drive magazine april 2010

2 APRIL 2010DRIVE MAGAZINE

The internet is indeed a weird and wondrous thing. But the way it’s viewed, particularly by a fairly tradi-tionalist-dominated market

like motoring, is downright nonsensi-cal.

Our Drive Magazine sales rep has been out to a few clients now who are dead keen on getting some coverage in the magazine, as we’re now doing pretty decent numbers and continue to grow our monthly readership stats health-ily while traditional print publications continue to see decline. So, naturally, these customers are dead keen to tap into this market through some objective editorial coverage.

But, when it comes to talk of supporting the magazine with advertising, exactly the same as is done in the world of print, a couple of these potential customers were quite literally flabbergasted that we, heaven forbid, would actually need some money in order to display their ad

Drive TeamEditor: Russell Bennett

Deputy Editor: Steve Allison

Editorial Contributors: Russell Bennett,

Steve Allison, Kyle Stone, Bruce Bennett,

Christo Valentyn, Bob Allison

Art Contributors: Heide-Marie Botes

AVC

Management: Russell Bennett,

Steve Allison

Advertising Sales: [email protected]

Photography: Steve Allison Photographic,

www.quickpic.co.za, direct from

manufacturers

All data contained in this magazine is for

information only and every effort is made to

ensure its accuracy. However reviews,

comment and instruction are the views of

the authors and may contain inadvertent

errors, for which Drive apologises but takes

no responsibility for any actions of any

person resulting from the use of information

contained herein.

Any prospective contributor or

correspondant submitting unsolicited

material with a view to its publication

automatically grant Drive license to publish

such material in whole or in part in any

edition of this magazine. Any material

submitted is at the risk of the sender and

Drive cannot be held liable or accountable

for its loss or damage.

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Eds Welcome

DRIVE MAGAZINEAPRIL 2010

and the fees of the flip-format host Is-suu. But we also have no cover price.

So the only feasible way to keep the magazine and site running, is through advertising revenues. These are, ex-clusively, the bread-and-butter of digital titles like our own. Yet advertisers fully expect that we charge either nothing or an absolute pittance, despite the fact that the magazine renders A4 ads in all the glory and clarity they were originally designed, with perfect colour reproduc-tion and a high impact every time.

Well nevertheless, enough of my rant-ing. We’ve got several interesting new cars this month and its obvious the C-segment hatchback market is hot-ting up, with the new Polo having been through our office for testing this month, the launch of the more value-oriented Polo Vivo, and Hyundai’s first foray into this patch, the local i30 launch (at last). Of course if your budget is particularly paltry, there’s also a road test on the Chery J1. Have a look, then go buy a Vivo. Trust us.

We do hope you continue to enjoy read-ing what we’re putting together each month, and remember that passion is the most powerful fuel that there is.

Russell Bennett

in our digital magazine!

There seems to be a complete discon-nection here. Perhaps it’s also the fact that the magazine itself is free, coupled with a similar perception of the Web as a platform, that forms the foundation for this problem. Problem for us, at least.

The thing is, even without our stylish design and the costs associated with this process, the same as a print mag-azine incurs, there are also little things like paying our contributors and staff for the valuable, totally original content they produce. But apparently we ought to just be able to download them some apple pie from the States for their fami-lies to tuck into. Or something.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to just demystify things slightly here. A print magazine, running in the sweet spot, effectively pays for its distribution and print bill with cover sales. A digital pub-lication like ours has no print costs, and minimal distribution costs bar hosting


6 News

Our selection of the most interesting motoring news of the past

month, and there are some tasty surprises in here this month...

28 Drive news feature

Michelin Power Pure unveiled

32 Drive Launch Feature

Polo for the proletariat – New VW Polo Vivo, a worthy replacement

for the revered Citi?

38 Drive Launch Feature

It’s all in the is - Hyundai i30 set to take on midsized hatch chal-

lenge.

44 Drive FeatureRide like the wind – We get the opportunity to try out Honda’s Riding Academy.

50 Drive Feature

Wake up and smell the exhaust fumes – The punitive “emissions tax” coming our

way and ridiculously obvious government racketeering.

56 Drive columns

Know the difference between irony and, well, a girder? Read Russell’ s column

for a hint, while Steve ponders a growing trend of downright nastiness on our

roads.

62 Drive Versus

Big Surprise! - Chrysler 300C SRT-8 squares up to Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG,

with some surprising, and some not-so-surprising conclusions.

http://issuu.com/action/page?page=6








76 Drive Versus

Street Touring – Kawasaki

GTR 1400 faces Honda

VFR 1200. As usual, we

disagree with the norm

in the end..

88 Drive Tests

Dodge Journey CRD R/T

96 Drive Tests

Citroen C5 2.0 HDI

104 Drive Tests

Audi A4 2.0 TSI StopStart

112 Drive Tests

VW Polo 1. 4 Trendline

118 Drive Tests

Chery J1







6

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APRIL 2010DRIVE MAGAZINE

V8 that AMG seem intent on putting in virtually every single one of their vehi-cles. And for good reason, sure it could hardly be described as the most frugal engine around but who cares when the Anyone remotely interest-

ed in performance motor-ing will at the very least have heard of Mercedes AMG’s 63 motor, their mad


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5.5L V8 equipped with two turbos is nigh impossible, but then every manu-facturer on the planet essentially lies about fuel economy. So given that and the fact that in cars like the S 63 fuel economy is largely irrelevant we’ll let that little white lie slide. The S 63 will have a start/stop function in the “Con-trolled Efficiency” driving mode of the gearbox, which will obviously help cut down on the fuel bill when sitting in traf-fic, which is where the current 63 really suffered.

So by now you’ve maybe noticed that I quite like this new 63, but just in case you hadn’t figured it out here are some of the features of this motor you should get excited about. For the first time AMG is making use of direct injection with spray-guided combustion and pie-zo-electric injectors, which apparently helps with fuel efficiency due to su-perior thermodynamic efficiency. The crankcase is all-aluminium, keeping the overall weight of the engine down to 204kg dry.

It’s sure to be an awesome engine, so much so that I really want one. Not ac-tually in a car or anything, I’d just put it in the lounge and rev it whenever I felt the urge.

performance delivered is so staggering. All good things must come to an end I guess, and not even the mighty 63 can escape its fate it seems, the new 63 will be a 5.5L biturbo V8. Of course be-ing as it is that the new 63 has forced induction as opposed to the outgoing 63’s natural aspiration, this isn’t actu-ally the downgrade it may seem like on first impression.

The new 5.5L V8, know at AMG as the M 157, will be making 420kW/571HP at 5500rpm when it debuts later this year. The big power is backed up by a mountain of torque, 900Nm at 2500-3750rpm to be precise. Those fig-ures however are only applicable with AMG’s Performance package fitted, without the package power will be a measly 400kW/544HP and only 800Nm of torque. Why bother? Okay, in truth even those stats are very impressive, and all the Performance package does is dial up the biturbo boost from 1.0 to 1.3 bar.

The first of what will no doubt be many AMG cars to receive the new 63 is the S 63, which will use AMG’s SPEED-SHIFT MCT 7-speed sports transmis-sion. Now AMG claim that this com-bination in the S 63 will return fuel economy of 10.5L/100km, which for a


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be a problem here. Still, as Clarkson always says, when in doubt-power, and there should be no shortage of that.

Volker Mornhinweg took over the Mer-cedes van division on the 1st of April, which had it been announced on that date I would have thought for sure it was an April Fools joke, but the news came before that. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if it is true then.

In a move that could possibly result in a series of the biggest crashes you’ve ever seen, Mercedes have taken the boss of AMG, you know, those insane guys from Stuttgart

with no regard for rear tires, and put him in charge of their van division. Now given AMG’s penchant for putting their 6.3 V8 in absolutely everything they can get their hands on, and combine that with the inherent lack of handling, aerodynamics or just general dynamics in vans, well you can see there might


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VAG also picked up awards in an-other, completely ridiculous category, the World Green Car of the Year. This award was actually not given to a spe-cific model of VW’s but rather their BlueMotion product brand consisting of the Golf, Passat, and Polo. It is nice however to see the World Car of The Year organisation acknowledge that toxic batteries and heavy electric mo-tors have nothing to do with saving the environment as BlueMotion’s aren’t hy-brids, even if it was in desperate need of saving.

The VW Polo has rounded off a dominant performance by VAG at the 2010 World Car of the Year ceremony held at the New York Inter-

national Auto Show by clinching the il-lustrious World Car of the Year award. Audi clinched the performance award as well with their R8 V10, and let’s also not forget that in 2009 the Car of the Year award was bestowed upon VW’s other volume seller, the Golf VI. VAG really seem to have won the hearts and minds of the international press in re-cent years, and rightly so too.


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on is boot capacity, an area in which the 5-Series Touring is well equipped. Boot capacity is 560 litres but can be increased to1,670 litres with the seats folded down. Unfortunately if you want more riveting information on the boot you’ll have to look elsewhere, I’m sure there are many innovations in the boot as the press release sure went on about it, but really who cares. It’s big, on to the engines.

BMW have unveiled the 2011 5-Series Touring in Leip-zig, and I’ve got to ask; is there anything BMW won’t do to make the 5-Series

ugly. There’s no doubt just like every 5-Series it’ll be an engineering master-piece, too bad it has to have the style equivalent to a wet dog.

Right, this is a wagon, so first and foremost on the priority list for a wag-


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will produce 135 kW/184 bhp and fea-ture common rail direct injection and an aluminium crankcase. The other diesel engine will be popped into the 530d Touring and make 180 kW/245 bhp.

The proper engines in the 5-Series Tour-ing will of course be petrol powered, the inevitable 535i Touring is there boast-ing BMW’s 3.0L twin turbo straight six. The 535i Touring is the range topper with 225 kW/306 bhp. Slotting in be-low the 530d is the 523i Touring with its naturally aspirated petrol motor with 150 kW/204 bhp.

BMW are offering 5-Series Touring cus-tomers some nifty suspension features, along with a horrible design. Optional Dynamic Driving Control for example allows for individual suspension set-tings. Then there is as standard on the rear axle pneumatic suspension, which means automatic self-leveling for the 5-Series Touring.

The engine options feature all the usu-al suspects; two straight six petrol mo-tors and also two diesel options. There is a six cylinder diesel as well as quite shockingly a four cylinder diesel. A 5-Series should not have a four cylinder engine, minimum of six cylinders I say. BMW make such great sixes anyway, why do any less in one of your premium ranges? Nevertheless the 520d Tour-ing, powered by the turbo diesel four


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ving V10. The 5.2 FSI V10 motor pro-duces 386kW/525hp from its midship position, and a fantastic soundtrack I might add. All that power is of course channeled through Audi’s famous quat-tro permanent all-wheel drive system pushing the R8 on to a top speed of 316km/h.

The R8 isn’t the only car with which Audi have captured the World Perform-ance Car of the Year award, in 2007 the Audi RS4 received the prestigious award. This latest 2010 victory brings to three the number of times Audi have won this particular award.

The New York Auto Show recently played host to the 2010 World Car of the Year Awards ceremony, and in the World Performance Car

category Audi has romped off with the crown. Audi’s awesome R8 V10 took the prize, the second time the R8 has won this award following the original V8 powered R8’s victory in 2008.

Those of you unaware of the R8’s cre-dentials which justify its title of 2010 World Performance Car, pay attention. The R8 can propel itself from 0-100km/h in just 3.9s thanks to a Lamborghini sourced (try getting Audi to admit that though) 5.2L direct injection high rev-


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and diesel motors from Renault-Nissan will be heading for the new smart and Twingo. Daimler will provide engines for Infiniti to hold up their end of the deal, Infiniti is Nissan’s luxury arm so they might actually get some decent engines out of Daimler. Mercedes will also be getting engines in this partner-ship, their Vito van will be getting diesel power from Renault-Nissan.

To make all this rampant engine shar-ing official, each organisation will take a small share in each others business, 3.1% to be precise, not 3% but 3.1%. That was probably the Germans being precise just for the sake of being pre-cise. In truth the deal is far more com-plicated but let’s just stick with 3.1% for now. The fruits of this partnership how-ever are only said to be arriving in 2013 for the compact cars, as that is when the jointly developed smart and Twingo models will be appearing on the roads.

The Renault-Nissan alliance has entered into a co-op-eration deal with Daimler with the two groups respec-tive small cars apparently

being the focus of the co-operation. Daimler and Renault-Nissan are set to work together on the next generation of the smart fortwo and Renault Twingo, which includes the planned introduc-tion of electric versions for these vehi-cles. Unsurprisingly in this age of plat-form sharing, powertrain development and thus powertrain sharing seems to be the main thrust of the partnership.

This obviously begs the question as to which engines will be shared, given that this collaboration is in the field of smaller cars, I’m guessing AMG’s V8’s aren’t going to be on the list, a shame really, I’ve always wondered what would happen if Renault made a hot hatch Sandero with a 6.3L V8 sitting where the rear seats and boot should be. No, that won’t be the case, but rather petrol


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fog, we could use the vehicle’s infrared cameras to identify where the edge of the road is and the lasers could ‘paint’ the edge of the road onto the windshield so the driver knows where the edge of the road is.”

So how exactly does it all work? The windshield itself is coated in trans-parent phosphors, whatever they are, which emit visible light when activated by a compact laser. This transforms the entire windscreen into a large transpar-ent display. There is also automated sign-reading technology which can be integrated into the HUD, nicked from the Opel Insignia which debuted the Opel Eye system in 2009.

