Cheap vehicles – no one likes to say that they love them, no one dreams of having them for the most part, yet they survive. They live on and they sell, in great numbers at that. Perhaps the most interesting “cheap vehicle” of current times is the Renault Duster, or “dump truck” as my girlfriend decided to call it after its, erm, brown colour to rival the land mines left in your back yard by Spot, the dog.
For many years, big bang theorists and evolutionary believers have pondered and searched to find “the missing link”. Well for Opel, they’ve found it, or created it rather. It’s the Opel Astra sedan, back for the first time in nearly a decade! For a while, Opel were lulled into the European theme of hatchbacks, but South Africa felt neglected – after all, the Opel Astra Euro series sedans are some of the most popular old cars on our roads. But Opel has triumphantly stepped back into the saloon game without missing a beat, almost as if they’d never been gone.
Off-road parks are a novel idea – you have off-road trails designed specifically to be conquered, within a short drive of the city, and you have experts to help you out along the way should something go wrong. But off-road parks are tried and tested; everyone knows they can be conquered. So what would happen when we deviated from the norm and decided to take on a construction zone and some naturally occurring terrain in an unlikely candidate, the Subaru Forester XT?
This comparison may be deemed to be unfair in many ways, but what the heck! We took a Subaru Forester XT, an SUV that makes no claims at being an off roader, and pitted it head to head against the Renault Duster 4×4, in diesel power format, to see whether they could deliver or not.
‘Grasshopper Green’ – buy it in that colour, and don’t let us catch you even considering one of the other 3 paintjobs on offer. Yes, we’re talking about the Opel Corsa OPC Nurburgring Edition, which has just landed in SA. The green pays tribute to the Green Hell, which lends it’s name to this OPC model, but to what extent?
Over the years, ever since the original MK1 VW Golf GTI, there has always been an iconic hot hatch. Every new generation of spruced up hatchbacks has brought with it a new icon; or sometimes, just a new iteration of the original. In recent times, we have seen the Golf V GTI pass the mantle on to the Renault Clio RS, which was by all rights one heck of a driver’s car, but now the time has come for there to be a new king.
What’s better than buying a brand new car? Buying a classic, a real classic car, with beautiful, timeless lines and styling that could last centuries. But, and this really is a gargantuan but, buying a classic car entails far more than the up front purchase cost. Anyone who has ever … Read more
