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N O R T H E AST V I C TO R I A
MARCH 1 - 7 | 2019
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COMPLETE PACKAGE: Beautifully sleek front is the best iteration yet of the fascinating style Lexus calls ‘Spindle Grille’.
Lexus ES300h sports luxury
By EWAN KENNEDY Heated front seats in ES Luxury offer 10way power adjustment. In Sports Luxury, they are also ventilated with 14-way adjustment for the driver’s seat and 12way for the passenger seat. Incidentally, the little ‘h’ tells us it’s a hybrid. Lexus and its parent company Toyota are past masters at petrol-electric hybrids, with a history stretching back over 20 years. They continue to add more performance, at the same time reducing emissions. STYLING What a gorgeous car inside and out, with a high standard of finish both in the
MAZDA BT50 XTR DUAL CAB
paintwork and the materials used in the cabin. We particularly liked the spindle grille, some of the early efforts of Lexus at this fascinating shape just didn’t work to our eyes, but this one is brilliant. The swooping asymmetric shape of the dashboard makes a real stylish statement and the use of multiple materials that complement each other make the cabin a most pleasant place to be. INFOTAINMENT Satellite navigation, Lexus Enform and DAB+ digital radio are standard. Apple Carplay and Android Auto are not, though this situation may change soon. ES Luxury features a 10-speaker Pioneer
FROM
$44,990
audio system. The Sports Luxury has a 17-speaker Mark Levinson surround-sound system. Sound quality is excellent and we really enjoyed the feeling of luxury inside the cabin it provides. The Remote Touch Interface pad has been redesigned and gains vibration feedback. However, it’s still not our favourite system, being rather awkward to use and more time consuming than we like. POWERTRAIN Advanced combustion technologies in the new-generation 2.5-litre petrol engine make it among the most thermally efficient engines in any production vehicle.
Continued page 2 21d13123-v28/0119
NOW in its seventh generation, the Lexus ES300h is a large car, being virtually Commodore and Falcon in length, though a little slimmer. New Lexus ES comes in two variants, both very well equipped; the ES300h Luxury has privacy glass, Nulux seat trim, powered tilt and slide moonroof, dualzone air-conditioning, automatic wipers, electronic park brake, and a poweradjustable steering column. The ES300h Sports Luxury expands the air-conditioning to three zones, cooled front seats, has semi-aniline leatheraccented seats, a rear armrest with climate and audio controls, and a heated steering wheel.
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2
March 1 - 7 | 2019
Ford Performance Focus ST: TEASER: The upcoming new Ford Focus ST means serious business. THE all-new Ford Performance Focus ST isn’t going on sale until early 2020, but Ford Australia is well aware of buyer interest and so has published advance information on it. A new generation of Ford’s 2.3-litre EcoBoost all-aluminium four-cylinder engine is the most powerful ever offered for a Focus ST. It delivers 206 kW, an increase of 22 kW over its predecessor, and 420 Nm of torque, up from 360 Nm. Innovative anti-lag technology developed for the Ford GT supercar is introduced to the Focus ST, for immediate power delivery in Sport mode and, as part of the optional Performance Pack, in Track mode. Anti-lag keeps the throttle open when
first details
By EWAN KENNEDY the driver lifts off the accelerator pedal, alleviating the reversal of airflow from the turbocharger to maintain compressor wheel speed and enabling boost pressure to build faster on demand. For the first time, Focus ST will be available with an automatic transmission. The intelligent seven-speed unit has Adaptive Shift Scheduling that assesses individual driving styles to optimise gearshift timings. Naturally there are steering-wheel-mounted paddleshifters. The Focus ST’s six-speed manual has rev-matching technology. It even blips the engine on downshifts, there’s no
Lexus ES300h
need to heel-toe on downshifts - Hmm, I’m not sure that keen drivers will like the car doing that for them. Sitting 10 mm lower than the regular Focus, the new Focus ST will have exclusive 18-inch alloy wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. It will use ST-specific side-skirts, an integrated hatch-mounted rear spoiler and red brake callipers. Inside are a flat-bottom steering wheel, supportive Recaro seats and a unique digital instrumentation for the drive modes. The Ford Performance Focus ST will be available in Australia in early 2020, with pricing and additional details to be announced closer to it going on-sale.