HUD’s have been around for awhile now but they’ve only really appeared on the windscreens of per-formance monsters and

even then they were rather limited and rare. GM’s vision of the future hopes to change all that with an almost complete re-think of HUD’s.

GM has been working with numerous universities on this project aimed at im-proving road safety, and is a full wind-shield system utilising night vision, navi-gation and camera based technologies.Thomas Seder, group lab manager-GM R&D explained an interesting scenario in which all these technologies could combine: “Let’s say you’re driving in


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out 194 Nm at 4 000 rpm. As with the entire range, the GX is four wheel drive and also boasts McPherson struts in the front suspension.

The RAV4 range was upgraded stylisti-cally in 2009 and the GX benefits from these changes as well. There’s full col-our coding, rear light clusters utilising LED lights, and even 17 inch wheels. The GX has a multi-terrain ABS-system and even no less than seven airbags, and, well actually I’ve run out of things to say in truth. It is a Toyota after all, dependable and reliable but not all that exciting, unless your throttle’s jammed open of course. Then again that’s ex-citing in the same way that getting shot at is exciting, wears thin fairly quickly.

Toyota South Africa has ex-panded their RAV4 range of vehicles with the RAV4 2.0GX Automatic, the au-tomatic gearbox will only

have four gears and will will join the range’s only other automatic the higher specced RAV4 2.0 VX Auto.

With a price tag of R309 800 for a RAV4 2.0 GX, you’ll get a tried and trusted 112kW/152hp 2.0L petrol motor, and that’s about it really. Toyota seem in-tent on pushing the proven reliability of this engine gearbox combination al-ready found in the VX, and I don’t blame them considering Toyota’s continuing problems regarding their recalls. The 2.0L motor is a 16 valve VVT-i, Toyo-ta speak for variable valve timing, and alongside its 112kW the motor torques


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V6, which in the stats at least is less than impressive. Considering however that Renault are targeting the Boxster with the Laguna I guess there’s power aplenty if you make a direct compari-son.

The engineering in the Laguna cer-tainly is ambitious, boasting as it does Renault’s 4Control chassis, which is a joint development between Renault’s

Renault really do know how to make gorgeous cars, case in point the new La-guna Coupe has just en-tered the South African

market and it is a stunner. The elegant and soft lines complementing the La-guna seemingly from every angle, and it’ll no doubt be specced to the nines as well. The only problem I can see on first impression is the motor, a 3.5L


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rear wheels actually turn in the opposite direction to the front wheels creating a much tighter turning circle that wouldn’t usually be possible for a platform of the Laguna’s size. The turning circle for the Laguna is thus a class leading 10,1m. As mentioned for speeds above 60km/h the system works in a far less alien manner as they turn in the same direction as the fronts.

It isn’t just steering that 4 active wheels can be of benefit, when under heavy breaking which also often includes emergency evasive maneuvers the dy-namic system can automatically adjust the steering angle of the rear wheels by up to 3.5 degrees to ensure directional stability.

So it seems to be packed with tech, but then there is a reason 4 wheel steering systems aren’t all that common consid-ering their potential advantages. The complexity of 4 wheel steering systems tend to result in unreliability and high maintenance costs. And remember this is a Renault, a French car, rightly or wrongly they hardly have a reputation for reliability and mechanical integrity.

On to the engine, and quite frankly based on the figures given Renault

engineers and their RS division-Renault Sport Technologies. The 4Control chassis is essentially an elec-tronically monitored chassis allowing for dynamic control of the chassis. Vehicle data such as speed and steering wheel angle is fed into a computer along with other info such as yaw and steer-ing wheel movements, all this data is then used to implement the Laguna’s party trick, 4 wheel steering. Once the most effective steering angle of the rear wheels has been determined, an electric actuator motor on the

rear axle swings into action to turn the wheels.

The benefits of 4 wheel steering can be found at both low and higher speeds, low speed maneuverability is improved but when the speedo travels beyond 60km/h steering stability and precision is improved. For the low speed stuff, the


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could do better. Now remember that the Laguna is supposed to be a flagship model for Renault so one is supposed to be im-pressed, not underwhelmed. The Laguna sports a 3.5L V6, which is a good enough start, but maximum power is 175kW at 6,000rpm. From 3.5L, that’s not enough in my mind, in the age of forced induction the Laguna is running the risk of getting out-run by far smaller competition. I’m prob-ably in the minority here, considering what the Laguna sets out to achieve, 175kW is about right, but I’m still not impressed. And up here on the highveld the Laguna could prove me right, we’ll have to wait for a road test though. The torque output is equally disappointing, if not more so, 330Nm at 4,00rpm. One can only assume this mo-tor is going to require a lot of revs and the power will always seem unavailable with such low torque figures.

The Laguna has however received the max-imum 5 stars in Euro NCAP crash tests with a total score of 36/37. It’s well equipped too with premium features such as Bose sound and TomTom navigation. And all for only R499 900, a decent price indeed. Although for half a million, and I hate to harp on about this, but 175kW and 330Nm is not enough grunt. Then again at that price, with those looks, Renault could very well have hit the mark, power wise included.


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Despite the ownership deal meaning a 100% stake for geely, Ford will contin-ue to cooperate with Volvo post sale in the form of powertrains, stampings and various components. The aid is said to be part of the deal to ensure a smooth transition process.

Ford has done the deed, the sale of of their Swedish divi-sion Volvo has gone through to Geely, the Chinese firm paying $1.8 billion for Volvo.

The sale, officially signed off on the 28th of March, includes Volvo intellec-tual property and assets, and will be concluded in the third quarter of 2010 with Geely taking 100% ownership of Volvo.


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power is now 257kW/350HP, which is a 15% power boost over the standard RS. Torque too has been beefed up, it’s now 460Nm compared to 440Nm in the standard model. The RS500 looks the part as well with a hulking silent assas-sin style finished in unique matte black ‘foil’ paint and matching 19-inch alloy wheels.

Sadly, although to be expected, the 500 RS500’s destined to roll of the Ford assembly line in Saarlouis Germany will only be available in 20 European markets. As the RS500 is a limited edi-tion each one will be emblazoned with a metal plaque on the centre console, hand engraved with each vehicles unique number.

Oh the cruelty, Ford South Africa really do know how to rub it in don’t they. Petrolheads all over the land have for a long tim

been bemoaning the fact that Ford refuse to bring the awesome Focus RS in, and now it seems it’ll never happen, although I think we’ve all known the cur-rent RS would never grace our shores. Ford have announced a special edi-tion Focus RS500 to commemorate the end of production for the current Focus RS. Ford are only making 500 of these 257kW hot hatches, and it looks just awesome. Also, Revo Knuckles, who wouldn’t want a car with those?

The RS500 still has a 5 cylinder 2.5L motor, but it’s been tuned just a little bit more than it already was, so that


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The question however is what exactly the R division is going to do? VW al-ready have the Golf R and Scirocco R prepped and ready to go shortly, and those two models are the only truly sporty foundations in the VW stable. I can’t see a Fox R anytime soon, maybe the forthcoming Polo GTI could get an R badge but beyond that I can’t see it. And besides, wasn’t the whole point of buying two premium sporty brands in Porsche and Audi supposed to allow VW to play in that market without doing it themselves?

BMW have the M division, Mercedes have AMG, and Audi have their RS range. It really was only a matter of time then considering

everyone else has one, yes, the peo-ple’s car is getting a performance divi-sion, the R division.

VW have formally established Volkswa-gen R GmbH who will specialise in ex-clusive sporty models from Volkswa-gen. The R factory is located not far from VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters in Warmenau and is packed to the rafters with more than 350 staffers.


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tus last time round. For both the WRX and WRX STI there will be 4 and 5 door options available, so sedan or hatch. And whilst in truth these latest Imp-reza offerings from Subaru are hardly revolutionary, does anyone care when the STI was designed with the underly-ing concept of making the “The Fast-est WRX STI Ever.” Also, they’re wider and lower, which is always good for

Subaru have finally removed the cloth from their new Im-preza’s, their performance flagship the WRX STI and WRX. The official reveal

recently took place at the New York In-ternational Auto Show, and thank the maker the STI has a boot again, no doubt influenced by the huge success of the regular WRX’s return to boot sta-


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accused of having a suspension too soft for its performance orientation. Consid-ering also that the STI had its perform-ance demeanor honed to perfection at the Nurburgring, one can only presume the suspension will be rather stiff this time round.

Beyond the suspension stiffening

street racers.

WRX STIA bold statement to make by Subaru, fastest STI ever that is, and it seems that one of the most important ways in which they aimed to achieve their goal was to finely tune the suspension. The previous STI, the hatch, was at times


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however Subaru has really gone to work, claiming several significant improvements in the STI over the previous STI. Firstly Subaru have done what all spots cars strive for, they’ve widened and lowered, the STI’s suspension has been dropped by 5mm to this end. Both front and rear suspension arms have been updated with the fronts now being of aluminium construction and the rear arm bushes have been switched to pillow-ball types. It doesn’t stop there though, coils have been overhauled, front and rear dampers too, but to avoid turning into a technical journal I think I’ll stop talk-ing about suspension for now, just know that it’s all been done to get the STI back to its hardcore handling roots.

The STI’s motor is far less bewilder-ing, it’s still a 2.5L boxer producing 224kW/305hp@6000rpm with the aid of some prodigious turbocharging. Then there’s the STI’s looks to consider, which besides the lower and wider stance, there isn’t much to report. There are the usual facelift type tweaks here and there, such as the corners of the bumpers having been enlarged, hands up anyone who actually noticed that on their own. There are also lightweight 18 inch aluminium rims as stand-ard now or 18 inch BBS wheels as options, both with a high lustre finish. A new colour is also now available, “Plasma Blue Silica”


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to be precise. In reality however eve-ryone will only notice the gigantic rear wing so all this is academic frankly.

WRXThe less manic Impreza WRX has also been facelifted with both the 5-door hatch and 4-door sedan receiving a similar wide body kit to the STI, the new design includes a re-envisioned front end, which looks exactly like the old nose. But hey, that’s the definition of an automotive facelift, change very little whilst claiming to have changed a lot, so Subaru are on the right track here.

The underlying engineering has been tweaked along the same lines as the body design, the track has been wid-

ened by 38mm. In fact it seems that quite a bit has been widened, the new 17 inch wheels are also wider and their rubber too of course. All this widening does mean the WRX has put on some weight, around 15kg but the grip and handling should be improved so the in-creased weight is an acceptable trade off.

Sadly the powertrain has been left un-touched, to be fair it is a rather spec-tacular one at that, but still, all we’re asking for is a tiny bit more boost from the 2.5L motors turbo. The power then is still 195kW and 343 Nm of torque, just shy of 200kW, the excellent Sub-aru AWD system can certainly handle 200, so what’s the problem?


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Drive Feature


objectives designing the new tyre. Im-prove the grip, make it last longer and save some weight. All of which they achieved producing the most advanced sports tyre on the market. Pretty im-pressive stuff.

The Power Pure rear tyre uses a me-dium compound rubber across 40% of

Five years after taking the market by storm when it intro-duced a dual-compound tyre, Michelin has just launched a brand new model, the Power

Pure. This new tyre refines the concept of dual-compound rubber and offers us two-wheel fiends the best that modern technology can provide.

There has always been a problem with motorcycle tyres. Bikes have to lean to go around corners and that’s the time you need the most grip. Go and get yourself a set of sticky race orientated tyres though and the centre wears out long before the sides. So do you just go for a harder compound touring tyre and sacrifice corner capability, or do you go for the ultimate cornering grip and just resign yourself to replacing them regu-larly at great personal expense?

Neither, you go and get yourself a set of Power Pure tyres and you have the best of both worlds!

The new Michelin Power Pure has been completely re-thought, from its com-ponents, structure, shape and rubber compounds to its manufacturing proc-esses and design methodology.

The Michelin R&D department had three


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Drive Feature


generation of 1000cc sports bikes and let us loose on the Kyalami Race track to see if their clever engineers had re-ally achieved the results they wanted. The bikes in question were an Aprilia RSV4, a BMW S1000R, a big-bang Yamaha R1, a Suzuki GSX-R 1000 and of course the all conquering Honda Fireblade. The tyres were inflated to

each side and the remaining 20% in the middle being a hard compound to avoid squaring the tyre off on long runs. The front tyre is made up of 25% mega-grippy soft compound on each side with the centre 50% being a medium compound.

Michelin fitted the tyres to 5 of the latest


APRIL 2010

road pressures and all the bikes were left with factory suspension settings so that we could evaluate the rubber in a much more real world environment.At least, that might have been the idea, but we were on a track and we rode the bikes as if it was a track test! I was a lit-tle bit apprehensive about running road pressures on a track but my concerns quickly disappeared.

All of the bikes performed superbly - with one exception. The temperamental little Italian, which is to all intents and

http://www.telesure.co.za/

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Drive Feature


sures, I was impressed.

The other European entry, the BMW, even outshone the Honda and with all

of its electronic wizardry managed tyre wear amazingly well. By the end of the session the rubber looked as though it had only been used for a single lap scrub-in.All in all the Power Pure is an excellent choice of rubber. The hard compound in the middle will ensure that your hoops will go the distance without squaring off. The softer compound on the sides offers race tyre grip in the twisties or on the track. It’s a simple but innovative solution from the rubber giant, and we approve wholeheartedly!

Steve Allison

purposes a race bike with mirrors. It wants a precise race set up for serious track work and wasn’t happy with road pressures. The Aprilia made several attempts to throw me off and at one point I had the front and rear sliding in unison! Fun, but rather heart-stop-ping for an ordinary man like me.

