Car Reviews

Porsche doesn’t want you to know this but the best handling model in their line-up isn’t actually the 911. Much as I love the 50 year old Porsche 911 design, the drive layout isn’t exactly ideal. With the engine hanging behind the rear axle, it tends to create a pendulum effect when you go round a corner.

Thus explains the 911’s reputation for being a very unforgiving machine for newcomers. In the older models especially, once the rear snaps around, it is usually terminal and you will exit the corner tail first everytime. But the 911 design continues to endure because once you’ve mastered the car, you’ll be rewarded with tremendous mechanical grip from the engine hanging over the rear axle. 

Porsche has spent the better part of the l...

Since its launch in 2007, the Mazda CX-9 was never imported into our island-nation, possibly due to its tax-unfriendly engine displacement. However, with the discontinuation of the CX-7, the new Mazda agent decided that this full-sized SUV would be a good complement to the compact CX-5 SUV for the local line-up, launching it locally early this year.

Interestingly, the CX-9 is not based on the same platform as the CX-7, despite what their similar exteriors might suggest, but on a Ford CD3 platform – Mazda had a partnership with Ford from 1979 to 2010 – that is shared with the Ford Edge (a mid-sized SUV).

Armed with a capacity to carry seven adults, the CX-9 looks primed to challenge the large SUV segment.

When Citroen wanted to move its models upmarket two years ago, they decided to create the DS sub-brand and the DS4 is Citroen’s answer to transforming the humble C4 into a luxury competitor.

Launched in Singapore a year ago, the DS4 now has a heart transplant option of replacing its petrol engine with a diesel one. The big question here is if the change of heart has turned the DS4 into more of a docile economy car or a grunting urban explorer. Enter centre stage the DS4 e-HDi.

Exterior

The DS4 design focus group must have had a group of very vocal and obstinate proponents of every automotive design available with each pushing to influence the final design of the car.

“Coupe! Saloon! Hatchback! Crossover!” Chants probably inundated...

My earliest memory of the Touareg goes back to when the first diesel version was launched. There was much hype in the international media at the time and it wasn't just because the Touareg shared parts with its more illustrious Cayenne sibling. But more for the reason that the diesel variant came with 750Nm of torque from its 5.0-litre V10 under the hood. You could quite possibly pull nearly anything with it. The only thing it couldn’t move was probably the Earth itself.

So our English colleagues proceeded to pull all sorts of heavy stuff with it. Logs, MPVs and a Jumbo Jet. All these the Touareg shrugged off with ease. Now fast forward to the present, the new Touareg diesel is a little less whacky than its V10 brethren but does it st...

Think Subaru and you’d inevitably think of the mighty Impreza WRX (and its countless variants). Though this Japanese car maker has already positioned the BRZ sports coupe in place as its halo model, the venerable Impreza WRX still has a place deeply rooted in many enthusiasts’ hearts.

However, the subject of this review is not any of these two cars but the latest arrival to the Subaru line-up – the new Forester. Launched in Singapore on April’s Fools Day this year, this fourth-generation SUV is back with a new smart look, improved performance and more interior space, at the same time claiming sharper handling.

Here’s a trivia on the Forester: it first made its debut back in 1997 as an Impreza-based wagon, lasting for two generations be...

It wasn’t too long ago when Japanese sedans were the default choice of vehicle for many families in Singapore, but when the COE premiums began to rise rather dramatically in early 2010, these same car buyers began to gravitate to Continental vehicles as they started to be more appealing in terms of product substance as well as value (after all, the COE portion constitutes a smaller percentage of the total vehicle price).

Compared to its obvious rivals like the Honda Civic and Mitsubishi Lancer , the Nissan Sylphy may be a relatively new name but this car has actually been around since 2000. The first-generation Sylphy was marketed as the Nissan Sunny locally – quite a large number of our readers might have even taken their driving licen...

Since the first LS, Lexus has been setting the gold standard in producing a quality luxury sedan. Even the continental brands find it hard to emulate the successes and heights that Lexus has enjoyed in the past few years.

In recent years though, Lexus has been working silently to infuse dynamic performance into their understated luxury autos. Even their flagship LS sedans haven’t been spared this enhancement.

Exterior

The most obvious changes in the LS460 is in the front where it has been updated to reflect the new corporate design shared by the current generation. There’s an equal mix of status and sporty aggression in the focused gaze of the new headlight arrangement that is enhanced with an unbroken LED daytime running light t...

Like its British equivalent, the Mini Cooper, the Beetle is an icon of the 20th century that harks back to our grandparent’s generation with the original Beetle. There’s no doubt that this latest Beetle will replicate the staggering sales numbers of the version before it based on its nostalgic design alone.

But Volkswagen promises that this latest Beetle is much more than a facelifted version. With it, Volkswagen has improved its dynamic qualities as well as appearance in a bid to tease more men into the Beetle fraternity. 

The Beetle’s history is a long one and even crosses paths with its more illustrious brethren in the VAG group. In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler commissioned Dr Ferdinand Porsche to design a car for the people. An automo...