sports luxury
From page 1 It is combined with an electric motor and the combined hybrid system components are smaller, lighter and more efficient. Power has been boosted over the gen-six by almost six per cent (9kW) to 160kW while fuel consumption has been reduced by 16.4 per cent to 4.6 L/100km (combined cycle). It drives the front wheels through a continuously variable transmission. In a weird way you can get the Lexus to make sounds that give the impression that it is changing gears as though it’s a conventional automatic. Rear-wheel-drive is considered the norm by many shopping in the prestige class so the Lexus may be regarded as a bit of an orphan by some potential buyers. SAFETY The new ES 300h is equipped with the Lexus Safety System+. New features include daytime cyclist detection. Already capable of detecting oncoming vehicles and pedestrians, the system has also been enhanced to detect pedestrians at night by increasing the radar’s sensitivity and dynamic range. In addition to auto high beam the Sports Luxury has an adaptive high beam system with 24 LEDs. It adjusts the light distribution pattern and brightness to provide optimal illumination for the driver while reducing glare for oncoming drivers. The new Lexus ES300h has 10 airbags, pop-up bonnet, all-speed radar active
cruise control, reversing camera, hill-start assist control and clearance sonar. Sports Luxury adds a panoramic view camera, blind-spot monitor and rear cross-traffic alert. It comes as no surprise that it has an ANCAP safety rating of the maximum five stars. DRIVING While the Lexus ES can carry five adults, with plenty of legroom for all, four makes more sense. Beautifully smooth and quiet in the manner of much more expensive prestige cars from Germany and Britain, the Lexus ES300h is very pleasant to drive. Or even to travel in the back seat limousine fashion with the seats set to your preferred angle, and heated or cooled depending on the outside conditions. The ES body has a rigid feel in this new generation using the same technology as in the far more expensive LS model. Combine that with the aforementioned tyre-noise reduction of the ‘hollow-rim’ wheels used on the Sports Luxury and you really do feel cosseted from the outside world. It’s no sports machine (‘sport’ is arguably the most misused word in car titles these days) as acceleration is leisurely rather than thrilling. It’s all but silent when running on electricity alone and there’s little increase in sound when the petrol unit does kick in.
Stop-start systems can be irritating in some cars with conventional engines but in a hybrid the large electric motor makes it seamless. We particularly like the weighting of the steering and the fact there’s virtually no dead-zone in the centre position, making for instant response to match the electric acceleration. Handling is competent enough and the Lexus ES300h grips the road safely at speeds well over those likely to be chosen by typical owners. There’s little doubt the ES leans in the comfort direction in the endless comfort/handling compromise. Fuel consumption during our week’s 475 kilometre test was amazingly low. Typically in the five to six litres per hundred kilometres range around town, and comfortably under five litres per hundred on motorways and easy paced country roads.
Keep in mind this isn’t a tiny city car, it’s a large saloon that’s similar in size to our much-missed Commodore and Falcon and these fuel figures are just amazing. SUMMING UP The big Lexus ES300h is beautifully styled and built, easy to drive, lovely to ride, amazingly economical, and has very low emissions. What’s not to like about it…
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March 1 - 7 | 2019
First Drive:
New Mazda3
SNEAK PEEK: Ultra clean lines of the Mazda3 sedan and hatch work extremely well. MAZDA3 has been the number one seller in its class to private buyers in Australia for 10 years. And the importer is keen to maintain that tradition. So important is the upcoming new car that Mazda brought a pair of pilot-build cars Downunder to give journalists a brief test drive. In what initially seemed an improbable area the driving was done on and near the seafront in St Kilda, Melbourne. Wayne Watson, Mazda Australia’s manager engineering and compliance, rode in the passenger seat and explained these roads are considered to be some of the worst in any metro area in Australia. Mazda is keen on pushing the ‘3 further upmarket in the affordable prestige segment and a considerable amount of work has been done to reduce NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) to give it a serene, peaceful interior. The roads had sudden changes of surface, many dips and rises, filled-in potholes and an overabundance of speed
