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Holden's Final Hurrah: 2017 Range Released.
As Toyota recently confirmed their date for shutdown, Holden’s moving towards their end of manufacturing as well and has released information about the final cars available. There’s been some additions of features, changes in price and deletion of options. Here’s how it looks for the final locally made Holdens.
Colours: there’s three new additions, with Light My Fire (orange), Spitfire Green, and Son of a Gun Grey, with the nomenclature harking back to the way colours were named in the 1970s. Metallic paints are listed as a $550 option.
Transmissions: as part of the rationalisation of the range, the venerable six speed manual transmission is virtually extinct, being available only with the V8 sedans and utes. All other cars are available with just the six speed auto.
Range: Holden has dropped the SS-V, but has stayed with the SS-V Redline, whilst the Calais Sportwagon has also been dropped. This has the range sitting thus: Evoke sedan/wagon/ute; SV6 sedan/wagon/ute; SS sedan (with manual and auto)/wagon (auto only)/utes (both transmissions); SS-V redline (same structure as SS); Calais sedan (V6 auto only); Calais V (V6 and V8, auto only, sedan and wagon), and the final Caprice (V8 & auto).
Features: SV6 gets satnav and HUD (Head Up Display) as standard and will have 18 inch black wheels. The SS will get the same except for 19 inch wheels. SS-V gets more of the black out treatment (grille, fender vents, mirror surrounds, instrument panel & steering wheel, and DRL surrounds), plus “V” embossed sill plates with the ute gaining a blacked out “sports bar”. The Caprice V gets the leather wrapped steerer from the SS-V
Pricing:
2017 Holden Commodore RRPs
Evoke
Sedan AT $35,490
Sportwagon AT $37,490
Ute AT $33,490
SV6
Sedan AT $40,490
Sportwagon AT $42,490
Ute AT $37,190
SS
Sedan MT $47,490
Sedan AT $49,690
Sportwagon AT $51,690
Ute MT $43,990
Ute AT $46,190
SS-V Redline
Sedan MT $54,990
Sedan AT $57,190
Sportwagon AT $59,190
Ute MT $52,490
Ute AT $54,690
Calais
Sedan V6 AT $42,540
Calais V
Sedan V6 AT $48,750
Sedan V8 AT $56,750
Sportwagon V6 AT $50,750
Sportwagon V8 AT $58,750
Caprice V
LWB Sedan V8 AT $61,490
HSV has also released details of their final made in Australia cars, including the GTSR W1, complete with 474 kW and a massive 815 Nm of torque. Just 300 will be made and will cost an eyewatering $169990. The range will consist of the ClubSport R8 LSA, the wagon version, the Maloo R8 LSA, Senator Signature and GTS. The latter will have the 435 kW/740 Nm alloy V8 with the others being powered by the slightly detuned 410 kW/691 Nm version.
The bi-modal exhaust has been given a different opening point, lower in the rev range, and all models receive toque vectoring, utilising the braking system. Outside there’s been a refreshment, with different front and rear treatments, new bonnet vents, a new range of alloys, rerated suspension and “Thirty Years” badging, to commemorate the beginning of HSV in 1987. All cars will have the Tremc six speed manual as standard and will offer the GM 6L90E six speed auto and paddle shifters as a $2500 option. AP Racing will continue to offer their 390 mm/372 mm disc brakes as an option, with a price of $3495, with the GTS having them as standard.
The Maloo kickstarts the pricing, with $79990 for the manual and $82480 for the auto. The ClubSport sedan is $82990 and $85490, with the Tourer rolling in at $88990 and $91490. The Senator Signature is $95990 for both transmission options, and the GTS is manual only at $98990. All prices are plus on road costs.
Will Motorists Really Benefit from the Government's Proposed Fuel Changes
Late last year, shortly before Christmas, the Federal Government released three draft proposals that seek to improve the fuel efficiency of Australian vehicles. As part of the proposed measures designed to make our vehicles cleaner, an overhaul in standards would seek to align local regulations with those found in Europe. Currently, Australia is ranked last among 35 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) nations for petrol quality.
While being touted as a move that could eliminate 65 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, and also potentially affording motorists’ savings upwards of $500 per year in fuel costs, not everyone is cheering the news.
The outcry isn’t so much concerned with the idea of reducing our environmental footprint, but more towards one of the radical overhauls proposed to achieve it. Said proposal involves removing regular unleaded fuel from sale across the country, while also decreasing sulphur limits for premium unleaded and ethanol fuels. The other two measures focus purely on sulphur reduction.
Even with headline savings for motorists being touted by the government, it is likely to have a harder time convincing motorists about such savings. This is primarily due to the fact that there is an inherent price gap between regular unleaded fuel, and the next highest grade of fuel – premium unleaded (95).