All of the Japanese ma-chines handled the sit-uation with aplomb and the Fire-blade was the class of the field. I managed a 2:05 lap. Consider-ing no changes had been made to the suspension and the road

pres-


vw polo vivo

The final hammer blow has been made, it is done. The Citi Golf has been replaced by, well it’s a Polo. No

point in beating about the bush, especially not in a Polo, VW SA has done the inevitable really. They’ve taken the now previous generation Polo, added some eyelin-er, given it a new badge and sent it on its way. Job done, replace a 30 year old legend in the blink of an eye. Also, you can now get a boot if you want one, not that many peo-ple will inevitably, the A0 segment has always been dominated by hatches.

Then again, what else was there to do? What VW SA needed was a Citi for the 21st century, a vol-ume seller to act as the gateway to VW the brand. And if one reads all the moaning about the Citi as its career wound down, it is easy to see the three main shortcomings of the Citi in the 21st century. It had no air-con, no power steering and lastly was when compared to modern standards not exactly the

safest car on the road. Additionally for VW itself, there were problems with economy of scale

and keeping a completely separate plat-form going all by itself. The Polo then

solves all these problems in one fell swoop, air-con is an option, there

is power steering standard and apparently has airbags

although I didn’t crash to find out.

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bumpers, new headlight surrounds and the like, but for the most part and for practical purposes is the same car.

It does go quite nicely though, with any of the engines, although obviously it’s all relative. There are three different engines across the range, the weak-est being a 1.4L 55kW motor, then there’s a 63kW 1.4L and lastly there is the 77kW 1.6L. They’re all mated to a manual transmission, there isn’t an auto option but apparently that should arrive next year. What we have at the moment is more than enough for this segment anyway. It’s certainly not a

The Vivo itself however is what we need to investigate here, not the Citi. On this all I’ve got to say is that if it looks like a Polo, which it does because it is, well, it’s a Polo; if it walks like a Polo, which it does, because again, it’s a Polo and if it smells like a Polo, then it probably is a Polo. That rather vague obscure an-ecdote does have a purpose, my point is that the Vivo doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but that isn’t a criti-cism. The previous generation Polo, which is now the Vivo, has been a seg-ment leader for four years now, and for good reason. Sure there are the usu-al facelift type changes, redesigned


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to scratch for the segment. We hit an indicated 200km/h on a downhill in a

1.4L, so the Vivo has power aplenty to do it’s designated job, that’s com-mute on a budget. I was actually quite impressed with the power of the 1.4L relative to the 1.6L, so far as to say get the 1.4L as the 1.6L just doesn’t offer a huge upgrade for the additional cash. The 1.4L 63kW Trendline is 120 grand and probably the best bet. In fact in this

great high-speed vehicle, being a bit loose with plenty of vertical up and

down movement. It just doesn’t feel planted at high speed, throw in some side winds for good measure (we were in PE and the wind was howling) and the Vivo can be a bit unsettling. We’re talking 160km/h + cruising here though, the Vivo was never intended to be that sort of car. Overall the performance of the Vivo, regardless of engine was up

“In fact in this segment the Vivo really is one of the best performing cars

out there,... “


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er amenities. Not that people should complain, for two reasons. Firstly, and I’ll go into more detail on this shortly, VW has gone to extensive lengths to do a workaround on the price to ease the jump. VW are however out of the sub-100k market (The cheapest Vivo, a 2-door 1.4L hatch is R101 500), and that’s not very Citi-like to me. Secondly, it’s what people have been asking for, safety features and power steering cost money people, be careful what you ask for I say.

In an attempt to alleviate the potential negative impact of departing from the sub-100k, VWSA went to great lengths to convince the journalists gathered at their Uitenhage plant that the Vivo wouldn’t work out more expensive than either the Citi or as they put it, a French

rival. They were comparing the Vivo to a Sandero if you can’t work it out. There are several ways in which VW hopes to temper the price hike over the Citi, firstly they have put a lot of effort into localising parts and components supply, which means the Vivo should in theory be cheaper to own and maintain, if not buy. Then there is the insurance,

segment the Vivo really is one of the best performing cars out there, the only gripe I had with the driving experience was the sticky clutch pedal on the way back up, not too much of a problem af-ter awhile, just a little annoying.

The launch of the Vivo had a possibly unintended benefit for VW. It was hot, in fact it was literally hotter than the sun itself down in PE. On the road however, despite the trying conditions, the Vivo was a pleasant and comfortable ride. The air-con worked wonders compared to say the Citi, which doesn’t have one, and all the humps and bumps along the way did little to upset the comfort level. The interior too was well put to-gether, with plenty of that famed Ger-man build quality present. It didn’t feel right though when getting into the Citi’s

replacement and the handbrake levers cover didn’t give the impression it would one day come off, but I might be in the minority there.

So it is the quintessential Citi for the 21st century, the problem however is that it comes standard with 21st cen-tury prices as well as all those oth-

“As a replacement for the Citi, the Vivo is a good car, just a bit on the expensive side.”


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side. VW however say that the Vivo isn’t a Citi replacement as it plays in the seg-ment just above the Citi, and thus the price issue isn’t a problem. I completely disagree, if you stop building and sell-ing the Citi, then haul us all to PE to show us what you’ll be doing instead of the Citi, that’s a Citi replacement. In the end, as the cheapest VW in South Africa the Vivo is affordable, comfort-able and has a proven track record for reliability. It’s just a shame that VW are now out of the bargain basement seg-ment. Also, you can have a boot if you want, in a Citi, are they mad?

Kyle Stone

according to VW, a Vivo will be signifi-cantly cheaper to insure compared to the Citi, as a result of the parts possi-bly? The Vivo will also have much high-er resale value as the Citi heads for the boneyard, this inherently higher resale value could also help coax insurers into lowering premiums. And if all that works then yes, the total cost of owner-ship will be only marginally higher than a Citi, but with much more quality than a Citi. All the stats shown to us to prove all this insurance saving however was based on Volkswagensure, their own insurance arm so it remains to be seen if the independent insurers follow suit. As a replacement for the Citi, the Vivo is a good car, just a bit on the expensive


Hundai i30Hundai i30

The Internet, we all know, is a very interesting place. One of the things that it allows us as publishers to do, is keep a close watch on just what sort of search

engine terms our readers are using to come to our pages, an accurate and pretty much live report of the content you find most ap-pealing and want to know about the most regularly.

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for the dead Citi, the last-generation Polo now rebadged Vivo, had several days of leading search engine hits, and then our blog report on the launch of

the Hyundai i30, the subject of this ar-ticle, once again toppled its more high-brow family member.

That’s the same launch I’m going into all the details on in this report. The new Hyundai i30 is at last on South African roads, and on paper at least looks well equipped to cause quite a ripple in the C-segment hatchback space, astonish-

Since revitalising Drive Magazine in this online format, we’ve had one post astonish us all by persistently scoring strongly on this search counter. The

subject? Not a Porsche (although this brand also does consistently well), a Ferrari, a Merc, or a BMW. No, you lot are all looking for information on the Hy-undai ix35, which is yet to even come out (we’ve already secured our invite to the local launch next month)!

Recently though, there have been chal-lengers to this throne. VWs replacement

“The new Hyundai i30 is at last on South African roads,...”


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not completely original, but this can be attributed to how hotly contested this segment is, and by so many players, that just about every interesting shape possible has already been used on something.

The i30 is very distinctively a Hyundai though thanks to its clearly branded face, and moving back from the grille and bonnet area is never anything short of good-looking. There are just two models available locally, and al-though the 16” alloys of the 1.6 are all right, the 17-inchers with their dazzling chromed fins on the 2.0-litre i30 are the ones you’ll really want. These rims alone are left to lift the sportiness fac-tor of the larger-engine for onlookers and other road users to notice.

In fact, everything else about the cars

ingly a market segment which Hyundai has never had representation in be-fore!

As long as the i30 is a decent product, the superb Hyundai brand name will bring the real problems for the compe-tition. The company has built up an en-viable reputation in several key areas; good build quality being linked to excel-lent outright reliability, top-notch cus-tomer service, a bold standard warranty and maintenance plan option package to further enhance peace of mind, and finally a reputation for solid value.

When we first clap eyes on the car at the standard if decidedly anti-glam premises of the Hyundai SA training facility on the East Rand, it looks right away as if Hyundai has scored with the i30. Certainly as a whole the design is


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anything. If anything it highlights the lack of a sporty variant, which hopeful-ly Hyundai will address in the next-generation of the i30 by bolting a turbo on to this mill.

Overall it’s not a bad drive. The suspension and chassis are decently absorbent of bumps and cracks in the tarmac while still keeping control well when things get more dynamic. Again, it’s certainly not going for Mini immediacy but it slots comfort-ably into the middle-echelon of C-segment territory, and even the bigger wheels of the 2.0-litre don’t have a very detrimental effect on over-all comfort.

is pretty much identi-cal. Only the engine changes, really. Both are 5-speed manuals, both have leather interiors, climate control, audio systems with iPod con-nectivity, feature ABS, EBD, and front, passen-ger and side airbags, and have mirrors which fold away on electric motors. Which sort of makes the fairly hefty price tag dif-ference a bit hard to swallow. R189K to R229K – that’s R40 grand for an extra 16kW and some very attractive alloys. All right, and cruise control with wheel-mounted buttons, and a standard sun-roof.

Now as nice as those chrome blades are, we can tell you that you’re likely to feel a little short-changed if you plump for the pricier i30. The 2.0-litre engines were still very new and therefore very tight when we got to them, but then so were the 1.6s, and at Gauteng alti-tudes you won’t often really notice the extra shove. Neither car is exactly what we’d call fast, and the bigger engine, although it makes a nicer, raspier ex-haust note, doesn’t pull like a train or


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on the cruise.

Not everyone will notice this, or rec-ognise it as a problem however, even though a high cruising rpm invariably makes for more fuel consumed than a more relaxed rev count, so it’s not a fa-tal flaw.

This fact aside well, we can see why so many Drive readers are keen to know about the i30, and from first acquaint-ance it seems as though it should sell very well, in the process impacting the sales figures of the established play-ers which flood this market. All the big manufacturer names just about – think of a mainstream car maker and they probably have a couple of C-segment hatchback options.

Russell Bennett

Liked Handsome, Eurocentric styling Interior comfort levels Potential future GTI competitor

Disliked Five-speed box is a limitation, and an irritation when cruising Not as pokey as you’d like

The interior is a really excellent place to be. Comfortable and seemingly built from nice, upmarket materials, it also features a modern architecture com-plete with softly flowing blue mood light-ing from the dash and fascia. All the windows are electric naturally and the whole package is definitely a step be-yond what we’ve become accustomed to from Hyundai.

On the highway, it is then unfortunate about the five-speed gearbox, espe-cially the ratio of top (fifth) which sees even the pokier 2.0-litre spinning at the

4000rpm mark with 120 showing on the speedo. This makes for a fairly intru-sive, buzzy engine note intruding into the otherwise very refined cabin when


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out ever having sat on a bike. With the ink still wet on your learners you can go and buy any size of bike and take your chances out on the public road. Some might find this a frightening experience whilst others end up on their backsides with the bike on top of them. Not only is their the risk of injury, new riders could be put off motorcycling forever.

It doesn’t have to be this way - buy a new Honda and you qualify for a course given by the Honda On-Road Academy. This course is designed with new riders

Honda rider Academy

Honda is a company that takes safety seriously. They don’t just sell you a bike and let you get on with it, they teach you how

to stay safe when you ride. And I’m not just talking about throwing in a track day voucher as a sales incentive. No, this is real training with qualified instructors.

Riding a motorcycle for the first time can be a bit daunting particularly since you can obtain a learners license with-


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enough that an inexperienced rider could find that they are about half a mile behind the bike. Obviously if you’re sit-ting on the machine you can’t be behind it but what I’m talking about here is that by the time he/she reacts, the bike is already 800 Meters further up the road. Riding fast requires honing skills and reaction times so that you are in con-trol of the bike. Honda sells excellent superbikes and they know riders buy them with high speed riding in mind so the Advanced Superbike School is an-other arm of the On-Road Academy.

in mind but is a valuable refresher for more experienced riders, particularly if you are self taught and may never have learned the correct techniques.

The course starts off with an intensive theory classroom session and a series of practical on road training exercises. Once the course has been completed you are issued with a certificate of pro-ficiency, which should earn you brown-ie points with your insurance company.

Modern Superbikes are fast. Fast


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School was for me. And it goes without saying that track skills translate into being more proficient as a road rider as well.

So, I donned my leathers and went along to Kyalami to see what it’s all about. I managed to snag myself a Honda CBR600RR but before throw-ing a leg over I was summoned to the classroom. The first class went through the basics of counter steering, which surprisingly so many riders don’t ac-tually understand, looking where you want to be rather than straight ahead and a basic introduction to the correct

The ideal environment for the training is a racetrack. That way you can learn all the skills without wor-rying about traffic or pot-holes. Superbike training takes place on the Kya-lami racetrack and is run by the Michelin Superbike School excellently man-aged by ex racer Dirk Du Plooy. All instructors are themselves experienced racers.

In common with the road-riding course, nothing can be achieved without under-standing the basic principles so the day

starts off in the classroom. And not only that, after each track session there is a classroom session so that skills prac-tised on-track can be built on.

Now I have been riding for a while so I rather big-headedly decided that the road riding course was beneath me. I love track riding and am always look-ing to hone my skills and go faster so I decided that the Advanced Superbike

“....after each track session there is a classroom session so that skills practised

on-track can be built on.”