By EWAN KENNEDY bumps. New Mazda3 certainly feels at least one class up in size and price in the way it rides and the minimisation of road, engine and wind noise. I was certainly impressed, but will wait till I can test it in on the notoriously noisy concrete surface of the M1 between Brisbane and the Gold Coast before giving my final judgement. As well as peace and quiet the Mazda3’s interior has also been lifted in the quality of materials and the interior design. Its understated style is very much to my taste. A significant amount of design has gone into the shaping of the seats to best match them to the human body. Again, there wasn’t sufficient time to test this in detail. The ease of use of the controls visually and in their feel has long been of importance to Mazda. Not only from an aesthetic point of view but also to
minimise the amount of time the driver needs to take their eyes off driving. Our all-too-brief drive didn’t give us a chance to become fully accustomed to this, but we’ve spent a considerable amount of time, in Japan and Australia, with the Mazda specialists in this field and there’s no doubt they have made very good systems even better. Note that Mazda has finally incorporated Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in its Mazda Connect infotainment system. An eight-speaker audio system is installed in the lower grade models, with the topline variants gaining a 12-speaker Bose system. New Mazda3 will be sold in four-door sedan and five-door hatch bodies. Cleverly there’s little in common between the two shapes as they only share two major parts. Mazda Australia is clearly aware their different buyers want individual styling. We really like the ultra-smooth fuss-free lines of both cars. Engines initially will be revised versions
Honda Introduces By EWAN KENNEDY FOLLOWING the success of the Civic VTi-S LUXE model launched last year, Honda has added a touch of luxury to its HR-V line-up with the introduction of the HR-V VTi-S +LUXE special edition. Based on the HR-V VTi-S, the +LUXE features leather-appointed seat trim and heated front seats that are normally only available on the high-series RS and VTiLX variants. The biggest news is that it has a sub-$30,000 price point. The HR-V VTi-S already has builtin satellite navigation, smart keyless entry with push button start, LED auto headlights, multi-angle reversing camera and rear parking sensors so the new +LUXE is a pretty impressive package. Honda Australia director, Stephen Collins, says, “In the ultra-competitive small SUV segment, the HR-V +LUXE outclasses its main rivals with a list of affordable luxury features they simply cannot match.” It has special edition +LUXE badge and is offered in four exterior paint colours: Brilliant Sporty Blue metallic, Lunar Silver
of the current 2.0- and 2.5-litre fourcylinder units. Later in the year, possibly not till 2020, the fascinating new compression ignition petrol engine that’s been under development for several years will be added. It’s aimed at being able to meet increasingly tough emission rules being introduced worldwide, but particularly in Europe over the next decade.
PILOT BUILD Pilot build cars like the ones we drove lead a strange life. Several are built in various stages during the design and manufacturing processes and finally test driven in the real world. They end their days in a most undignified way - being totally crushed by a giant machine in Australia as they cannot be sent overseas.
HR-V +LUXE
metallic, Modern Steel metallic and White Orchid pearlescent. Honda HR-V +LUXE is starting to arrive in dealerships now and has a manufacturer’s list price of $29,990, plus on-road charges.
TOUCH OF CLASS: Special edition of the Honda HR-V is packed with extras.
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March 1 - 7 | 2019
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CLASSIFIEDS CARAVANS & CAMPERS
17FT Paramount P o p To p , a l w a y s undercover, new tyres, wheel bearings, seals and brakes, new struts, excellent condition, 2 single beds, $16,500 ono. Ph 5798 1412.
MOTOR VEHICLES
REDUCED! MAZDA 3 2004, full service history, in very good condition, new tyres and 6 months reg. 328,000km, RWC, (SYZ674), $3200. Ph 5727 6393.
SOLD MOTOR VEHICLES
HONDA Euro 2008, Sat Nav, lux, full service history, 97,000 km, very good condition, reg. till November, RWC, (1OZ5FJ), $11,000. Ph 0419 562 552.
Selling your car has never been easier or cheaper! MOTOR VEHICLES
2011 XR6 Supercab tray, genuine 119,000km, anniversary XR6 wheels, canvas seat covers, great condition, great to drive, (PB1354), $16,000 ono, RWC supplied. Ph 0402 800 872.
MOTOR VEHICLES
2012 Toyota RAV4, 245,000km, regular ! D REDUCE services and RWC, NISSAN Pulsar Plus, (ZCC031), $7000 ono. 1999, manual, 250,000 Ph 0428 363 589. kms, new tyres, unregistered (QIF328), $2000. Great little learnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s car. Ph 0411 635 818.
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VW 2012 CADDY VA N , e x c e l l e n t delivery or service van, extremely economical, exceptionally neat and clean with only 148,800km, this is a 5 door, 4cyl 1.6L turbo diesel van with 5 speed manual gearbox, rear and side cameras, cruise control and much more, rego (1AA9JB) to July 2019 with RWC, $14,400 ono. Ph 0419 914 919.
REDUCED! HOLDEN Astra 2005, manual, air conditioning, 124,000 genuine kms, just had new timing belt DQG ZDWHU SXPS ÂżWWHG In good condition, reg till April, great first FDU 72* 3K
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