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FRESH FACTS THINGS WE LEARNED IN THE CAR WORLD THIS MONTH 1. Porsche has unveiled the new 992.2 versions of the GT3 and GT3 Touring. When the big news is seats in the back of the Touring and the deletion of the starter button, you know this update probably hasn’t blown the overtime budget at Weissach. 2. Last month we featured the three Lambo Miuras from the Rudi Klein Collection being auctioned at Sothebys. If they’re not your thing, how about a 1 of 29 aluminium-bodied Mercedes 300SL gullwing? It’s got some panel damage after the owner reversed a forklift into it, but it could be yours for $7m. 3. Western Australia is set to implement ‘Tom’s Law’ on the 1st December. Novice drivers in the first six months of…

CATL’S ‘MIRACLE’ PHEV BATTERY Chinese tech firm Contemporary Amprex Technology Limited (CATL) has unveiled its first battery pack specifically designed for plug-in hybrid vehicles, promising a range of up to 400km and a ‘BEV-like driving experience’. Perhaps that figure should be qualified. CATL gave no details on what vehicle this figure was derived from, or even how large the pack was. Then there’s the fact that it was achieved on the notoriously lenient China Light Duty Test Cycle. A maximum recharge rate of 280km in 10 minutes looks more than promising. We’re keeping an eye on this Freevoy sodium-lithium pack with interest. VW SET TO CLOSE GERMAN FACTORIES In an unprecedented move, Volkswagen is set to shutter as many as three of its German plants as a cost-saving measure, says…

NEVER READ THE comments. That’s what we’d advise Ferrari because the reaction to the launch of the F80, successor to the LaFerrari and the sixth in Ferrari’s line of hypercars that also includes legends such as the 288 GTO, F40, F50 and Enzo, has been savage. To whit, few seems to rate the slab-sided styling and, having seen footage of the car on track at Mugello for Ferrari’s Finali Mondiali event, the rain hiss from the tyres sounded louder than the engine. Our response would be to give the car a chance because the technology behind it is a dizzying whirlwind of genius. Of course, the whole discussion is rendered moot by the fact that the car is sold out. All 799 units – virtually double the build run of…

THE SUCCESSOR TO the McLaren P1 mixes Formula 1 aerodynamics with a mighty newV8 hybrid drivetrain that sends all of its 938kW to the rear wheels. The W1 breaks all records for the company in terms of power and performance. It laps circuits quicker than the aero-focused Senna and accelerates faster than the speed-focused Speedtail, all in a package that weighs 1399kg thanks to a forensic approach to weight-saving for every component, from the engine to the sunvisors. At the heart of the W1 is an in-house-engineered twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre flat-plane-crank V8 engine. McLaren says the engine is new from the ground up. It uses both direct injection and port fuel injection, produces 683kW on its own to give the highest output per litre of any McLaren engine yet. It works…

WE’D SEEN THE early press shots of the Ferrari 12Cilindri, but nothing quite prepares you for seeing one in the metal, especially when the location is the display studio on the top floor of Ferrari’s Centro Stile in Maranello. Push open the door and you’re greeted with a large auditorium, lit from above by a giant circular soft light. At one end of the room is a full length curtain, behind which is a set of doors where design studies can be wheeled out onto a rooftop sun deck, surrounded by high balustrades to prevent anyone else getting a peek, as the designers assess how the car looks in natural light. With both a 12Cilindri coupe and a Spider convertible in the studio, there’s a lot to take in. The…

IT’S A TOUGH task, trying to guess at the winner of Wheels Car of the Year ahead of time. Of course, were you given to betting, the pre-event favourite could well be the Kia EV9, with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N as a decent each-way, but I’ve tried many times before at predicting the result and I’m currently standing at a solid 100 percent failure rate. With 25 cars on the starting grid for COTY 2024, the 58th running of Australia’s premier award looks set to be a ripper of an event. Some things continue as before. We’ll be decamping to Lang Lang proving ground for the first section of the week, with the finalists being sorted on the tried and trusted Wheels test route in South Gippsland. At the…

Keep it tight (no more than 200 words) and do include your suburb if via email: wheels@wheelsmag.com.au You can also have your say on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (search for Wheels Australia) “The Ultra variant is supposed to hit 300km/h in 15.07seconds. That’s almost 1.5 seconds quicker than a Ferrari SF90.” ONCE IN A while you read a news story that sits you on your arse. For me it was the news that the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra prototype, a Chinese electric car that I’d never even heard of, had set a lap record for an EV sedan around the Nürburgring, beating Tesla, Porsche and everybody else in the process. Before you cry that its 6m46.847s was set using a prototype, with a roll cage and semi-slick tyres, that;’s how most…

TESLA’S NEW CYBERCAB is quite the curious thing. I don’t mind how it looks; its sloping coupe roofline channels a little Volkswagen XL1, while the swan-wing doors are a bit McLaren. The clean, minimalist exterior has a steampunk, Blade Runner vibe, while the aerodynamic, 21-inch disc wheels remind me of a salt flat racer. It looks like it would be a laugh to drive down Chapel Street in Melbourne – or a similar look-at-me supercar strip in whatever city or town – or to take to a Cars & Coffee. Except, there’s a problem. A few, actually. First, you can’t drive it, which is kind of the point. But second, and more crucially, nobody I know would want to be seen dead in it. For the longest time, the humble…

IN ALL MY many years as a licensed driver, I have only ever sold three cars but the number of vehicles I’ve actually owned totals about four times that. So right now you’ll be speculating on a reason for the discrepancy. There are several. Firstly, some of my cars succumbed to the age-old confidence/talent imbalance and I was destined to be their final owner. You might call it crashing but I prefer to describe it as ‘using a vehicle beyond the point of saleable condition’. Thanks to my saintly generosity, a couple were given away, including the second-generation Vauxhall Astra three-door which was so riddled with corrosion it would leave small piles of brown powder on the road each time a door was slammed. Little did the recipient know, this car…