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than the rest of the group, the instruc-tor waved me past. Within 2 laps I had lapped my group. My instructor decid-ed that I should actually be riding in B group. And that’s the great thing about the Honda Academy, you can move up to faster groups within the Michelin Su-perbike school.

lines through corners.

After the classroom it’s out onto the track but it’s not a free for all. Each rider is al-located an instructor and al-though it’s not one on one, there are 4 riders per instruc-tor; so you do stay with the same instructor for the day. The instructor leads the group out on the first lap and shows the riders the lines through corners. After

the first lap, the instructor drops to the back of the group to watch the riders and see what sort of mistakes they make.

Back in the pits the instructor takes you through any mistakes that you made and any areas where you could improve. After that it’s back into the classroom where you start learning the theory behind more advanced techniques. And so the day goes on.

I’m going to be bigheaded here but I’ve ridden track before so realizing that I was a bit quicker


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ing behind and watching my mistakes. After each session, there was a thorough de-brief and by the end of the day I had

shaved 5 seconds a lap off my previous best.

Five seconds a lap is significant par-ticularly on a 600cc machine but some credit must go to the bike. The CBR600

Moving up into a faster group doesn’t mean that you are on your own though. I was allocated another instructor for

the remainder of the day. Together we worked on getting my lap times down. He worked with me, riding in front, rid-

“Moving up into a faster group doesn’t mean that you are on your own though.”

“The CBR600 has excellent fuelling and punches above its weight.”


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able to carry third gear into the corner eliminating the need for the extra gear change.

Learning to ride correctly increases confidence and keeps you safe. Hell, there are enough hazards on the road so do what you can to stay alive. The Honda On-Road Academy is your best choice whether you just want to learn to ride or you want to hone your skills as a superbike rider.

has excellent fuelling and punches above its weight. Body position worked well for me as well, being tall, I appre-ciated the slightly longer reach to the bars. The bike also has reasonable mid range. Wesbank corner is a tricky dou-ble apex corner that you want to en-ter in second gear but before the exit you need third. Now you don’t want to put your foot under the lever while the bike is leaned over (which is why race riders use and upside down shift pat-tern). Whilst the Honda doesn’t have the torque of a twin or triple, it was


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are waking up to the fact that the gov-ernment hasn’t delivered on its prom-ises, so now they need more money to support their fat cat lifestyles, and they are beginning to realise that they might have to start repairing roads, providing services as so on.

“Where oh where are we going to get all of this money from?” they ask. And of course the answer is, we’ll just force the taxpayer to dig deeper into his pocket. And you really want to tax the so-called rich because let’s face it; most of them

All new cars sold in South Africa that produce more than 120g of carbon di-oxide per kilometre are going to be subject to a

carbon tax. You see there was a reces-sion last year and the economy isn’t exactly booming this year. The problem with that is that the greedy politicians have not been able to extort as much cash from the public to feather their own nests. The extravagant lifestyle of fast cars and wild parties is under threat! Not only that, the voting public


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All you have to do is type “climategate” into Google to see that for yourself.

Now I often criticise our government for not having their finger on the pulse but this time I will have to let them off.

You see, even though climategate ex-poses the biggest lie of our time, gov-ernments around the world are trying their best to keep a lid on it and con-

aren’t going to vote for the current gov-ernment anyway.

The solution in their eyes is to tax cars that pollute the atmosphere because, they say, that carbon emissions are

going to cause the planet to overheat and we’ll all die. The problem is that the theory of man-made global warm-ing has already been proved to be a lie.

“The extravagant lifestyle of fast cars and wild parties is under threat!”


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to restrict the distance that its citizens could afford to drive and at the same time fill up its coffers, people would protest against it. The way around that is to spend several years scaremon-gering, another theory put forward by one A. Hitler, because people living in fear are easier to control. The scare-mongering has been going on for a while and we’ve been persuaded that the planet is getting hotter and it’s all

our fault. Once we have been persuaded that we

are directly responsible for the problem , we simply ac-

cept that we must pay, in hard cash, for our mistakes.

Corporates don’t miss a trick. Once they see that people are

prepared to pay for what they perceive to be a man made prob-

lem, the manufacturers offer prod-ucts that save us from ourselves. Of

course there is a huge price premium on these products but no one minds.

It gives us a warm fuzzy feeling that the money is for the greater good.

What is amazing is the gul-libility of the public at large. We were all told that glo-

bal warming would be cata-

tinue spreading the lie. Climate change has been used to restrict peoples’ life-styles, which Hitler stated was the best way to create a dictatorship. But more than that, climategate has been used by governments and corporate compa-nies for huge financial gain.

So how does it all work? If a govern-ment announced that it was going to tax the hell out of fuel because it wanted


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is to ridicule those scientists and the news media only report the scientists that are “on side”. Free press my arse! There are more scientists opposed to the argument than those in favour so if it were a free press, surely their voices would be heard. Authorities that seek to spread misinformation use vague statements like “most scientists agree”. In other words, “we don’t have any real

evidence”. Who are most scientists an-yway? Can you give us names and tell us how many took part in the survey? I think not.

In fact one particular scientist not in the climate change camp pointed out that global warming really is no real prob-lem. Global cooling on the other hand is a serious threat. We would need more energy for heating and we would have less capacity to grow food.

Even when the whole climategate scan-dal happened, the mainstream media

strophic and that sea levels would rise. But surely straightforward logic would tell you that it’s all a lie? The sea level hasn’t risen in any significant way and every time there is a big global warming push by American and European gov-ernments, it’s followed by a particularly cold winter. It’s as if God is trying to tell us something and yet the public on the whole swallows the governments’ lies

without question. Eventually when the public do start to question, the solution is simple – change the name to climate change; job done. Everyone is happy again and digs deeper in their pockets to pay punitive environmental taxes.

As yet, none of the scientists seem able to explain exactly how the climate will change nor how it might affect us. There are, in fact, several scientists who point out — using real data — that climate change is not man-made but simply a phenomenon of nature’s cycles. The solution to that problem

“The sea level hasn’t risen in any significant way and every time there is a

big global warming push by American and European governments, it’s followed by a

particularly cold winter.”


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panic mode trying to discredit the sto-ry and cover it up. A British politician got on his soapbox claiming that it was just a conspiracy theory. He compared us sceptics with people like Holocaust deniers! But as a Daily Telegraph com-

mentator said, it cannot possibly be a conspiracy theory when a conspiracy has actually been proved.

Even if we were to assume for a minute that all of the evidence was correct and that we were destroying the planet. What alternatives are being offered to driving our cars? We don’t have a viable public transport system and even in the more advanced European countries, public

transport only works for a small percent-age of people. If our government really is concerned for the en-vironment, who gave planning permission for all the out of town shopping centres? What is being done to help industry reduce emissions? What is being done to reduce

were conspicuous by their silence. Even if they didn’t agree with the evidence, surely a story of that magnitude war-ranted a few column inches. The whole scandal kicked off when an insider at the Climatic Research Unit of the Uni-

versity of East Anglia leaked thousands of emails, which demonstrated that data has been misrepresented and even fal-sified over a period of several years. Oh, and the temperature data was un-accountably erased. This from one of only four centres around the world that supply climate change data to the UN.

Once the scandal was exposed, politi-cians and interested parties went into

“Every litre of wasted fuel puts R1.54c in their pockets.”

Hybrid Cars


APRIL 2010

fuel-wasting traffic congestion? The answer, as you already know, is abso-lutely nothing. In fact there are those that believe the government actually wants traffic jams. Every litre of wasted fuel puts R1.54c in their pockets.

Again, were we to accept the theory of man-made global warming and all buy electric cars, where does the electricity come from? In the main, coal-fired power stations, which pollute the atmosphere at double the rate of road transport. It’s that old theory, “If it doesn’t come out of my exhaust pipe, I’m not responsible”. Then there is the huge environmental impact involved in the actual manufac-turing of electric and Hybrid cars. Even if you are in the climate change camp and want to save the world, trust us, burn petrol!

So there we have it. Man made global warming or climate change is a lie. It has been exposed as a lie and yet we continue to pay taxes both on new ve-hicles and fuel. Taxes that are based on lies, lies and nothing but lies. And there’s still more to come...

Steve

http://issuu.com/actions/openurl?url=www.drivemagazine.co.za

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day evening, was more than bearable, in truth the ride was pretty pleasurable overall! Quite a shock.

But the first surprise was the one which tickled my irony gland until I could bare-ly contain the overflow from this stimu-lation. There’s a sign, you see, a big one, next to the highway, just before this treacherous traffic zone, close to the Modderfontein offramp.

It’s a pretty decent attempt at comedy in truth. The sign, you see, is mangled and messy, and read the short message from The Aveng Group, the builders of the highway, and you’ll understand. It states; “We didn’t build this sign. But we did build this highway.”

While driving south on the N3 this week, a route which for the last 6 months I’ve pretty much fastidi-

ously avoided due to the traffic tragedy of roadworks but was, unfortunately unavoidable on this particular trip, I was twice surprised.

The second part of my surprise was about the traffic flow itself, which seemed unfeasibly free around the dreaded Van Buuren road offramp. Until I realised that the schools were still on holiday, thereby removing a big chunk of the regular daily traffic on this road. Nevertheless, the new 5-lane sections seem to work pretty well over-all, and congestion, at 5:15 on a Tues-


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struction flaws, those lanes as straight as the tracks of a Sidewinder snake hurrying across desert sands and the tarmac cliffs which have simply been left as they are, I envisage the future of this highway making the claims on the sign even more obviously prepos-terous. Wait until you’re jammed up for three hours right beside this big, bold claim because the rain the night before created a pothole which has swallowed-up a big-rig hauling 60 tons of fuel. Oh, your sides will rupture with the mirth! And when you’re then made to pay a R10 toll for sitting in the gridlock well, will your fragile human body be able to contain the hilarity of it all?

You may say this is pure speculation. That I’m just a pessimist and this sce-nario will not unfold. That there’s light at the end of the tunnel. All true, al-though it is postulation based on hard evidence. Anyway let’s not get caught up on the future just yet, I really hope that it doesn’t happen, because I’ll be right there beside you giggling mania-cally until my overstressed coronary system collapses as well. Not some-thing I’m really looking forward to with any sort of relish, let me tell you.

Russell Bennett

Yet, very much like the mangled sign it-self, this piece of road remains blighted by lanes which zigzag erratically and huge tarmac “steps” which, similarly, wander randomly hither and thither, and are a huge danger to any vehicle travelling at more than 60km/h.

And then, here’s this sign, right next to the road which people can with their own eyes see is, well, not exactly per-fect, deliberately pointing out manufac-tured imperfections on the part of the signs proprietors to highlight the per-fection of their work. It’s a very com-plex web we weave, I guess.

That’s like me putting up a busted, ill-functioning website with new features which don’t exactly work, and claim-ing that I’d built the internet! Or like a farmer idly allowing his lands to fall to rack and ruin, planting some cherries in a flowerpot in his kitchen window, and claiming to be an integral element in the feeding of the starving African masses. Or like Zimbabwe, claiming that the pit of a country they’ve created from a thriving, robust economy is the perfect model of African governmental glory. Oh, wait a minute...

Apart from the clear design and con-


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the traffic situation is so bad and there is so much frustration that drivers are unwilling to offer any other road user any courtesy, bike or car. Interestingly enough, the taxi’s that so many road users complain about always seem to be willing to move over and let bikes past.

Bikers themselves don’t do themselves any favours either. It used to be com-mon practice to wave to a car driver that moved over but this practice is less common than it used to be. Not only that, some of our two wheeled friends roar past cars and gesticulate rudely when the driver acts in a way that they feel aggrieved by. Some bikers have even been known to break mirrors off cars in the heat of the moment.

And before you know it, it becomes a vicious circle. Car drivers lose respect for bikers and stop co-operating. Bik-

Is it just my imagination or is there a growing anti-motorcycle feel-ing developing in Gauteng? I say Gauteng since Cape Town drivers seem to be remarkably courteous

to two-wheeled road users.

Just lately I have noticed more and more car drivers that seem to position them-selves on the road so as to make it very difficult for bikes to pass. It may be that they just don’t notice that we’re there, I’m not sure. Not long ago though I was making my way between the cars on a dual carriageway approaching a set of lights. A car made a deliberate attempt to move over and block my progress. As I pulled up next to him his window happened to be open. I leaned in and asked him what he thought he was do-ing. He replied, “Why should you get there before me?” I said, “Because I bought a bike and you didn’t.”

One of the problems seems to be that


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fact that bikes have virtually no impact on road wear. You see, no one in South Africa wants to make a living; they all want to make a killing. SANRAL in more ways than one!

Now it seems that shopping centre managers have jumped on the greed bandwagon. I begrudge paying to park a car at a shopping centre. If you want me to spend money, at least let me park my car for free! But worse than that, these shopping centers are now charg-ing bikes the same as cars for parking even though we take up a fraction of the space. They have even gone to the expense in some centers of extend-ing the barriers so that bikes can’t ride round them. If you want a tip, shop at the Festival Mall in Kempton Park, they offer free bike parking. I for one will be boycotting all other centers.

Steve Allison

ers get more annoyed with car drivers blocking them and so it goes on.

A bike is a very logical alternative to spending hours in traffic and the more people that ride bikes, the less cars there are on the road. That eases con-gestion to the benefit of all road users. Now you would think that authorities would recognize this fact and try to encourage two-wheel transport. Noth-ing could be further from the truth. Pot-holes have become a way of life and local councils don’t seem to care how many motorcyclists are injured falling down them. Road works are laid out in a manner that increases the danger to motorcyclist and the road surface is of-ten dangerous. Do they care? I think not.

