A startup company in California is planning to build limited-edition models of a four-seater flying car, each one costing around NZ$1.1million, including pilot training...
Less than a year after going into production, and with over 20,000 units sold worldwide, the next version of Porsche’s Taycan EV is getting close to production. It is the Taycan Cross Turismo, a four-door with a shooting brake-style body, increased ride height, and revamped suspension and driving modes. In this video, Taycan model...
Volvo Cars has dropped several new models from a height of 30m in a crash test first designed to help rescue services save lives. Volvo says the test helps to simulate forces that erupt in the most extreme crashes, beyond what can be simulated with traditional crash tests in controlled environments. Watch it here …...
Former Fifth Gear motoring show host and Formula One driver Tiff Needell gets behind the wheel of the Stealth, Lister’s limited-edition version of the Jaguar F-Pace ...
Here is the list of vehicles that sank with the ship the Felicity Ace off the coast of Portugal in February. Read it and weep. The ship was carrying thousands of new and privately owned used vehicles from Germany to the United States when it caught fire. The 20-strong crew battled for days to contain [&hellip...
The record 21,044 new vehicles registered with the NZ Transport Agency in March was the end result of a motoring industry move to avoid the first stage of the Coalition Government’s tax axe on petrol and diesel engines. It was driven largely by distributors and dealers first registering vehicles to themselves. Nothing new in that,...
Rarely has a car that’s days away from being launched in New Zealand come with such a glowing collection of international awards as the Kia EV6, the 2022 European Car of the Year. Aside from the prestigious Euro gong, the all-electric crossover (above) won Germany’s 2022 Red Dot Design (RDD) award for what the 50-strong [&hellip...
The collectors’ market for the few petrol-powered performance cars that don’t cost the earth is heating up as ever tightening emissions regulations move automotive companies towards an electric future. One such recent example is the limited edition Subaru Saigo WRX STI, 20 of which landed in New Zealand last year. Saigo can mean both...
The Coalition Government’s upcoming tax take on fossil-fuelled light vehicles is a double whammy, in that it will penalise both suppliers and buyers of new and used imported models. There is a part one and a part two. The Clean Car Discount (CCD) is part one and affects the retail market only – car buyers. [&hellip...
This is a repeat of a story on these pages a year ago. Gains new significance a year on … What price rhodium now? It’s a practice that has been going on in New Zealand for decades – sawing off the catalytic converters in the exhaust system of cars to boost the power of the [&hellip...
The Coalition Government is planning to grow by four times the number of fixed speed cameras on New Zealand roads, adding more than 600 to the 190 or so in operation now, says a source in the transport industry. A committee comprising New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) representatives is working on where best to put [&hellip...
Australia is looking to rebuild its car-making capacity using its abundance of key minerals to encourage major electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers to set up operations Downunder. The federal government last year released its Future Fuels Strategy, identifying opportunities for the country’s reserves of the minerals, rare earths and...
The jet ski might indeed be one of the best watersport toys going round, but it has nothing on the lightweight Nemo submersible from U-Boat Worx, a specialist company in The Netherlands. Both craft do have one thing in common, however – they can be towed by the family station wagon or SUV, although Nemo [&hellip...
The new Toyota Corolla didn’t make the cut in mainstream 2018 car of the year awards in New Zealand, mainly because it arrived late in the year and didn’t meet judging deadlines. But I spent enough time behind the wheel of both the 2.0-litre petrol and 1.8-litre petrol-electric Corollas to choose the ZR Hybrid Corolla [&hellip...
If you believe the public relations guff, every distributor in New Zealand last year sold record numbers of new vehicles. But that wasn’t the case. Okay, it was an overall record year, with 159,871 new vehicle registrations. But quite a few brands didn’t do as well as the PR people claim. Press releases saying this [&hellip...
The Chevrolet badge returns to New Zealand next year on the bonnet of the all-American Camaro sports car and Silverado pick-up truck. Both vehicles will be converted to right-hand drive by Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) at its new 28,000 square-metre plant in Melbourne. It’s where HSV will also prepare two versions of the Holden...
Jaguar Land Rover has defended its diesel engine technology after criticism of the fuel from the founder and director of Clean Air London, Simon Birkett. “Diesel is the devil, and we do need to ban it,” Birkett told a panel of automotive experts at the inaugural Jaguar Land Rover Tech Fest, a three-day event in [&hellip...
Registrations of traditional passenger sedans and hatchbacks have tumbled over the past five years, as New Zealanders move towards SUVs and utes. In August 2013, for instance, the Holden Commodore sat at No. 5 on the top 15 list. Last month it was No. 10. A month earlier it was No. 11. Five years ago [&hellip...
Hard-charging Kiwi motorcycle great Graeme Crosby tells the story of racing in the Isle of Man TT for the first time in 1979. He sort of ‘smelled’ his way round the 48km circuit. “It’s such a long way that it’s hard sometimes to remember exactly where your are,” he once told me. “There is one [&hellip...
Holden has tasked its award-winning advertising agency, Special Group, to change how Holden is perceived in New Zealand. It wants the agency to help transform the brand, give it a taste of Kiwi, point it more towards premium space. It’s not that Holden has gone away; just that, over time, the brand has lost its [&hellip...
There is a statistic from the road toll that the Government needs to take into account as it considers raising the maximum speed limit on some roads...
Here is the list of vehicles that sank with the ship the Felicity Ace off the coast of Portugal in February. Read it and weep. The ship was carrying...