Advocates will suggest that higher grades have a greater driving range that actually make them cheaper to fill per tank. They’ll also note the record number of new car sales, suggesting more and more motorists are converting to vehicles that ‘benefit’ from premium fuels – even though this goes against the fact that some would clearly be disadvantaged by the move. However, as the AAA point out, recent research into fuel emissions has suggested a stark difference in real-world performance compared with laboratory condition.
One must also consider that many motorists have a hard time justifying a greater expense at the point of purchase. Analysis should also consider the role that the leading fuel companies will play in this development. The leading implication would be that refineries, already struggling, and even terminals around the country, would need to invest some degree of capex into their assets to facilitate the changes. With this, motoring bodies such as the NRMA are concerned oil companies may take advantage of the changes and increase the price differential for premium fuels. If refineries opted to close instead, a reliance on fuel imports would hurt motorists even more.
As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, regular unleaded fuel is used by nearly 80% of motorists outside NSW. Its removal would be sure to draw ire from many in the community. It’s certainly time we cleaned up our game and improve the quality of our fuel, however, offsiding the majority of the population is something that clearly goes against reason. With more practical alternatives being proposed in the form of sulphur limitations, it’s logical we use those as the starting point of what is a much-needed reform.
Claw Marks: The Jaguar Driving Experience.
Many car companies offer buyers of their products a driving school experience. Jaguar is no different in that respect. Where this fabled British car company does differ is that…well….you get to drive Jaguars. Sydney Motorsport Park is the venue in NSW and I recently had an opportunity to do a session with the Jaguar Drive Experience.
The afternoon session kicks off with a catered lunch, before an introduction to the team and instructors. There’s no doubt as to the qualifications of the drivers, with V8 Supercar driver Tony D’Alberto and GT driver Nathan Antunes amongst them.
Each session is planned to be timed down to the second; that includes a video presentation, a rundown of the history of Jaguar, and splitting attendees into teams and being identified into numerical order for the driving sessions. The cars on display give a good insight into what Jaguar is all about: a choice of supercharged V6 and V8 hardtop F-Types, the supercharged V6 XE, and the limousine with a machine gun, the supercharged 5.0L V8 XJ.
For many, this will be their first time on a dedicated race track’s surface. The people are all Jaguar owners with many of them new to the brand. The car park is full of Jaguars belonging to the drivers that have, as a result of their purchase, been invited by Jaguar to find out just how their cars can be driven. At speed. Safely.
There’s a couple of sighting laps for each team, but before that, some basics. Seating position (low and with arms and legs bent, not straight.) Why? In a full frontal impact the kinetic energy is directed through the chassis and will be transmitted along straight lengths, like arms and legs, and terminate in the hard spots, like shoulders and pelvis. A high incidence of injuries are of these types due to people being seated too far from the seats and having their legs ramrod straight. Position of hands on the tiller? Nine and three, thank you, not ten and two. It makes it easier to reach those funny sticks that make ticky noises and causes lights to flash on the car’s corners or to engage the wipers when that strange wet stuff comes from the sky. Oh, and it’s also where the companies that use “flappy paddles” tend to put them, too.
Being driven in the cossetting surrounds of a top spec XJ, with narration from your instructor as he points out marker cones where you’re looking to line your car up when it’s your turn to drive, interspersed with terms such as double apex and off camber curves, is an unusual feeling. 
Now, it’s time to drive. First up? The sweeting looking and brutally powerful F-Type V8. It’s a snug fit, especially when wearing the mandatory helmet. My instructor, Andrew, ensures that the helmet is correctly fastened before covering off some points about the car and, more importantly, emphasises the safety factor the sessions are intended to further imbue Jaguar drivers with. It’s also pointed out that the rear vision mirror inside is pointed towards his position in the passenger seat. Why? So for the…more conservative driver…he can see following traffic and advise said conservative driver to clear the racing line.
The starter button is prodded, an instinctive check for traffic and D is selected. There’s an intoxicating burble from the four exhaust tips as the revs climb, a crackle from the pipes as brakes are applied in corners, a nicely weighted steering wheel responds to input as cones on apexes are lined up and…two laps later, the first run is done.
The other three drivers, including Melissa from Penrith, who had taken delivery of her first Jaguar, an XE, earlier in the year, and had the widest smile possible, take their turns. If it were possible to have a smile that encircled the entire head, she’d have it.
Next up, the biiiiiiiig XJ R-Sport. It’s a long car at over five metres in length, and with a wheelbase close to three metres it offers leg room enough to please a giraffe. Andrew explains that a different driving style is required due to the sheer size of the vehicle, yet, being largely constructed of aluminuim, tips the scales at under 2000 kilograms. This has the effect of making the XJ surprisingly nimble and easy to easy to punt around the fast and fluid Sydney Motorsport Park circuit. There’s a subtle yet noticeable difference in the exhaust note, a subconscious recognition of the extra space behind you and the fact that the car does indeed handle like a smaller car.
