Wheels

Looking to buy a Japanese kei-car? That process might just have become a lot more complicated. In a stunning about-face, the Australian government has suspended import documents for a number of models that do not pass side-impact crash safety standar

1. The latest BMW M5 weighs 570kg more than its predecessor. That’s more than the cumulative weight gains of the five previous generational updates (435kg in total), from the 1430kg E28 to the 1865kg F90. 2. Is the Toyota Hilux’s age finally catching

THE HELMETED dummy riding the realistic-looking fake motorbike zips along the road towards us… and it’s not going slow. We’re sitting at what would be a T-intersection, waiting to turn. The driver pretends to not see the motorcycle speeding down the

Keep it tight (no more than 200 words) and do include your suburb if via email: wheels@wheelsmag.com.au You can also have your say on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (search for Wheels Australia) I don’t think there is any ‘Yowzer’ about the fuel cons

SAVE on the cover price FREE delivery to your doorstep PLUS free digital access to the Wheels archive Browse every issue of Wheels dating back to 1953 – that’s over 800 issues Early access to the latest issue before it goes on sale Browse from any de

BENEDETTO VIGNA couldn’t have been any clearer. Speaking at the unveiling of its gleaming e-building facility in Maranello, Ferrari’s CEO was blunt about how the company needs to move in the future. “When you feel too confident about the future, then

What do you reckon is the most obscure Ford Laser ever made? The mind-your-heels Carla Zampatti editions? The long-lived but mostly ignored Laser wagon? Or the boosted, all-paw KE Laser poster child, fully imported directly from Mazda in Japan rather

PORSCHE HAS long enjoyed people describing the GTS as the ‘sweet spot’ in the 911 range. It has had more oomph and more reward than the Carrera but not the focus or harshness of a Turbo or a GT3. Imagine, then, the uproar when Porsche first said it w

MG WAS ESTABLISHED specifically for building sports cars, yet the last time an all-new one bearing that famous octagon emerged, your reviewer wasn’t even born. So the Cyberster is a big deal. Further to that, MG under Chinese ownership has been trans

AS OUR world becomes increasingly fractured, so too does the line-up of Volvo’s sporty-premium offshoot, Polestar. Each new Polestar EV introduces a fresh consecutive number, and while that numerical nameplate strategy might make parts-ordering or ve

SO MANY SMALL cars have been cut from manufacturers’ ranges lately that it’s a sad fact of life that there are thousands of buyers in Australia who own a car in this class but won’t be able to replace it like-for-like when the time comes. There’s no

ARE WE SICK of SUVs yet? The sales figures say “haha, no”, yet the imminent arrival of Ford’s new Tourneo makes a compelling argument as family-friendly transport – and one that might entice at least a few of us to trade in the Kluger or Prado and ge

CARDS ON TABLE TIME. I’ve never been to Le Mans before. Despite living a mere two-and-a-half-hour drive from the track for many years, it was never somewhere that appealed to me and that’s photographer David Bailey’s fault. As a little tacker, I’d wa

BY THE TIME you read this, you’ll have already seen the new BMW M5 uncamouflaged. And boy oh boy, is there a lot of it to see. The G90-generation M5 is the first M5 to stretch beyond five metres in length. And in terms of width? Compared with the alr

LET’S NOT CALL it panic stations. Call it standing in the remote Simpson Desert on a Sunday night with pieces of Ranger Raptor sitting in the dust, crews sliding under the car as they tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Only hours ea

THIS MATCH-UP feels like a bit of a barometer for the car industry. We’ve done BMW 5 Series versus Mercedes-Benz E-Class many times before. Amazingly, the first such comparo in the Wheels archive came surprisingly late. In December 1988 we compared W

I SUPPOSE IT had to happen at some point. Despite having held a driving licence for 37 years, I had somehow escaped – and is there any delicate way of phrasing this? – being rear-ended in a car. Well that run of luck came to an end on Wellington Road

WHAT DOES THIS button even do? Let’s rewind a bit. You’d have thought that working with cars for 27 years as an automotive photographer I’d have been reasonably up to speed on how cars work, but I’ll admit it – I’m floundering a little with this plug

IT’S EASY TO romanticise the great Aussie road trip. Big days, big kays, and a big brown land to explore are as deeply sown into our cultural DNA as Akubras and meat pies. But as much as road trips are about car games and creating family memories, th

PRICE Recommended retail figure at time of publication (asterisk indicates driveaway price) ENGINE TYPE L, in-line; V, vee; F, flat. Number of cylinders. T, turbo; S, supercharged; D, diesel; H, hybrid; E, electric SIZE Litres or kWh POWER kW TORQUE

THERE ARE CERTAIN constructs that really aren’t all that to boast about. In Victoria, I once chanced upon the world’s tallest moss. Likewise, the smallest SUV sounds likely to leave you overwhelmingly underwhelmed. To that end, we bid sayonara to the