One Liners:
- Meanwhile in Cape Town motorists are warned to look out for logs placed onto the N2 highway for the sole purpose of writing off your ride.
- Social media debates continues over the 2018 SA Car of the Year winner – the Porsche Panamera.
- Is there a fuel price hike looming? The answer is almost always yes.
1) Mercedes threatens us with a Maybach SUV
To which we can only add “of course they are!” The trend to SUVize the motoring realm is not lost on us, especially from luxury and performance oriented marque’s. It’s called the Mercedes-Maybach 9 Concept and it’s based on the Mercedes-Benz GLS. The result is a quasi-American looking thing, thanks mostly to a massive vertically-slatted radiator grille reminiscent of the one on the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6. Who asked for this?
2) The 2018 Aston Martin Vantage is in showrooms now!
That’s right, for a cool R2.8mil you could be the proud owner of a 2018 Aston Martin vantage, with styling clearly inspired by 007s DB10. Under that long yellow bonnet you’ll find Affalterbachs finest, a severely turbo’d V8 ala AMG GT, capable of 375kW and 685Nm. Heresy aside, this new Vantage is a bite-the-back-of-your-hand looker, a lesson in flowing lines melting over an aggressively stanced chassis that just so happens to be devastatingly fast. Like… 312kph top speed fast.
3) Cheers to Audi’s most formidable engines
All good things must come to an end. Today it’s the W12 TFSI engine that has powered the Audi A8, and will continue to do so for a few more months and then never again. The 6.3 litre has never been accused of being frugal, so it makes sense for it to be replaced with something of lesser capacity and fewer cylinders. More worryingly however is the threat of the Audi R8’s V10 also being culled since if rumours are to be believed, there’ll be no third installment of the R8. Say it isn’t so?
4) Hotter Lambos this way come
Lamborghini, Italy’s most flamboyant purveyor of petrol incinerators are going forward with an even harder to the core Huracan (more fiery even than the Nurburgring dominating Performante) but dash our hopes of a rear drive Aventador. They must not want to kill off their clientele. Besided there’s still the 730hp Aventador S for that. That’s called good business sense.
