New & Used Car News & Tips

Discovery Sport is a new medium SUV, blending luxury and utility in a stylish package.

Back in the 1990’s, when the soft-roader craze hit the marketplace, Land Rover was perfectly placed to capitalise on the demand for high-riding, on-road sport utility vehicles (SUVs) with the first-generation Freelander. Not only did their smallest SUV look the part, with rugged styling thanks to grey side cladding and a raised ride height, but it also came with the brand equity earned through decades of building tough, go-anywhere vehicles.



Jeep Renegade attacks the urban crossover SUV market

They’ve built the vehicle that was instrumental in winning the Second World War, and they practically invented the luxury off-roader with the 1966 Grand Wagoneer. And, through the years, Jeep has always managed to keep their products genuinely off-road capable. But then the twentieth century came to its end, and Jeep was faced with an entirely different challenge, because buyers of sport utility vehicles started emphasising the “sport” more than they appreciated the “utility”. Hard-core off-roading gave way to on-road dynamics, and style became more important than the ability to undertake epic overland expeditions. 

It was gridiron football that first coined the term “impact player”. Yes, that funny game of rugby played in the ’States by men resembling superheroes, with their full-face helmets and Michelin Man padding. An impact player is normally brought on as part of a team’s game tactics. His purpose is to alter the flow of the game and hopefully also its outcome, in favour of his team, of course.

Meet Bev and Rex. No, they’re not a couple on the new M-Net reality series Power Couple, nor are they secret code words in Eskom’s load shedding schedule. It’s BMW’s futuristic power pair, now seeking a home in South Africa.

Unholy speed, a raucous sound track and mildly terrifying handling dynamics: upon these three values the reputation of the old Mercedes C 63 AMG was built.

Take a Renault Clio, inject it with growth hormones and put it on a diet of muscle building protein shakes. The result? The new Captur. Renault’s latest small car literally slots into a slightly higher market segment than its Clio brother, both in stature and in price. Not that it’s much larger, mind you: it’s slightly longer than the Clio but quite a bit taller, mostly thanks to a 50 mm increase in its ride height.

The first Qashqai combined the dimensions and driving dynamics of a smallish hatchback with the high-riding stance of an SUV, and added some body cladding for a suitably rugged look. The current generation, launched to our shores a year ago, uses the same successful recipe, but adds lots of modern technology, improved refinement and a sharp new suit.

Chevrolet is certainly on a roll these days. The latest Corvette sports car is setting race tracks on fire all around the world, and they’ve just launched a new Camaro to considerable acclaim from the American market. But it’s not all fire and brimstone from the bow-tie stable, for the rest of their model range are far more focused on safe, reliable, everyday transport for the real world.

Congratulations to Brett Vos, who earned himself a pair of Volvo Iron mark sunglasses worth R746. Brett gave the correct answer to the question "What does BLIS stand for?". The answer is Blind Spot Information System and Brett's name was the first to be randomly chosen.

The Hyundai Veloster hatch, with it distinctive “Kammback” styling*, was launched here two years ago and has now received a major power boost. With this new muscle pack the spiritual successor of the Tiburon also leads Hyundai’s comeback to performance motoring in a more convincing way than before.

In 1976 French composer and music producer Jean Michel Jarre rocked the music world with the unique electronic sounds and eerie melodies on his album Oxygène – his first commercially successful album. In the same year the progressive, innovative car company Citroën was forced to merge with Automobiles Peugeot to create PSA Peugeot Citroën.

So, polo or golf… Which one for you? We’re talking sports, right? Well, not necessarily, if the ongoing debate around Volkswagen’s naming protocol is anything to go by.