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X MARKS HIS SPOT
I read with interest about the
latest crop of performance
cars from Audi, Mercedes and
BMW but can’t help thinking in
the bang-for-your-buck stakes,
the Evo X, released way back
in 2008 can, with a modest
amount of cash spent on a
power upgrade, be more than
competitive on the track or an
interesting back road.
I think it would be interesting
to see how a modified Evorighteous motoring hack.
Yes, safety is important but it
has become today’s new religion.
So pervasive one can nowadays
hardly read a motoring article
without some obligatory
safety preaching. I cannot help
wondering: Have some motoring
scribes lost their excitement
at the altar of safety? Or is it
maybe a holy fear of losing their
jobs by not being seen to be
safety disciples?
At the risk of being accused ofblasphemy, all this ad nauseam
over-emphasis on safety in
motoring mags leaves me cold.
May I never again cop another
boring safety lecture from a
car journo preaching about a
vehicle’s supposedly deadly
rating, not having a millionth
airbag in the back row or not
having this or that fancy safety-
system acronym, etc. Wishful
thinking I know, but hey, one has
to have faith!
Elardus Mare, Perth, WAW1 vs THE WORLD
Gotta love the wankers who
think the cost of a car should
come down to a quarter-mile
time (Video: HSV GTS-R W1
vs HSV Senator LSA drag race,
WheelsMag.com.au.) What about
a half-mile or full-mile time? Or
lap times around Bathurst or
Phillip Island, perhaps?
What about a good old hill run
on Australia’s high roads, as thiswas built for Aussie conditions
and driving styles? We don’t
build four-door pocket rockets or
high-tech, rapid-fire dual-clutch
gearboxes. We produce cars that
have character and are fun to
drive and listen to.
You might find a big Euro
luxury four-door performance
car that looks and sounds and
goes and stops just as good, but
I doubt you would find one forthe price of either of these. And
as the W1 is our generation’s
GT-HO, I doubt you will find
a four-door package as nice
that will appreciate in value in
decades to come.
Paying $100K for a nice
LSA is also good bang-for-buck
compared with what you will pay
for the large Germans.
The W1 needs to be raced for
a few laps against other four-
doors; only then will it change
opinions on its worth. Look what
a GT-HO or Monaro coupe or
Torana is worth now – even the
Walkinshaw Commodores. Intheir prime, many of them were
nothing more than a beefed-up
version of the stock model.
This thing is miles better,
and rarer. Dry-sumped LS9,
suspension and brakes that come
from a factory that produces V8
Supercar hardware; I would love
one in my driveway.
Well done, HSV, on having
the balls to produce such a
weapon. Wheels, hurry up and do
a comparison; a three-lap shoot-
out against all the large four-
door, rear-drive production cars.
Wes Ripper, via FacebookUnfortunately, Wes, we had only
two days and 1000km in which
to test the W1, limiting what we
could do with it. For now, at least.GOTTA HAVE FAITH
When I flicked over to the Ford
Mustang v Holden SS-V Redline
comparo (Head to Head, April) I
was fully expecting to read just
another oh-so-holy moralising
on the Mustang’s unfortunate
ANCAP safety rating. How
refreshing to read just an
objective comparison of two
great vehicles for what they
truly are without being lectured
about an apparent safety
shortcoming by another self-“May I never again cop
another boring lecture from
a car journo preaching
about a vehicle’s supposedly
deadly ANCAP rating”