia Picanto X Line for our review week.The RangeThe Picanto range comes in 4 variants. The LX Manual (order only), the LX Auto, the GT Line and finally the X...
I was curious about this car, it’s a crossover SUV, not quite a car not quite an SUV. And what I have found with manufacturers when they make these cars is that they are either amazingly well thought out or just overpriced rubbish.The RangeThere are 5 variants of the HR-V to choose from in New Zealand. The range begins with...
Instigating a national driver training programme, backed by Holden New Zealand, has put Greg Murphy in the winner’s seat with Kiwi motoring commentators.The motorsport icon today became the latest recipient of a prestigious prize presented by the New Zealand Motoring Writers Guild.The Neil Nelson award is presented to the...
When Hyundai first released the specs of the Kona EV, we were all salivating – an EV well under $100K with a ‘real world‘ range of 400km? Bring it on.And then we got the VW e-Golf to review, with its ‘real world’ range of 220km. That range was worked out by a couple of journalists driving south from Auckland in an e-Golf...
A family-friendly SUV has beaten tough competitors to win the 2018 New Zealand Car of the Year.The Forester is the first Subaru to take the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild’s accolade and also only the second sports utility to take the prize, the first being the 2017 holder, Skoda’s Kodiaq.Ten finalists competed for the...
The original A Class Mercedes was a bit of an ugly duckling, and the second gen wasn’t much better. Then for the third generation, Mercedes re-invented the car, and suddenly it was a much more desirable proposition.Now there’s an all-new fourth generation car, designated W177, which has already made the shortlist for New Zealand...
When I tested the top-spec Mazda6 Limited last year, I really enjoyed it, but it did have a couple of minor issues. Now in the 2018 facelifted car there’s a new top top spec, the Takami. According to Google, it means “higher”. Mazda have refined the design, added features, and replaced the already peppy 2.5-litre engine with a new...