SANRAL seems to be motivated by greed alone and charge the same in tolls for both bike and cars despite the


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62 Drive Versus Big Surprise! - Chrysler 300C SRT-8 squares up to Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, with some surprising, and some not-so-surprising conclu-sions.

76 Drive Versus Street Touring – Kawasaki GTR 1400 faces Honda VFR 1200. As usu-al, we disagree with the norm in the end..

88 Drive Tests Dodge Journey CRD R/T

96 Drive Tests Citroen C5 2.0 HDI

104 Drive Tests Audi A4 2.0 TSI StopStart

112 Drive Tests VW Polo 1. 4 Trendline

118 Drive Tests Chery J1








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Chrysler 300C SRT-8 versus Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG

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The V8 SuperStars saloon cars we watched, heard, and felt rumbling about Kyalami a few months back included a rather eclectic mixture of basic hardware in the pitlane. The Germans dominated, BMW M3s, M5s, Audi RS4s, with some wonderful Italian brio added in the form of the Maserati Quattroporte entrants, and even a dash of English style

from the bulky but graceful lines of the screaming, supercharged Jag XFR.

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lents of these international racers up against one another, in SA, in our own meaty paws. See how they compared, how they performed at truly stock set-tings, and just generally enjoy the pleasures of the oversized V8 in a lum-bering saloon.

Fortunately we weren’t able to get a C 63 AMG, since we aren’t its biggest fans, but we were able to arrange the brand-new Elegantly Dynamic E-Class with the same motor, and since it’s most certainly a four-door with the identical lump up front we figured it was close enough. After all, there were V8 M3s and last-gen V8 M5s on the same track,

But two of the cars caught my eye in particular. One because, strictly speak-ing, couldn’t really have been a sa-loon. Although called a C 63 AMG, the bodywork was clearly closer to a CLK 63, although I didn’t exactly mind as to me the CLK-DTM is one of the finest looking racecars in the world. And the other, because of its outlandish quality, even amongst such exceptional com-pany. The Chrysler 300C, the SRT-8 of course with its 6.1-litre Mopar V8 and such brutal styling you can’t help but fall in love a little.

It did give us an idea though, so we set out to get the two road-going equiva-


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shattered. The decidedly more sobre-looking E is by far and away the most blatantly, vociferously and highly-tuned, high-performance big-cube over-mus-cled thug of a machine. It starts with a revvy flourish, settles into raw, bari-

tone bassline still with an engineered, almost lightweight keening, setting the otherwise refined and well-insulated cabin thrumming to its all-encompass-ing beat. If you dare to give the throt-tle a gratuitous blip at this point, you’ll experience shock. In fact we don’t rec-ommend you do it in a covered parking lot, at least not too much, for fear of damaging your eardrums.

so why not C and E-Class Mercs?

But returning to the racing for a moment, of the two cars here, Chrysler’s Mopar-powered 300 C SRT-8 and Merc’s high-tech, latest-generation E-Class stuffed

with the legendary but potentially overu-tilised 6.3-litre naturally-aspirated AMG V8, you only directly associate one of them with the acrid stench of burning oil, tortured rubber and unburnt race fuel that gets spectators so naturally high in America’s favourite OTT motor-sport, NASCAR racing.

But the moment you fire up the en-gines, your assumptions are forever


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ine it belching a substantial jet of flame from the four large tailpipes which are the endpoint of this new AMG system. It’s one of the most incredible sounding V8s ever, and without doubt an acous-tical leader of the current competitors.

The SRT-8 for instance, despite look-ing like 2000kgs of automotive muscle trying to squeeze into 1500kgs worth of bodywork so pumped, distended, and excessively over-massaged is the bod-

It revs astonishingly quickly, consid-ering its considerable capacity, and what feels like just a brief exploratory jab sends the tacho spinning furiously round to 6000rpm, with every ounce of the violence of the barely-silenced NAS-CAR racer V8s. And that’s without even a load on the engine. When you come off, the rear end lights up with loud, sharp reports like a barrage of small arms, and despite the leather-lined luxury you’re sitting in you can imag-


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over some fairly serious distances. The 300C is refined, cultured almost, al-though there is a trace of motorsport edge approaching its top end, and the sizeable capacity does rock the car about on its springs. It feels heavy on torque although lacking significantly in outright free-revving response. The AMG 6.3 on the other hand, is positively manic, zinging through its rev range in milliseconds while emitting the unmis-takable sounds of a V8 packing racecar power.

When the engine is loaded up, under normal driving conditions, transmitting power to the gumball rear tyres via a dual-clutch 7-GTronic transmission, it sounds even better still. The V8 is always a presence, even at burbling speeds, but the temptation to crack the throttle wide is rewarded every single time with supercar levels of pulverising thrust and a soundtrack which is com-

pletely at odds with the sober E-Class suit. Yes it has cues which mark it out distinctively as an AMG, the quad pipes are the first hint, the big, sexy rims, and

ywork for this sportiest model. The bulky body even manages to make the enormous, fabulous 20-inch alloys complete with SRT engraved on one spoke just right, and bulges so menac-ingly you swear it’s ac-tually looking for some children to eat. But fire up the 6.1-litre V8, and there’s a distinct lack of aural savagery. With just two, fair-sized but compared to the huge quad-pipes of the AMG downright apologetic, tailpipes through which to sing, the Mopar mo-tor is far more distant, much more muted than

the ebullient AMG powerplant.

Even just revving the motor in neutral reveals an enormous amount of what we’re going to find out over the next few days with these cars side by side

“It’s one of the most incredible sounding V8s ever, and without doubt an acoustical

leader of the current competitors.”


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a more aggressive front apron with gaping intakes to cool the substantial brakes. But it re-mains a decidedly understated and demure form, considering the beast straining to be un-leashed within. Which makes it all the more shocking when that motor starts to shout. It’s really a modern Q-Car, some-thing the AMG boys have been pulling off since they were but a racing/tuning outfit, and not Mercedes’ M-division yet.

The SRT-8 relies more on its freakishly over-proportioned exterior than the Merc does. Naturally styling will always di-vide opinions but in my eyes, the 300C in SRT-8 guise is positively gorgeous. Massive, imposing, bluff, with those tiny pillbox windows of the cabin perched atop just about the closest automotive equivalent to a tank I’ve ever seen. A rac-ing tank, judging by the hugely flared arches. It is just a bit of a pity that they didn’t carry this fringe lunacy over to the rear, where a pair of very ordinary-looking tailpipes tell you noth-


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adaptive dampers in here with a simi-lar range of settings on tap, and an AMG button which can be customised to your favourite bou-quet of settings, be-cause it does get a bit annoying having to switch the ‘box over to Manual, the suspension over to Sport Plus, and the ESP to off every time you set off on any journey.

There’s a seriously impressive Har-mann/Kardon stereo system installed as well, satellite navigation, radar-guid-ed adaptive cruise control, PDC, pow-ered and heated seats, you name it the E-Class pretty much has it. And Mer-cedes has come a long way from the square, older-gent cabin architecture of the late 80s and 90s, it now just feels like a supreme place from which to get down to some serious driving work.

One thing the Chrysler also is, is plush, although the material qualities cannot be compared. Nor can the integrated

ing of what the Mopar engine has to of-fer.

Inside these two performance saloons the tale continues apace. The Merc just oozes quality, impregnable build, cut-ting-edge engineering, and the priciest materials swathed over every surface you touch. It also swims in high-tech of course, that new 7-speed ‘box features four modes of operation ranging from Comfort through Sport and on to Sport Plus and finally Manual, where you’re made responsible for controlling your chosen ratio via the lovely, positive-feeling aluminium paddles mounted be-hind the steering wheel. There are also


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trying to keep the revs down to protect the meagre remains of fuel which al-ways seem to be floating in the tank.

You only have to crank up the stereo to note the quality differences though. The Chrysler’s starts to strain at anywhere near full volume, and within a couple of minutes a nasty crackling noise sets in which can only be eliminated by turning the radio off and then back on, and not venturing into the upper reaches of vol-ume again. The Merc is always a rich, clear, full sound and is never thrown off its game.

All well and good we know, but at last we get to the most important bit. The

technology installed as standard. Yes, it also has the PDC, SatNav, a Boston Premium audio setup, even the same active speed control setup. And the seats are probably even more comfort-able on long journeys, but are plump and generously padded to the point of not supporting you much laterally when pushing on.

The gearbox is the old 5-speed auto-matic, no clever dual-clutches or ad-justable shift patterns here though. You can stir the cogs manually if you like, via the stick itself Tiptronic-style, but the fully automatic mapping is well-tuned for sporty driving so you only re-ally choose to go manual when you’re


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probably more impressively the chas-sis and suspension are able to take the substantial forces this speed serves up in their stride. In Sport Plus in particular, the E is utterly composed, and actually stays with you even if you do overstep the limits of the sticky rear tyres, which isn’t all that hard with so much instan-taneous torque on tap. But it drifts like an old M5, friendly and sublime, in fact taking a deliberate prod of the loud pedal to unstick the rear end so strong is the mechanical grip on offer.

And fast, ooh boy. Faster than anything short of a fully-fledged exotic. Backed by a blood-and-thunder soundtrack which many of these machines would

driving. The object of this pairing, to see how these two which share track space in the V8 Superstars series com-pare on the road. And just how vast a chasm doubling-up the purchase price actually creates.

First, the E 63. It’s astonishing, and easily the best platform I’ve yet driven for this bombastic AMG motor. Where the C 63 always feels overengined and lacking a tied-down chassis, and the SL version always plays second fiddle to the big twin-turbo V12 of the flagship, the E 63 is just thoroughly rewarding from any angle. Considering the mass of the vehicle, the engine delivers ac-celeration of the haymaker variety, and


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It’s a sort of an old-school muscle-car charm really, whereas the Merc is mus-cle for the 21st century. The rear axle of the Chrysler hops and tramps under hard acceleration over rough tarmac, the Mercs is just raw control. Driving back to Johannesburg from the Harte-beespoort shoot location in the 300C, the bumpy single-lane road leading past Gerotek and Pelindaba gets scary

enough at 160km/h to back off. While going in the opposite direction in the E 63 just a couple of hours earlier, I re-membered the only discomfort I experi-enced at 200km/h was solved by crack-ing the suspension back to regular “Sport”. No, in every on-road situation, including a straight-out drag race on the smoothest of smooth surfaces, the E 63 just runs rings around the SRT-8.

give critical parts of their male anatomy for.

In truth, it’s a dynamic performance so commanding, the SRT-8 doesn’t stand much of a chance with it’s more last-gen underpinnings and systems. Al-though the ride feels quite firm initially, the weight can get on top of the springs and make for a wild ride over rough-er tarmac or when being hus-tled merciless-ly through the bends. The 6.1-litre engine feels u n e x p e c t e d l y lazy low down in the rev range, which isn’t helped by just how quiet it is, although when it does open up its throat at about 4500 rpm there’s a lovely keening timbre to the rich V8 backbeat which hints at motorsport roots. It’s at this point that the motor really starts hauling as well. Hard. And if you keep the engine in this zone you’ll destroy a tank of petrol in a couple of hundred kays, but you’ll be having a real hoot in the process!


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AMG. Both deliver confidence-inspiring stopping power at any speeds, although I’m certain the E 63s would last longer on a track without fade, the weight of the Chrysler must severely punish even as fine a system as the Brembo setup is in sustained use.

It’s at this point, however, that I really have to throw a spanner into the AMG whitewash being prepared for chucking all over the 300C SRT-8... In the more esoteric measurement of pure fun, raw driving pleasure and sheer likeability, if not in the more scientific analysis of outright dynamic potential, SRT-8 pur-chasers are definitely getting the bet-ter deal. Remember that you could al-most have two SRT-8s for the price of the AMG, and the huge fun-factor the Chrysler delivers looks like an absolute

And flat-out? Well, once I’d disabled the silly “Winter tyres” lim-iter on the AMG (why would an SA-spec car be running rubber de-signed for snow and ice?) this car runs up to 250km/h almost ef-fortlessly. And you could hold it there all day were it not for lit-tle inconveniences like other road users, speed cameras, or robots.

The Chrysler requires a lot more com-mitment especially beyond the 200 – 210km/h mark, where the squared-off bodywork starts to tell against even the ample power of this V8. I bottled out at just north of 230km/h on the GPS, because it starts to feel a bit like run-ning on the ragged edge at that veloc-ity. It’s amazing how much confidence the latest technology brings, even when you’re running with ESP disengaged.

In fact the only dynamic area where the two run quite close, is braking. Giant Brembos pull the Chrysler up, while the Merc employs similarly overt carbon-ceramic setups designed and built by


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If, like their racecar counterparts, these two cars were put on a track side by side, it wouldn’t even take half a lap for the E 63 to win outright. But when it came to driving one home for the night, only the very brand-conscious and elit-ist would honestly have no problem choosing between the two. Personally, I would (and in fact did during the test-ing week) opt for the Chrysler more of-ten than not.

Perhaps it has to do with the sub R1-million pricetag, perhaps the lack of computer wizardry keeping the chassis in check, but you can somehow have even more fun pitching the 300C down a dark, windy, potentially roadworks-ravaged road than the high-and-mighty AMG.

Russell Bennett

bargain!

The emotive qualities manifest most strongly in the appearanc-es of the two vehicles, and the around-town driving duties. The Chrysler is a shape which you just can’t help but glance back at every time, and although I appreciate the Q-car appeal of the E Class it just isn’t as in-stantly arresting or thoroughly charming as the big Yank. And then when you’re just trundling through traffic, the lavishly padded Chrysler seat manages to adapt to what you’re asking of it, whereas the AMG just al-ways seems to want you to be going faster for it to be happy.

