New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Skoda Superb Combi

The Skoda Superb Combi 118 has got a lot of very good things going for it. The vast amounts of room it boasts inside, for starters. Then there are the obvious facts that it’s handsome, well loaded with standard kit, extremely sharply priced, has an extraordinarily good ride, decent handling, remarkable power from a seemingly […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Kia Cerato Hatch

You may well think that the most significant thing about the Kia Cerato hatch is the fact that it is, well, a hatch. But you would, in fact, be wrong. You see, while the arrival of a hatch body style in the Cerato family is extremely significant to Kia here in New Zealand, where small […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Toyota Blade Master

The formula of taking a big engine and jamming it into a small car is a time-honoured way of getting performance, leading to the creation of that hallowed class of pocket-sized performance cars, the Hot Hatch. The Toyota Blade Master is, on paper, a true proponent of the hot hatch ethos; an unnecessarily large (3.5-litre) […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Honda Insight

Honda has chosen to market the Insight in New Zealand as a small 5-door hatchback that just happens to be a hybrid, rather than just focus on the fact that it is a hybrid, a-la Prius. This may well prove to be a very smart strategy from Honda New Zealand, but probably not for the […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Citroen DS3

On paper, the Citroen DS3 DStyle doesn’t sound all that special. Oh, sure, it looks great, with its consciously fashionable, ever-so-slightly purposely over-designed styling, it is a truly attractive and, more importantly, interesting entrant into the premium supermini segment. But when you start looking at the meat of the spec-sheet – the engine and transmission […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Porsche Panamera V6

Seeing the Porsche Panamera in your driveway can fill you with a number of different feelings, largely depending on what angle you are looking at it from. Catch it front ¾, from down low and the 911-esque nose and wide, muscular stance makes it look sexy. However, catch it from the rear and slightly above […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: BMW 330d

BMW recently unveiled a lavish facelift for the cars in the 3-series range that feature only two doors – the coupe and convertible, that is. Actually, scratch that, they played about a bit with the bumpers and tweaked a few other bits that you won’t notice and that’s pretty much it for the visual changes […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Toyota Corolla GX

What can be said about the Corolla that hasn’t really already been said before. Many, many times before. It’s a car. Not a particularly exciting car, but far from being offensively awful. Well engineered. Reliable. User friendly. Solid resale. A bit dull. Kind of like those processed, individually wrapped cheese slices really; you know what […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Isuzu D-Max

So let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: the Isuzu D-Max is the same ute that we have known and loved here in New Zealand as the Holden Rodeo. And then as the Holden Colorado. The whole Rodeo/D-Max thing was a collaboration between Holden and Isuzu, until a few years ago when […]

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New Cars Road Tests

ROAD TEST: Holden Cruze CDX diesel

Good news for everyone out there who looked at the top-spec Cruze CDX, admired the leather interior, high level of specification and chrome bits, but thought “Hmm… I just wish it was a bit noisier…” Well now it is, because Holden has made the CDX available with the 2-litre common-rail diesel engine, previously only available […]

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