ANYONE with a modicum of knowledge of the SA bakkie scene simply has to be perplexed at the gulf in sales between the top two and the rest led by the Isuzu D-MAX. They should be perplexed not just by the distortion in sales but by the fact…

LAST week, I joined a huge gathering at Nissan South Africa’s Rosslyn plant outside Pretoria to learn about a massive investment the company is making in expanding its light commercial vehicle output. Read on for the official story about upcoming plans to produce the Navara bakkie, a venture…

I CAN''T be the only one who wonders about the origins of some vehicle model names and none more so than the moniker “Sprinter” as attached to the portly rump of a Mercedes-Benz van. The name, after all, conjures up visons of a lean athlete about to unleash…

EVERY time a Volvo passes through my hands, I am reminded of the fact that the South African car market is driven by perception to an unusual degree, so much so that potentially undeserving vehicles may sell in significant numbers, but brilliant vehicles are conspicuous through their scarcity.…

TEMPUS fugit, as they say in the classics, and it sure does. A hardly-believable four years and nine months have flashed by since I attended the launch of the W205 series C-Class. Now it has undergone a facelift and I’ve at last got to re-acquaint myself with an…

ANYONE who thought the unexpected demise of the Chevrolet name in RSA in terms of new car availability would lead to a similar fate for the Isuzu brand are happily very wide of the mark as the purveyors of the Japanese brand in South Africa are clearly taking…

I MUST admit to having a preference for smaller cars, but perhaps not cars as small as the Aygo. However, such has been the progress in kitting out sub-compact vehicles that any thoughts of driving little more than a stripped-out shell have long been banished — and the…

SEE the letters KB, speak the letters KB, and the end result in the automotive world at least is surely the same – an Isuzu springs to mind. No more though as from late last year, the KB bakkie morphed into the D-Max and with the slightly longer…

STUTTGART’S so-called entry level model, the A-Class, has rarely been too far away from controversy. Few car buffs will be unaware of the infamous “Elk test” which saw the original model roll when conducting an emergency swerve. (more…)

GLOBALLY, the EcoSport has not reached the heights Ford’s marketing gurus might have hoped for and I suspect one of the reasons is that this model hasn’t been quite sure what it wants to be. (more…)