It’s also worth remembering, that while I may have been lamenting what seems to be a lack of firepower in the 300C this whole article, this is only relative to a machine as superlative as the E 63 AMG. Against, say, a Lumina SS with it’s similarly gargantuan 6.0-litre Chevy V8, the SRT-8 would be positively blis-tering. It is not, in isolation, a tardy car, and is in fact more than enough per-formance for most mere mortal drivers, most of the time. Big-hearted, honest, and cutting a very handsome swathe through traffic.


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LikedMad power, Madder soundtrack

DislikedThirst, Price

Drive Vitals Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGEngine V8 petrolCapacity 6208ccPower 386kW@ 6800 rpmTorque 630Nm@ 5200 rpmKerb weight 1840 KgDriven wheels RearTransmission 7 speed AMG SPEEDSHIFT MCT0-100km/h 4.5sPrice R1 169 000

LikedButch, cartoonish looksValue proposition

Disliked ThirstMuted soundtrack

Drive Vitals Chrysler 300C SRT-8Engine V8 petrolCapacity 6059ccPower 317kW@ 6000 rpmTorque 569Nm@ 4600 rpmKerb weight 1955 KgDriven wheels RearTransmission 5 speed AutoStick0-100km/h 4.9sPrice R599 900


Kawasaki GTR 1400 v Honda VFR 1200Kawasaki GTR 1400 v Honda VFR 1200

Over the tank sports bikes are a lot of fun, particularly on a track or fast breakfast run, but ride them any sort of distance and your back and arse start to take strain. I have done several long trips on sports bikes and found that I couldn’t walk for a couple of hours af-terwards. Cruisers work well for long distance rides but they don’t

really have much high speed cornering ability. So if you want to go a long way and still have fun through the mountains, you want a sports tourer. So we got hold of the new Honda VFR 1200 and the recently updated Kawasaki GTR 1400. Both are top of the range sports touring bikes that cost a round R160 000 but which is the one to buy?

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What you get is a bike with more ac-ronyms than you can shake a stick at but let’s go through them in layman’s terms. You get for example 2nd-Gener-ation K-ACT, which stand for Kawasaki Advanced Coactive-braking Technol-ogy and really just means ABS. Clever ABS I admit but ABS nevertheless. The ABS system links the front and rear braking systems but there are 2 modes to choose from. In Standard mode the electronics give more priority to rider input. In other words if you pull the

Kawasaki GTR 1400What we have here is a big power-ful sports tourer with the emphasis on touring rather than sports riding. But don’t be fooled the GTR 1400 is blis-teringly fast. It’s big; it’s powerful and yet surprisingly easy to ride. It has all the electronic wizardry and gadgets to keep even the most committed techno head entertained. Not only that, the electronic wizardry works in the back-ground keeping you safe without inter-fering with the riding experience.


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signed as a safety feature keeping you upright when the road conditions get slippery. KRTC is on by default every time you switch on the bike. You can

switch it off but why you would want to on a shaft driven sports tourer is be-yond me.

The instrument panel has a pair of large analogue dials for speedometer and tachometer. Between the two is an LCD screen with a wealth of infor-mation available. You get all that you would expect from a fuel consumption

front brake lever, most of the braking effort goes to the front with the back brake only being applied when neces-sary. Should you choose not to think for yourself and let’s be honest you might want to spend more time admiring the countryside, the High Combined Mode links the front and rear brakes for maxi-mum effect regardless of how you are actually applying the brake.

KIPASS is my favorite acronym and it stands for Kawasaki’s Intelligent Prox-imity Activation Start System. What you get is an electronic remote which you keep in your pocket. The remote needs to be within range of the bike before you can start the engine or open the storage compartment. It isn’t keyless

go; you still have a key, which has to be turned on before the starter button will work. The key can be removed so that you can open the fuel filler and remove the panniers.

KTRC is much easier to understand, it is of course traction control. Don’t be fooled though, this no Moto GP derived system for high speed riding. It’s de-

“KIPASS is my favorite acronym and it stands for Kawasaki’s Intelligent Proximity

Activation Start System.”


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you do use economical mode, the ECU changes to a leaner fuel map, not that you really notice.

Not enough gadgets for you? The Ka-wasaki has a windscreen that is eclec-tically height adjustable. The headlight height can be adjusted using a dial in-

side the fairing. There is an accessory socket for your GPS or any other elec-trical equipment. Should the weather turn frosty, heated grips will keep your hands toasty.

The GTR is big and you notice that as soon as you throw your leg over. It is heavy as well which you notice when

computer, instant as well as average fuel consumption, remaining range and so on. And that’s not all; you even get information like tyre pressure monitor-ing.

For those of you that believe global warming is going to destroy the planet,

there is an economical riding indicator. A little icon flashes up on the screen reassuring you that you’re being frugal with the fuel (or berating you for wreck-ing the globe if you aren’t). For those realizing that the small saving is not go-ing to make much difference and want to use the power available, the econo-my indicator can be switched off. When

“The GTR is big and you notice that as soon as you throw your leg over.”


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pushing it into the garage. Out on the road though, you really don’t feel the size and weight. Riding the bike is ef-fortless and be-fore long you’ll be lane splitting with the best of them. What you do notice is how comfortable it is. This is a bike that would take you between Jo’burg and Cape Town without trou-bling your piles or straining your back. Take your partner on the back and you probably won’t even notice them there.

You never really get used to just how much power you have on tap. Power delivery is smooth and easy to manage but as long as you keep the grip twist-ed, the big 1400 just keeps on deliver-


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Wind protection is so good that I’m sure you could ride through fairly heavy rain without getting wet. In fact there is so much protection that taking your hand off the bar to wave at a car feels like your arm is being pulled off. And that’s with the screen at its lowest setting. I raised the screen at about 160 Km/h and my body actually fell forwards. The gills along the side of the fairing ensure that hot air is vented out to the side rather than across your legs.

The GTR 1400 is big, comfortable and effortless to ride. It’s a brilliant long dis-tance machine that won’t let you down when the road starts to twist. Load it up and go somewhere a long way away, that’s what it’s best at.

ing until, before you know it you’re at silly speeds.And silly speed really isn’t a problem. Although the ride is reasonably soft, soft enough to keep your fillings in place even on South African roads, the bike’s stability is amazing. Bumps and ripples don’t upset the bike at all. This is a bike that instils confidence and you can get a move on without your knuck-les turning white.

So with all of this straight-line ability when you do stumble across a moun-tain pass you might expect it to be lack-ing. Well, it is heavy and you do notice the weight and the physical size of the machine but it is remarkably competent through corners.


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when you’re munching miles. When you’re miles from anywhere, knowing how far you can go before running out of fuel is comforting to say the least.

Even the panniers, which by the way you have to pay extra for, look like an afterthought. They stick out like Piet Koornhof’s ears so far that I managed to drag one along the side of a concrete

Honda VFR 1200The Honda VFR 1200 is Honda’s take on the sport touring concept with the emphasis on sports rather than tour-ing. It might be a reasonably big shaft driven bike but the first thing you notice is how narrow the bike is, especially when compared with the GTR. You sit low down and the tank is tall in front of you. There is definitely a feeling that you are sitting in the bike rather than on it.

What you don’t get is a bike loaded with gadgets, which makes it appear lacking com-pared to the Kawa-saki. You do get ABS but then Honda even fit ABS as an option on the Fireblade so no surprise there. When the weather turns cold you’ll have to wear thicker gloves, no heated grips here. Traction control? No, you don’t get that ei-ther. Hell you don’t even get a trip com-puter, which is quite a handy thing to have


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actions from the worlds press but to me the VFR is a thing of beauty. And I’m sure, just like the Blade, more and more people will a p p r e c i a t e its looks as time goes by. The only fly in the oint-ment is the

exhaust. There seems to be a competi-tion to see who can make the biggest, ugliest exhaust and for now, Honda is

winning that one hands-down. Perhaps they are in cahoots with the aftermarket manufacturers. “We’ll put a really crap pipe on the bike to keep you guys in business”. I know all the tree huggers want quiet bikes that emit nothing more

pillar in a car park. The VFR is one of the few bikes I have ridden where the panniers are wider than the mirrors. Being so narrow, the VFR is brilliant

at lane splitting so with panniers fitted, you need to be careful that you don’t clump a car door with them.

But that’s not the full story; I loved the VFR and really didn’t want to give it back. The styling has met with mixed re-

“Being so narrow, the VFR is brilliant at lane splitting so with panniers fitted, you need to be careful that you don’t clump a

car door with them.”


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me wrong; keep the grip twisted and it will get up to speed with ease. I man-aged to get it up to 270 Km/h quickly and effort-lessly. Unlike a superbike though, it does it without trying to lift its front wheel or throw you off the back.

Show it some corners and it’s almost as if the bike starts to smile. It’s as if it says “watch this, this is

what I was made for”. It doesn’t turn in like a superbike but that’s not really what you want on the road. The riding position lends itself to hanging off the side and the narrow, low bars give you

than pure mountain air but really. The fairing has a snub nose dominated by the headlight. The colour-coded mirrors are a nice touch and the single sided swing arm shows off the attractive rear wheel.

But bikes aren’t just for looking at or pos-ing down the pub, they are for riding and that’s where the VFR really shines. There is power on tap all the way through the rev range and in common with the Ka-wasaki, it is always there but never in-timidates. Don’t get


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on a long trip that had you in the saddle for several hours. The seat is c o m f o r t a b l e enough but when you get where you’re going, the GTR rider will be more relaxed than you. Hav-ing said that, if there was a mountain pass along the way, you would have a bigger smile on your face.

To me, the VFR 1200 is prob-ably the most

relevant road bike available today. It’s nimble enough to ride to work and back every day. It’s fast enough to keep up with your mates on the breakfast run. It will cruise all day long at twice the national speed limit. And of course it’s comfortable enough to go away for the weekend. Add to that superb cor-

the feeling of riding a sports bike. Roll on the throttle once it’s tipped in and it holds the line with a sure footed feeling from the taut chassis.

There is of course a compromise. The VFR feels firm and doesn’t soak up the bumps like the Kawasaki. It’s not uncomfortable, just firm. You could go


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of the VFR. The Kawasaki is a brilliant bike but it would be far more suitable

for the rider that spends every week-end exploring the length and breadth of the country.

Price wise the two bikes are comparable but really the VFR’s closest competitor is the ZX 14 or the BMW K1300S. Steve Allison

nering prowess and you have a pretty complete package. On the downside,

it’s not particularly economical and the lack of a trip computer makes fuel plan-ning difficult.

So which one should you buy? Well that really depends on the type of rid-ing you like. For me the Honda is the clear winner but then I am a sports bike rider and I like the sporting emphasis

“So which one should you buy?”


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Dodge Journey CRD R/T

Arriving hot on the heels of the gloriously charming 300C SRT-8 this month, comes the Dodge we’d booked but subsequently forgotten the name of. About six times. The Dodge Journey.

Now although I might not personally share them, I can com-pletely understand why some people’s tastes would tell them that this car is pretty darned handsome really. It is basically a tin box, but the hard-edged angular but still vaguely athletic de-tails help raise the aesthetic impact nicely.

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to put up with to try it out.

If the exterior is opinion-dividing, open-ing up the doors and climbing inside is more clear cut. Although our first ride took place as an office unit, and the trip out to our designers’ was met with general, if guarded approval, a little more time with the vehicle and it starts to show a few cracks. Not literally of course, although the feel of the materi-als suggest these wouldn’t be very far off.

There is a healthy smattering of tech-nology and practicality however. The Journey is a decently roomy car. At first, from the familiar styling, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s as small as a Caliber. But it’s not. There’s plenty of

To the “wrong” eyes though, it does look more than slightly anonymous. Hence the name thing.

Sorry what was I talking about again?

Nonetheless when the Journey did ar-rive, mercifully a couple of days early in fact, it wasn’t met with huge disap-pointment at the Drive office. Because, in a rare twist of fate, the right one had shown up. Of the three available mod-els, a pair of 2.7-litre petrol V6s and this two-litre turbodiesel, the oil-burner was very unusually (for us) the test car of choice. Thanks mostly to the fitment of a Getrag 6-speed double-clutch transmission. You only get this gearbox with the diesel, so low revs and lots of torque was what we were going to have


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plete with connectivity for MP3 players. Connectivity which, interestingly, called a true-blue Apple iPod an “Unrecognis-able device”, although a PC-formatted iPod didn’t suffer the same ignomy. No matter, there’s also integrated Blue-tooth and a voice-command system for controlling your phone without touching it on the go, and a rear-facing camera feeding images to a pretty dismally low-quality and pixellated screen.

There’s also satnav, operated via the same screen, and all the safety stand-ards like ABS, ESP, airbags and the like. There’s a tyre pressure monitor warn-ing system to ensure you aren’t run-ning along, more dangerously and not to mention more expensively, on barely noticeably underinflated rubber at any

space inside, and provided you don’t need any boot space at all, even a third row of seats available.

The tech comes in the form of a MyGig entertainment system with integrated hard drive for storing MP3s and com-


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2008. Back then, there was even an agreement in place with Getrag, to supply DCT products exclusively to the North American car market, which is why Dodge and Volvo (still Ford-owned of course) were the initial benefactors of the latest devel-opments. But this deal collapsed in the recession.

The upshot is that we’ve already got other cars on the road today also with variants of Getrag DCT ‘boxes. Sporty cars like M3s, Z4s, Ferraris, even the eagerly anticipated Merc SLS will have one. And the truth is, thank goodness for the recession, because the Jour-ney is by far the furthest from a rea-sonable application of this technology as is possible, and it would have been a sad loss for gearbox development in-deed if the exclusivity agreement had remained intact.

