Namibia's content-driven motoring portal
So you live out in the sticks but the roads never deteriorate enough to warrant a wonky 4×4. Perhaps you already have such a vehicle and long for a decent station wagon. Maybe the one you fancy is a butch estate which can also deal with a nasty middelmannetjie. This car could be Audi’s new A4 Allroad.
Sedert die bekendstelling van Audi se A3 Sportback in 2005 aan die Namibiese en Suid-Afrikaanse mark is ongeveer 15 500 eenhede verkoop en boonop is hierdie gewilde model in 2006 as die Suid-Afrikaanse Motor van die Jaar aangewys.
A gruff, off-beat sound usually accompanied by a whistling turbo charger can only mean one thing: five cylinders. With even numbers being the preferred stencil for engine manufacturing, the five-pot is just as quirky and potentially unbalanced as those little three-cylinders.
Good news. If you’re in the market for a premium hatchback, your extremely tasty choices have just been supplemented with a rejuvenated version of an old favourite – the Audi A3 Sportback. Ingolstadt’s regular 3-door A3 arrived late last year, the Sportback 5-door version took a little longer to gestate.
I’m not a huge fan of oversized, pricey SUVs. I find them a bit pointless really. And initially, I wasn’t particularly taken with the Audi Q5 either. My first impressions were very negative, I disliked its bulbous bonnet, I felt too far removed from the whole driving experience with its clever driver assist technology and I really couldn’t see the point of its existence – halfway between a Q3 (which is quite big enough for the school run in my opinion) and a Q7 (which is somehow just magnificent).
Volkswagen van Suid-Afrika het so-pas sy nuwe Amarok dubbelkajuit, met ‘n nuwe 8-gang outomatiese ratkas, in die Namibwoestyn aan motorjoernaliste bekendgestel. Dit was letterlik en figuurlik ‘n WARM geleentheid met temperature wat by 55 grade Celsius gaan draai het; verder is die nuwe Volkswagen bakkie, met sy outomatiese ratkas en permanente vierwielaandrywing,‘n warm opponent in hierdie marksegment waar hy sommige van sy mededingers ore gaan aansit.
As great as it is to screech around a race track in AMG’s or chase identical Audis up a mountain pass, I find it wonderfully refreshing to test an ordinary car from time to time. By “ordinary” I mean normal, sensible and something most people (including the author) could afford – like the Chevrolet Cruze.
I’ve bought quite a few cars over the years and my shortlists usually included some or other derivative of a car which I believe to be a sensible and beautifully engineered hatchback. It’s never been the most affordable and I’m yet to own one so my admiration of the Audi A3 lives on.
Big SUV’s attract quite a bit of criticism for their size and price, usually flavoured with a faint undercurrent of jealousy. No other car represents wasteful extravagance better than a giant and powerful 4×4, especially if the rolling palace only has one occupant.
