2009 Skoda Octavia RS First Drive Review

ALLOWING MOTORING SCRIBES to mercilessly flog your new model for more than three hours at a track is a display of serious confidence in your product.

To launch the new look Octavia RS, Skoda Australia assembled the motoring press at Top Gear Australia’s test track at Camden Airport and [...]

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FROM THE MIDDLE of this month onwards, Nissan’s Dualis will have a new lease on life.

A new front-drive powertrain joins the existing AWD model and, thanks to a strengthening of the Australian dollar against the British Pound, Nissan Australia has dropped the price of entry by $6000 to a far more reasonable $24,990.

The Dualis range [...]

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WITH A HERITAGE that stretches back 60 years, it’s no surprise that the E-Class and its forebears have long been the mainstay of Mercedes-Benz’s passenger car line-up.

Due to its relatively conservative image and positioning in the Benz stable, it’s safe to say that the E-Class has achieved most of its past sales success with an [...]

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IPODS AND PORTABLE MUSIC. Sydney and bad roads. Kenny G and saxophones. Hybrids and the Toyota Prius. Despite arch-rival Honda’s attempts, the Prius remains the definitive hybrid vehicle and the name that comes to most people’s lips whenever fuel-efficient motoring is the topic of discussion.

It’s this ‘recognition factor’ that Toyota needed to acknowledge when redesigning [...]

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THE TIMES, as Bob Dylan sang, are most certainly a-changing - and nowhere in the automotive world right now is this truer than in America’s largest automaker, General Motors.

As bankruptcy looms and global market share falls (GM was recently overtaken by Toyota in the manufacturing stakes), the company has been shedding brands and cutting model [...]

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Lighter, meaner, rawer. This really is a pocket-rocket ‘ready to race’ straight from the Lotus production line.

Lotus has brought into Australia just three 2009 Exige Cup 260 event-ready cars for a lucky trio of track day enthusiasts ready to go to the next level of competition.

Today, Targa Tasmania, one of Australia’s most famous tarmac events, [...]

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Interesting car the new Maxima. Visibly leaner, smarter, with better on-road balance and more ‘connected’ handling, it is a greatly improved unit over the solid but dynamically flawed outgoing model.

Starting at $33,990 for the 250 ST-L, it is also very sharply priced. The entry model ST-L comes with Nissan’s 2.5 litre VQ25DE V6 producing a [...]

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In 2009, Kia’s slogan “The Power to Surprise” could not be truer.  Official images and spy photos are popping up everywhere for stylish new models from the Korean automaker, and the company is even investigating a new, trendier naming system for its vehicles.

Little surprise then that Kia is pushing the 2009 SOUL with so much [...]

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Evolution. The process whereby a species improves itself through eliminating its weaknesses and reinforcing its strengths generation-by-generation.

Volkswagen describes the newly-minted Golf VI as being a case of evolution rather than revolution, but has the German automaker truly improved upon the already excellent fifth-gen Golf, or is it nothing more than a fancy facelift?

Volkswagen Australia is [...]

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