Now naturally this brick-like body is

point. And finally, rear-seat passengers can enjoy their own dedicated climate-control zone, the Journey featuring a 3-zone setup with separate controls for rear seat occupants.

In terms of mechanical technology, the common-rail turbodiesel motor devel-ops a pretty weedy 103kW but a beefy 310Nm. And yes, it’s also as mundane and anodyne a driving experience as you’d expect of this sort of engine, gutsy enough when the boost is up, quite clattery and completely lacking in any-thing at the top of its rev range which could be called interesting or entertain-ing, and of course a massive chasm of no power at all before the turbo spools up.

And the technical highlight? Getrag is certainly a company which motoring enthusiasts across the world will know, having been the developers behind a stack of very enjoyable silky-smooth six-speed manual transmissions for some legendary real-world and exotic performance icons. So the debut of the company’s dual-clutch efforts here is definitely worth noting.

Of course, this car was originally re-leased to the American public back in


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ful measure of acceleration begins!

Yet after pull off the box is programmed a touch too sporty, revving the diesel motor at rpms where it’s completely run out of puff most of the time rather than

capitalising on the 2000 – 3000rpm torque, the consequences of which are that you use the manual selection mode to knock the gears about yourself to save the wasted cash in fuel.

Sure, the shifts themselves are smooth and seamless, the trademark of a DCT

not hiding a super sports car chassis. No, the Journey is big, heavy, and is supposed to be comfortable. But the combination of the gearbox, which is undoubtedly very good on its own, and the crippling turbo lag is taking things a

bit too far, particularly on pull off. The ‘box doesn’t allow for that all-essen-tial clutch-slip to get over the massive torque hole, which is crushing right the way through to 2000rpm on the nose, and the 0-100km/h dash seems to take 4 or 5 seconds before the engine even gets on top of things and any meaning-


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As a whole, in fact, the Journey CRD R/T is a comfortable place to spend several hours getting places, whether via the open road or through the knots of rush hour Jo’Burg traffic. Fuel con-sumption is also quite reasonable con-

sidering the bulk of imposing Yankee metal you’re propelling along. We did however feel that the low-rent interior and FWD-only drivetrain didn’t quite live up to the R400K pricetag, espe-

system, even if this added refinement is somewhat offset by the clattery mo-tor. And if you don’t mind the lethargic pulloff and your right foot seldom sways into any sort of performance mode, it does make for very relaxed and un-

fussed driving, the gearbox just shuf-fling up to the highest gear as soon as possible in the interests of the economy your avoidance of the throttle is taken to imply.

“Fuel consumption is also quite reasonable considering the bulk of

imposing Yankee metal you’re propelling along.”


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cially considering that MyGig setup is a R10 grand optional extra.

Of course there are those customers who get and enjoy the values that are built-in to American vehicles, enough to overlook flimsy materials and floods of daft warning labels that also come with them. It’s just about entirely to do with their swaggery natures, and the Journey manages to capture that de-spite the rather un-American choice of powerplant. It still looks like it should be powered by a Hemi V8 though, so

LikedFully loaded specChunky handsomeness

Disliked Lethargic pulloffCoarse engine

Drive Vitals Dodge Journey CRD R/tEngine 4 Cylinder Turbo DieselCapacity 1968ccPower 103kW@ 4000 rpmTorque 310Nm@ 1750 rpmKerb weight 1905 KgDriven wheels FrontTransmission 6 speed Getrag dual-clutch0-100km/h 11.5sPrice R399 900 (R10 300 for MyGig, as fitted to test car)

that’s the important bit.

For you, the Journey will represent an affordable, practicality-oriented step up from a crossover like the Caliber to full-fledged Dodge SUV ownership. And if I wasn’t so interested in driving any-more, I could totally see why the Jour-ney CRD would be very attractive.

Russell Bennett


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Citroen C5 2.0 HDI AutoCitroen C5 2.0 HDI Auto

The Citroen C5 is a car you buy with your heart, not your head. It doesn’t have the same status as the big 3 German brands and the resale value is always a concern. But what you get is a car that’s a little bit different, a little bit more exclusive. What it says about you is that you have the ability to think for yourself and that

you don’t follow the crowd like a sheep...

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The C5 is beautiful, and it has a typi-cally French character about it. Citroen has decided to stop being embarrassed about being French at last. The car is styled to represent its heritage rather than emulate other countries designs. A pair of large headlights and the Cit-roen emblem dominates the long bon-

net. Under the bumper there is a huge air intake mouth garnished on each side with fair sized fog lights. The cur-vaceous body slopes to the rear and ends up with a high boot. This model

Not only that, you don’t really want to buy your next car just because it will have a higher resale value in years to come now do you? If you do, you’ll have to ride around for 3 years or so in a car that wasn’t your first choice just so that it will be worth a bit more when you come to sell it. And, you’re quite likely

to find that this perceived extra value is a false comfort. All cars depreciate and all owners are shocked at what they are offered as a trade in.

“The C5 is beautiful, and it has a typically French character about it.”


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plenty of equipment and once that is taken into account, the price starts to look quite reasonable. But what you do get is that French flair, that feeling that you’re driving something more interest-ing than, well, anybody else. The C5 comes standard with just about every-thing that opens and shuts. Standard equipment includes electric front seats with memory on the driver’s side and they’ll even give you a massage on the way home after a tiring day! You get Bluetooth and iPod connect and the CD player can handle MP3 discs. You get cruise control that will put the brakes on when you’re going down a hill. The headlights have a follow-me-home function and they look round corners when you turn the steering wheel.

differs from the older generation car in that it has a boot rather than a hatch-back, much more sen-sible really, and less shopping-trolley, more alternative executive saloon. The rear wind-screen is concave and the whole package is finished-off with 17-inch wheels.

Our test car, the 2.0 Diesel, may be priced in line with the com-petition but you do get


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The 2.0 litre diesel engine produces 120kW and 340Nm of Torque. Although the 0-100 time is quoted as a pedes-trian 10 seconds, the car feels spright-ly. It’s not sparkling, but more than adequate and having lumps of torque gives the feeling of more power. Any-way this is not the sort of car that you use for drag racing. You do always feel that you have enough power for day-to-day driving and it does perform well as a high-speed cruiser. The six speed automatic gearbox suits the car well, which is a good thing since there is no manual option.


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bumps without jarring your spine and should you feel in the mood for some spirited driving it handles corners with-out fuss. The seats are comfortable and interior noise is virtually non-existent.

The 2.0l Diesel is reasonably economi-cal as you might expect. The French know something about oil burning en-gines given that petrol in France is much more expensive than diesel. Our ed managed to drag 10 liters of fuel through per hundred k’s while trying to emulate Sebastien Loeb but driven more sensibly – by me – the consump-tion was low 7’s. On a longer run you should be able to get it down to about 5l/100.

The C5 is different and that’s a good thing. When you stop at a set of lights

I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that the build quality is right up there with the best, significantly better than the outgo-ing model. There is a quality feel to the in-terior. The leather is top quality and all of the switchgear feels like it will last the life of the car. The car rides extremely well even though the 2.0l isn’t fitted with Hy-dractive suspension, just conventional steel springs and dampers. It soaks up

“The 2.0 litre diesel “The 2.0 litre diesel engine produces engine produces

120kW and 340Nm 120kW and 340Nm of Torque.”of Torque.”


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of the controls are in exactly the same place regardless of the wheel position. The number of controls on the hub is a bit daunting at first but after a few min-utes you should have it all worked out. All of the audio functions are replicated as well as everything you need to oper-ate the cruise control.

The instrument panel has orange LCD’s in the middle with analogue needles around the outside. It looks really cool and works well. Our ed did complain that you actually have to look at the needles to know what’s going on rather than just the angle of the needle on a traditional panel, and that when you’re really focussing that takes several mil-

you won’t be amongst several cars all the same. You stand out from the crowd. It tells people that you are an individu-al, that you don’t just choose your car because you want to fit in. This is a car for free-thinking drivers that appreciate a car for it’s style and ability rather than badge alone.

The interior is where you really start to appreciate that you are in a car that’s a bit special. Citroens have always been a bit quirky but once you start to live with one, the quirkiness all starts to make perfect sense. The seats are stylish and have a typically French look and feel to them. The large centre steering wheel hub is fixed so that all


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The new C5 is a quality car. It’s big, com-fortable and loaded with equipment. If you run with the pack, buy the same as all those around you. If on the other hand you are a leader not a follower and

you appreciate style and function over peer pressure, the C5 might just be the car for you.

Steve Allison

liseconds longer for your eyes to focus. I do see his point but I had no prob-lems gleaning the information required. Should you decide that you don’t need the information from the trip computer you can switch to a digital speed read-out.

Drive Vitals Citroen C5 2.0 HDIEngine 4 Cylinder Turbo DieselCapacity 1997ccPower 120kW@ 3730 rpmTorque 340Nm@ 2000 rpmKerb weight 1609 KgDriven wheels FrontTransmission 6 speed Automatic0-100km/h 10sPrice R369 000


Audi A4 2.0 TFSI Stop StartAudi A4 2.0 TFSI Stop Start

FFuel consumption, I’m sure we all know, is no uel consumption, I’m sure we all know, is no constant. Those EU combined-cycle consumption constant. Those EU combined-cycle consumption figures are not only unobtainable in the real world, figures are not only unobtainable in the real world, but also depend largely on the angle at which the but also depend largely on the angle at which the driver’s right foot is attached to his leg. driver’s right foot is attached to his leg.

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down ever so slightly by eliminating the wastage of all the idling our engines have to do in their daily duties.

It basically works like this. You pull up at a robot, or behind gridlocked traffic, slip the manual gearlever into neutral, and release the clutch. Then, provided the engine is up to it’s most efficient operating temperature and the climate control on any setting other than “Low”, the engine will be turned off. All the electronics, your radio, ventilation sys-tem, etc, remain powered, so as the lights go green and you dip the clutch

in preparation for pulling off, the mo-tor is quickly spun into life and you’re away.

Regular readers will probably be ex-pecting huge criti-cism from us, self-proclaimed haters of all emissions-re-ducing technology, but we really only

complain about these things when they directly impact our driving enjoyment. Stop Start is as meaningless to your daily drive as the meagre 0.2l/100km

A heavy throttle foot can make the “greenest” petrol or even electricity-consuming car a CO2 emissions night-mare, it’s that simple. And anyone who drives with the cognisance in our opin-ion required to drive safely on any road network around the globe, likely knows the correlation well. But companies like Audi still have to fit clever digital set-ups to help the so-called driver to learn how to optimise their driving style! I just don’t quite understand it.

Anyway, the clever economy-oriented software packages aren’t all this A4

2.0 TFSI has to offer to save our plan-et from the evils of emissions. This is also a Stop Start equipped car, a semi-active solution for driving consumption


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easy to ignore. In principle we still don’t see why we need a supercomputer to tell us to shift as quickly as possible into the highest gear if we’re running on fumes, but hey.

In fact, some of the adjustments to this A4, made for the sake of the environ-ment, we actually quite like. The mus-cular turbocharged 2.0-litre four, es-sentially the unit fitted to the Golf 6 GTI and so producing 155kW and a broad spread of torque, is mated to a six-speed manual ‘box with revised ratios allowing the 120km/h cruise to need

consumption improvement Audi claims. If you’re in need of some environmen-tal smugness, by all means slot neutral and laud it over the emissions-spewing dinosaurs around you before heading on your way again. Otherwise you can just ignore it completely, keep first se-lected as you normally would, and your life wouldn’t be changed in any way at all! That’s the sort of emissions control we like, it’s totally non-intrusive.

Even the indicator on the dash which suggests shifting to more efficient gear ratios isn’t that bad – because it’s very


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is strictly FWD. And of course, the DSG ‘box is out and a good old manual your only option. All this is good, very good.

Speaking of the transmission, it’s a nice positive six-speeder except for the sec-ond to third shift. For some reason, our example just never felt like it was prop-erly engaging third, and as you dropped the clutch after a snap shift there was always the fear that you’d end up rev-ving the engine sky-high against neu-tral. It never actually happened, but that’s what the feel through the stick suggested.

That ubiquitous 2.0-litre turbomotor is

just under 2000rpm in top.

This gearing makes it a bit slower than a GTI off the line of course – second runs right up to 120km/h for instance, but at the top end they give this A4 the legs to run easily into a 250km/h lim-iter. In fact, 260 on the speedo is just about the top, of fifth, relegating sixth to a cruising-only overdrive.

It’s a holistic approach too, so Audi has also examined what other convenience features impact fuel economy, and stripped these out as well. Like electri-cally-adjusted seats, for instance, and the heavy Quattro drivetrain – this A4


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and superb, upmarket cabin, the A4 also differs from its VW stablemate at the front. Although limited to FWD, the A4 does without the clever XDS electronic differential. It provides a great insight into why the GTI has this new devel-opment fitted, as although the revised A4 chassis initially feels even livelier and more alert than a GTI (thank that meticulous attention to the positioning of weight at the front end, which Audi applied when it launched the current-generation A4 to quell all the cries of “too much understeer” in their Quattro models especially), it ultimately can’t match the freakish cornering capabili-ties of the iconic hot hatch.

It is progressive, with surprising feel through the wheel after the ridiculously light helm of the S4, and quite a hoot

even more muted and refined than it is in a GTI too, although there’s some dis-tant enthusiasm to the gathering roar when your foot is ignoring the gear-change indicators completely. The gen-erous shove in the back it provides is still encouraging for the keen driver however, where the 1.8T really lacks any measure of excitement or spar-kle.

