Motoring Advice

Discovers how good family life can be with Australia’s best-selling ute-based seven-seater SUV in this Isuzu MU-X 2018 Review with the team from Motoring Australia.

If you think you’ve seen a lot of Isuzu MU-Xs on the road lately, both in town and in the country, you’d be right. This was Australia’s top selling ute-based seven seater SUV in 2017. So what’s made the MU-X such a hit with the adventurous side of the Aussie motoring public? Let’s jump in and find out.

Our Renault Captur 2018 Review with the team from Motoring Australia takes a look at the recently updated model which adds more kit and competitive drive away pricing in a bid to remain relevant in a fiercely competitive segment. But is it enough?

Small SUVs are big business, Mazda’s CX-3 and the Mitsubishi ASX leading the sales charge. Then there’s Hyundai’s new Kona which we expect to prosper in the Australian market and let’s not discount the badge loyalty Toyota’s C-HR is likely to leverage.

Our Lexus RX L 2018 Review with the team from Motoring Australia takes a look at this popular luxury crossover, which finally, after 20 years and four generations has seen Lexus produce a seven seat version of its popular RX SUV.

The good news is the extra pair of seats doesn’t cost you, at less than $3,300 for the entry-level RX 350 L, which is priced from under $85,000, that makes the V6 Petrol RX L much cheaper than the most basic diesel versions of seventh seat luxury SUVs like the Audi Q7, BMW X5 and Volvo XC90 and for a little over $100,000, the sports luxury version adds even more gear like 14 weight power adjustment for the front seats, a 15 speaker Mark Levinson sound system, 12.3 inch display screen and a panoramic view monitor.

Skoda Octavia RS 245 2018 Review with the team from Motoring Australia for those who want something different in a straightforward SUV.

If you thought that Skoda’s were simply recycled Volkswagens and that the station wagon in general is a little bit on the nose…I want you to put your views to one side for a moment because I’ve got something to show you. This is the Skoda Octavia RS 245 and for me any car that shouts its horsepower figure in its title is definitely worthy of a closer inspection, especially when you’re driving one with a manual transmission.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI Original 2018 Review with the team from Motoring Australia is news that should pique the interest of performance car enthusiasts with a new iteration of the GTI hot hatch, a pared back version of the Golf GTI performance hatch that is the cheapest one to hit Australia in about 15 years.

The Volkswagen ‘Original’ 3 Door Golf GTI misses out on very little when you look at the nitty-gritty and lands in showrooms this month priced from $37,490 plus on-road costs, the cheapest a new GTI has been since 2004. So let’s go for a spin…

Say goodbye Holden Commodore SS and Hello VXR with the team from Motoring Australia as a sophisticated Euro Sports Hatch replaces a V8 SS Muscle-Car in their Holden ZB Commodore VXR 2018 Review.

After four generations and 40 Years of rear-drive V8 Holden muscle cars…welcome to Holden’s brave new world of the All-Wheel Drive V6 Sport Sedan! The fact is that after General Motors signed the death warrant for the Australian-Made Zeta Platform in 2011, the performance flagship of Holden’s first imported Commodore range was never going to be a rear drive V8.

It’s an all-new Holden Calais, but not as you know it, as the large German luxury liftback debuts with the team from Motoring Australia in their Holden Calais ZB 2018 Review:

The 2018 ZB Holden Calais comes in a range of variants including 2-Litre Turbo Petrol, 2-Litre Turbo Diesel, Front-Wheel Drive, All Wheel Drive, V6, Lift Back, Wagon and Crossover. About the only thing missing here is V8 and rear-wheel drive but here’s why that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Discover if a smaller cylinder count dilutes Jaguar’s sports car when we join the team from Motoring Australia as they deliver their Jaguar F-Type 4 Cylinder 2018 Review.

The Jaguar F-Type…if there’s been one thing critics and aficionados have agreed on since the inception of the British sports car, it’s the noise, the theatre…it sounds great at idle between the corners and as we found, spine-tingling at full noise on an airport runway. Up to now that inherent noise and theatre has been exclusively owed to Jaguars selection of six cylinder and eight cylinder engines, so let’s meet the four-cylinder Jaguar F-Type and see if it lives up to the hype.

As has been widely reported the 2018 Mercedes-Benz X Class is developed from the same base as the Nissan Navarra although the Benz is wider, has had its suspension re-tuned and has its own exterior and interior designs.

Expect to pay plenty more for the X Class than the Navara a price premium for a premium vehicle is Mercedes argument. Step inside the X Class and superficially it does look lluxurious but the surfaces are hard and some of the plastics quality is reasonably average.

So Alfa Romeo’s first modern SUV better be good for it to be accepted. The Stelvio, straight off the bat is a classy, well-executed alternative to an Audi Q5.

Weight has always been the enemy of high riding SUVs like this and Alfa Romeo has put some real real engineering treats for us in this Stelvio. Things like this bonnet here is aluminium and some of the rear bodywork is aluminium all the braking, the calipers are aluminium and the engines of course is aluminium. Alfa Romeo says this car weighs around 100 kilos lighter than the equivalent Jaguar F-Pace.