Aussie Motoring

The 2006 Fraser Coast Ute show was held at Torbanlea on Saturday March 27.

If you’re wondering where the heck the Fraser Coast might be then think of the mainland coast that faces Fraser Island in Queensland and you’ve got the place. Torbanlea is a small village just north of Hervey Bay and just off the Bruce Highway.

Out this way you might have almost called it a Ute Muster but then this was the only fair dinkum bush ute that was on display while we were at the show.

Everything else was strictly street machines like this Ford ute

There was plenty of variety ranging from vintage and veteran through to a nitro powered monster you will see on the first page of the highlights.

For some of the other highlights of the show check out the three pages of pictures listed below.

2006 Fraser Coast Ute Show - Mean Street Machines

2006 Fraser Coast Ute Show - Old Hotties

2006 Fraser Coast Ute Show - Veteran Utes

It’s a seven seater MPV and it’s soon to make it’s debut at the Madrid Motor Show

Kia Motors Corporation today issued a ‘preview sketch’ of its exciting all-new Carens compact MPV (to be named ‘Rondo’ in North America), and confirmed that this model will make its world premiere at the forthcoming Salon International del Automovil de Madrid. The Carens will be revealed to the world for the first time at the bi-annual Spanish motor show, held in the capital’s Parque Ferial Juan Carlos 1 exhibition complex from May 25.

Longer, wider and taller than the model it replaces, the all-new Kia Carens will be available with seven seats for the first time in Europe. The rear seats fold down flat into the boot floor when not required.

Underlining the importance of the European marketplace to Kia, the Carens launch will be the fifth new model — following the Picanto, Rio, Sportage and Carnival — to make its debut at a European motor show. Full details of the all-new Carens will be announced at Kia’s motor show press conference on Thursday, May 25.

Proton is a name that has been missing from the Australian motoring scene for a few years now although there are still penty of the Malaysian built cars out there on Australian roads.

Proton has recently begun another push to grab a share of the Australian market with a range of sedans, hatches and even a small utility reminiscent of the Subaru Brumby. Proton had their range on display at the Brisbane Motor Show and that’s where Aussie Motoring caught up with the Proton Savvy.

The Proton Savvy is definitely a car of mixed breed. It’s built in Malaysia, it rides on Lotus designed suspension and is powered by a Renault 1.2 litre single overhead cam, multi-point injection motor.

The design includes what Proton calls a Passenger Safety Cell that is designed to disperse impat energy up through the roof. It also has front and rear crumple zones and side intrusion beams to further protect the passengers.

Standard features on the Proton Savvy include:

ABS braking calibrated for Australian conditions

Dual airbags for front seat passengers

Collapsible steering column

Reverse sensors

Comfort features include:

CD player

Air conditioning

Front power windows

Rear wiper

Remote central locking

The car comes with a 5 speed manual gearbox and a 5 speed automatic gearbox is also available. Unfortunately the Savvy will only run on Premium Unleaded but with a fuel consumption of 5.7 litres/100 kms that’s probably not going to be a major hassle for most people.

Motor writers seem to like the Proton Savvy and predict that, at $13,990, the Savvy will be competitive on price.

Good points seen by Chris Gable at Carpoint were:

Ride and handling

Impressive equipment list

Good supportive front seats

The bad points for the Proton Savvy were:

Low engine power and noise level

Hard plastic dash

Non-adjustable steering wheel

The other down side to the Proton Savvy is the lack of a dealer network. Here in Queensland the network is limited to Brisbane and the Gold Coast but then that may not be much of a problem either because the Savvy is definitely marketed as a city car.

This Holden concept car made its first appearance at the 2005 Sydney Motor Show and has been a big hit at motor shows across the country ever since. Despite what many people think, not one part of the vehicle has come from the original FJ Holden. Instead, so many parts that look familiar, like the Holden label, are interpretations of the original.

The body sits on a Chevrolet Corvette underbody and also employs a Corvette V8 motor.

All lights in the Efijy, including the headlights, are actually not lights at all but are light-emitting diodes. The LEDs used for the headlights not only put out a lot of light but also a lot of heat and each headlight has a fan built in to keep the LEDs cool.

While everything on the vehicle is functional and the car certainly can be driven unfortunately you will never see this car in production. The stylised FJ grill is hand-polished aluminium that required two weeks of work to reach the point where you see it today and that level of hand-tooling is not something that you would ever see on a production car.

However, the Efijy does allow us to see what is coming down the production pipeline because the Human Interface Technology on the Efijy is close to what we will soon see in production cars. This technology offers touch-screen access to the entertainment system, climate control, GPS and suspension.

The results of the Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix are:

1. Fisichella/Renault

2. Alonso/Renault

3. Button/Honda

4. Montoya/McLaren-Mercedes

5. Massa/Ferrari

6. M Schumacher/Ferrari

Australian Mark Webber retired on lap 17 and his Williams-Cosworth team mate, Nico Rosberg retired on lap 8.

Kimi Raikkonen was involved in an accident on the first lap and did not continue.

Mark Webber is now in 8th position in the 2006 Driver’s Championsip with three points

The next Formula 1 Grand Prix will be in Melbourne on April 2

For some reason the press seem to ignore Australian participants in important overseas motor sport events. For example, you will always hear the who won the latest Formula 1 race but you rarely hear where Mark Webber - Australia’s only representative in Formula 1 finished.

If Mark Webber doesn’t get much mention in the local press then Chris Atkinson gets none even though he is performing well in the World Ralley Championship. Chris currently drives for Subaru and is currently sitting in 9th spot in the drivers after three WRC rounds.

The grid for the Malaysian Formule 1 Grand Prix is:

1. Fisichella/Renault

2. Button/Honda

3. Rosberg/Williams-Cosworth

4. Webber/Williams-Cosworth

Other grid positions are will not be announced till Sunday morning due to the new rules. A number of drivers, including Schumacher/Ferrari have opted for engine changes and this can affect their position on the starting grid by up to 10 places.

Racing begins at 5pm AEDT

The special edition Ford Territory SR is set to be released in mid March complete with over $3,800 worth of extras.

Those extras include:

Cruise control

Leather sequential sports shifter

Leather sports steering wheel

Four 17″ alloy wheels

Running boards

Unique SR badge

Ford Australia has released the special edition Falcon SR sedan.

It comes with $7,000 worth of extras that include:

Side airbags for driver and front passenger

Six-stack CD

Reverse sensing

17″ alloy wheels

Leather wrapped steering wheel

Sequential sports shift

Sports suspension

Rear power windows

SR badging and spoiler

Prices start at $33,490

Holden has issued a recall that affects over 90,000 Commodore sedans and utilities built between April 2003 and December 2005.

The recall was issued after Holden identified a problem with side airbags that “inflated under circumstances which did not warrant inflation.”

Holden will rectify the problem free of charge through Holden dealerships.

Over 30,000 export Commodres have also been affected by the recall.