Apart from the much more stylish exterior


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reduction in fuel consumption is nev-er going to save our apparently dying planet, at least they highlight that the German manufacturer is trying, and not just with its extreme e-Tron concepts but across the entire model spectrum.

If little touches like this can give the petrol engine a few more years of fea-sibility, they’re worth it in my book.

Certainly, Stop Start is no panacea, no coverall environmental solution. But then you have to doubt if there is such a thing at all. Electric cars still require

to hustle along a favourite back road. In fact, completely unexpectedly, I think it’s the nicest drivers’ A4 on the market. It feels much lighter and more agile than Quattro variants, the engine is refined by torquey especially here at altitude,

and it’s another of those really stealthy lookers very much like the original A4. Understated, but still stunning. It’s low-er and broader than previous genera-tion models, visually sporty despite the planet-assisting technology focus.

And although the comparatively minor

“...the A4 2.0 TFSI Stop Start is a trick, a vapour, a tiny step.”


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pollution-spewing powerplants to fuel them, hybrids still run good old petrol or diesel at their hearts... Perhaps little details like this and the continuing ad-vancements of cleaner, more efficient engines will yield the needed results without completely giving up on per-sonal mobility as we know and love it today.

Besides, if the tech is embedded into cars as competent and comfortable as

Liked Eco-smugness just a dip of the clutch awayTorquey engineMost feelsome dynamics of the A4 range

DislikedIdiot’s guide to driving economicallyDodgy third gear synchro

Drive Vitals Audi A4 2.0TFSI AmbitionEngine 4 Cylinder Turbo petrolCapacity 1968ccPower 132kW@ 4000-6000 rpmTorque 320Nm@ 1500-3900 rpmKerb weight 1430 KgDriven wheels FrontTransmission 6 speed manual0-100km/h 7.9sPrice R341 500

this A4, even we enthusiasts aren’t go-ing to fight against it.

Easily the most fun of the eco-minded cars we’ve driven so far, the A4 2.0 TFSI Stop Start is a trick, a vapour, a tiny step. But it is stepping the right way, and is still a brilliant car.

Russell Bennett


“Yes, it is a bottom of the range vehicle but it punches above its weight admirably...”

The Polo we had for this road test was the cheapest in the range, the 1.4 Trendline. Now normally that would immediately set off alarm

bells in the Drive office, a bottom of the range volume seller, but what this nug-gety little 1400 does is quite remark-able actually. Yes, it is a bottom of the range vehicle but it punches above its weight admirably, and on first inspec-tion does so at a very aggressive price. On closer inspection however when considering several of the options we had installed the pricing goes from ag-gressive to fairly average, competitive but not a basement bargain. Still, the performance on offer from the Polo was more than expected.

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segment that’s what really hits home. And in this regard the Polo scores laudably, particularly on fuel economy. Whilst consciously attempt-ing to be frugal, it isn’t difficult to consistently return below the 6L/100km mark. What’s great about the Polo’s engine though is that even if you’re

not concerned with saving fuel, it is still light on the fuel bill, pushing hard from every robot I still got economy hov-ering around the 7L/100km point. The key you see is torque, not tiny engines, something that the worlds ecomentalists haven’t quite grasped. The strong motor means that it isn’t necessary to rev the motor to death to go anywhere, lower rpm means better economy, simple as

that. With 132Nm of torque at 3200rpm the Polo has one of the meatiest mo-tors in its class, sure its power of 63kW at 5000rpm isn’t that great compared

As the Polo falls into the relatively af-fordable volume seller bracket, it needs to achieve two goals out the blocks; it has to be well priced and fuel-efficient. Sure, there is so much more to judging a car but at the end of the day, in this

“Commuting then in the Polo is a breeze...”


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steering just isn’t that direct. This of course has been done to improve low speed; dreary commuting in traffic, and it does work. The light steering, even lighter clutch, responsive breaks and a gearbox that slips the cogs in and out in a docile manner makes for easy driv-

ing. Commuting then in the Polo is a breeze, especially when combined with the hallmark of VW’s German nature, their almost flawless build quality. The Polo is just a nice place to be in, or at

to competitors but if fuel economy is of primary importance then this engine is exceptionally good.

That’s not to say that the Polo is just about economy, the performance of the Polo is actually very impressive,

being quick enough off the line. The controls however are a bit too light all round for fast driving, the steering at times feeling somewhat numb. The handling is good, but sometimes the

“With 132Nm of torque at 3200rpm the Polo has one of the meatiest motors in its

class...”


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pricey optional extras. With some quick arithmetic it turns out that our Polo was more like a 160k car, which it is worth but at that price the Polo is no longer a bargain anymore. The price is competi-

tive, just not a no-brainer. And it’s not as if the options I’m talking about are gimmicks easily dis-carded either. Just shy of ten grand for air-con, another four grand for an mp3 radio/cd player and seven grand for a 60,000km service plan. Now you see what I mean, the

least it is when considering the price bracket within which it falls, few cars in this segment are this comfortable to commute in.

So the Polo confidently checks the efficiency and comfort box-es, but does it succeed in the aforementioned price depart-ment? The answer to that isn’t as cut and dry as the admirable fuel economy and build quality. The base price is very well po-sitioned at R144 900, and for a sub 150k car the Polo offers a quality level above its price. The prob-lem is that a lot of the little things I took for granted and generally improved my opinion of the Polo were in fact rather


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of shopping. The steering wheel and seats, the most visceral conduits for a driver to connect to a car, just felt good. Overall the Polo looks good and does so whilst offering a comfortable drive.

To sum up the Polo in theory is a little difficult, whilst overall it impresses on all fronts, the options list keeps pulling at me. A reasonably specced Polo isn’t too expensive but it’s getting there. Still, the Polo’s price performance ratio is well intact. After all is said and done, when VW picked up the Polo I was sad to see it go, and that says a lot for a car in this segment, possibly all that needs to be said. There was over half a tank of fuel in its belly though, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Kyle Stone

options quickly add up.

Technically then the Polo is a well-engineered vehi-cle at a reason-able price for the performance and quality availa-ble, but that’s the objective story. Subjectively one needs to consider the styling and in-

terior ambience. The new VW family styling is there in full force and whilst the rear isn’t that purposeful for me the front is sharp and works well. The in-side too appealed to me. There was enough room for rear passengers and the boot could fit an adequate amount

Drive Vitals VW Polo 1.4 TrendlineEngine Four nat aspCapacity (cc) 1,398Power (kW) 63 @ 5000rpmTorque (Nm) 132 @3600rpmKerb weight (kg) 1049Driven wheels FrontWheel/tyre dimensions 175/70 R140-100km/h 12.5sPrice R144, 900.00 + options


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Chery J1

In the last month, two colleagues in magazine motoring journalism land up in Gauteng have been put through the rigours of our young democracy. Hijacked, bagged,

carted around by the elite SA caste – criminals; although one of them actu-ally found his hijackers more courteous than the police he encountered later that evening.

Without wanting to make very much of a joke out of this appalling state of local affairs, it was with some misery that, af-ter stopping, alone, to photograph the Chery J1 in a muddy field at nightfall, I didn’t have the same experience. That at least would’ve meant some excite-ment, some adventure, nothing like a direct threat to your life to get the blood pumping after all, and some never-having-to-drive-this-thing-again kind of fuzzy feelings in my very own fantasy land.

Pay over R100K (R118 for our high-spec model) for a car which, if you love cars for their passion, the thrill of their freedom, the flow of their chassis... you will absolutely hate, and you’d feel re-ally cheated. We’d say with the J1 you’d have every right to feel this way.

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lever is to your hand.

From outside there’s little distinctive about it – it could well be an i10 or a small city car from any other manufac-turer really, but it isn’t altogether of-fensive either. Nor are their obvious, glaring panel gaps or bits falling off by default. Sure it could do with some big-ger wheels to fill those big arches more

So let’s see. This TX model J1 does get you electric windows and mirrors, a CD player, aircon, power steering, ABS and a pair of front airbags for safety. Feels like it needs it too, I had more butt-clenching moments in this at 120 than you’ll ever know in an M3 pinned against its 250km/h limiter. Oh yes, this model even has rear-facing PDC! Fan-cy.

Otherwise the in-terior is, a little weird but quite likeable, sort of a rehash of several sporty Europeans in one. The small i ns t rumen ta t i on complete with tiny markings aren’t the easiest to read but look quite fresh and elegant, but whoever designed that handbrake ought to be put in charge of design-ing the next global shopping trolley so irritating, and wonky-feeling, this weird flat plastic


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rear. In short, you’re nowhere at all.

Let’s take for instance accelerating in

third gear. Push the throttle to the bulk-head, and you’ll find the motor isn’t really willing to spin beyond 5000rpm in third – anything beyond second in fact. You can get rid of this problem, by pressing hard against the already-pinned accelerator, which compresses some of the carpet beneath it or some-thing and suddenly the engine noise changes distinctively and you can rev up to the 6000rpm mark.

Doesn’t exactly make you feel good though. Not only is your car about as powerful as an oxygen-deprived moth, it’s poorly built as well! Great!

In fact the total lack of puff the J1 dis-plays is actual seriously dangerous out in the cut-and-thrust of real-world traf-fic. You’re just never where you need to be in the J1, usually either languish-ing in the black smoke of big trucks in the left-hand lane because you know that a 6-year old on a bicycle would

convincingly, but you can’t have the world for R118K.

However it then takes all of the length of a standard 100m sprint, once you’ve made yourself as comfortable as possi-ble behind the wheel (not very), to know that this is a car with only one, singular purpose in mind. Moving its passen-gers, from here to there, using some form of powerplant and four round rub-ber things to roll upon. And even doing that, it’s obvious that it operates “on the cheap”.

It’s positively abominable to drive. There’s so little power on tap that trucks will flash their lights at you in the left lane pulling away from robots, thinking you’re a decrepit old plonker with half an inch of right-ankle flexibility, even when you’re caning the Chery to its limits. In the robot-to-robot racing pecking order, you’re somewhere below 20-year-old smoke-belching faceless Toyota and Ford pickups and those 3.5-ton trucks you see with chassis’ angled 30-de-grees different at the front than at the

“There’s so little power on tap that trucks will flash their lights at you in the left lane

pulling away from robots,...”


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utes of enduring that offensive blare of full-throttle in a J1 to finally achieve the velocity, it seems as though a brief lift of the throttle or, heaven forfend, a cor-ner of any variety will wipe 20km/h off your speed leaving you 5 more minutes of fuel-heavy full throttle to get back to the enforced speed limit.

Despite the absolute lack of any sort of forward thrust, it’s a rough and un-pleasant motor generally (Euro II spec-ifications compliant, apparently), and combined with ridiculous gear whine totally unnecessary on a standard five-speed ‘box mated to a motor with bare-ly enough torque to blow down dande-lions. Hit the brakes and the front disc/rear drum combo make a painful grind-ing sound and are quite tough to modu-late, while the ride is very bouncy on anything but highway tarmac.

If what you really want is an econo-box on wheels which no matter how much petrol pumps through your veins will never ever inspire you to try and have a moment of fun with your car, well you’re likely to get better quality from rebrand-ed Eastern European marques, even if you miss out on some of the perceived luxury items.

have more chance of accelerating up to the speed of upcoming traffic in the fast lane should you go for an overtake, or urging the car on to crawl past real slow-lane dawdlers with the flashing lights of faster traffic, like horse-carts, dazzling your rear-view mirror! These ridiculous limitations make even expe-rienced drivers nervous wrecks out in city driving, first-time car owners which the J1 is targeted at are going to be to-tally put off the concept of driving at all if this is their day to day experience.

Just how bad is the performance? Well put it this way, it’s actually really tough to stick to the 120km/h South African freeway speed limit in the J1. After min-


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of motoring, and takes the automobile from being romantic icons of freedom and the mechanical embodiment of the spirit of adventure, right down to being Nothing. More. Than. Cars.

Cheap. Cars. At that.

And I just can’t get past the fact of how dangerous the entire sensation of driv-ing actually feels despite the low speeds

What the J1 does perfectly, is highlight just how gaping a hole the loss of the Citi is – the Mk 1 cost about the same as this car, with build quality from an entirely different engineering epoch, similar equipment, and generous help-ings of fun, character, and giant-slaying latent sporting potential.

This Chery is quite literally, the antith-esis of all of these. It saps the fun out


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Drive Test


from now on, come to think of it.

Perhaps at R60 – 80K it could be com-mendable for sheer unadulterated val-ue. But at R118K, we can’t recommend this as a purchase in any way. And any magazine putting it anywhere near the top three in any shootout consisting of four or more cars, is just looking to at-tract some advertising budget.

Russell Bennett

Liked That it went back without anyone dying in it

DislikedLow-rent interiorEngine seems even weaker than 61kWBumpy rideMassive body roll

Drive Vitals Chery J1 TXEngine 4 Cylinder petrolCapacity 1297ccPower 61kW@ 6000 rpmTorque 114Nm@ 3800 rpmKerb weight 1040 KgDriven wheels FrontTransmission 5 speed manual0-100km/h Not quoted. Around 20s, at a guessPrice R116 900

the Chery is capable of. There is such a thing as too slow, and a motor putting out the power of a weak commuter bike in a 1000kg car platform is, well, it. It turns you into no more than an obstruc-tion in traffic, and actually seems to at-tract a lot of anger and aggression from fellow road users even when not direct-ly getting in their ways.

Having driven one, I think I’ll feel the same about Cherys and their drivers


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drive magazine april 2010

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