It’s the back to back comparisons that make doing such a course so utterly important in the greater scheme of safety on the roads. One of the factors here is the instruction to look ahead, to plan your entry and exit. What this does is have the driver look at where they can get their car to go but, crucially, where to go in the event of an issue further ahead. It’s human nature to pick out an object and the brain momentarily focuses on that. But, in an emergency situation, what a driver should be looking out for is the road out, not the tree, the sole tree, next to that exit, as all too often single occupant fatalities have been caused by the car hitting the only object around, such as a tree or pole.
The other part of using a race circuit to conduct driver education is showing how a fluid and smooth movement is safer than a sudden sideways wrench of the wheel. Far too often a car has rolled simply because of drivers suddenly veering left or right, primarily becuase of inattention and suddenly realisied the truck in front is a whole lot closer than expected. Indicator stalks are placed at fingertip’s end and designed to move at a soft touch as the wheel is turned gently when changing lanes. The instructors are at pains to point out that a smooth and fluid handling car responds to smooth and fluid drivers far better than those that are not. The end result? A safer driver and safer journey.
The final session covered off two distinctly different driving examples. The first was the XE V6 for our group and our last car. Andrew points out the flashing red Start/Stop button and mentions off handedly that it’s a heartbeat, the timing of the flashes. That heartbeat is 66 times per minute. Why? It’s the heartbeat of a jaguar, at rest…
Both in this and inside the XJ we were given three laps and it was here that a stretch of the legs was really undertaken. The subtle wail of the supercharger bolted atop the V6, the imperceptible change of the auto’s gears, and seeing the speedo hit 160 kilometres per hour in a legal environment is one thing. By now there’s more familiaraity with the track and the laps feel quicker, the braking points become more instinctive, the apexes get closer and the points between acceleration and braking become shorter. Being taken for hot laps by the instructor? Another thing entirely.
Andrew checks the helmets straps and nods towards the V6 F-Type. They call the hot laps “The Instructor’s Revenge” and is mainly because of the people that see themselves as a better driver than they really are. Going quick in a straight line? Sure. Hitting the apexes whilst experiencing a car for the first time? Well done sir. But here’s the reality check.
Fire and brimstone, lightning and thunder, Thor’s hammer meets the awesome power of Superman. That’s just the basic 250 kilowatt V6 F-Type. Bump it up to 280 kW for the F-Type S or go full metal jacket for the bellowing 404 kilowatt 5.0L V8. Torque? “Just” 680 of them. We’re in the F-Type S, with the 280 kW V6 and 460 torques from 3500 revs. There’s noise, a sweet sound to a Jaguar fan, of a restrained and angry machine wanting to pick a fight with an ill educated driver but Andrew controls the beast.
There’s moments of sensing the car about to lose contact with the track as the F-Type goes sideways but it’s a controlled movement, a pucker moment here and there as the chassis squirms around under power. The traction control kicks in and out, obeying the commands of the computer which itself is obeying the commands of the organic computer sitting a couple of feet above the seat cushion. Snarls from the front, a surge as the accelerator is pressed, the snap of the exhaust as spent dinosaur juice is expelled.
There’s flicks of the wheel, left, right, but never are they a sudden movement in response to panic or fear. Andrew holds the F-Type in his grip and the car fights back but recognises who its master is. And that master is what we’re and they’re to get a glimpse of: a properly educated driver that understands what a car can do and just how much can be extracted from the car in the right hands. It also shows just how undertrained and woefully dangerous other drivers are as the chief instruction is left ringing in our ears when the sessions wrap up.
“You’ve had your brain recalibrated. Remember that when you leave.”
We’ve spent the last few hours travelling, in a safe and legal environment, at speeds that just a few hundred metres away would be deemed dangerous and illegal and license losing, and it’s here that the great safety conundrum again rears its head.
On my way to the circuit, I passed a clearly marked police car. It was on my left and nestled in one of those little spaces roadside. Ostensibly they’re there for safety and we’re told they scan numberplates for stolen or unregistered cars. Scarcely two hundred metres away, on the opposite side of the freeway, there was a four car nose to tail pileup. This incident was inside a line of single lane traffic waiting to enter a congested road, were some distance away from the traffic light controlled intersection and it would have been impossible, absolutely impossible, for those crashes to have occured at anything more than sixty kilometres per hour. You should be able to appreciate the irony here.
It’s fact that most nose to tail crashes happen at or below the posted speed limit and are a massive contributor to insurance and hospital costs. Yet we have speed cameras in odd locations and they have simply failed to have an impact on saving lives, irrespective of the propaganda governments would have you believe. A solid indicator of that failure is the simple and sheer amount of revenue these devices deliver to governments. They’d tell you that they’d be happy to have no revenue from these devices, inferring that no speed, no pay. This ignores the fact that if they weren’t also revenue raising devices then the government wouldn’t attach a revenue raising amount to them along with the demerit point system.
It’s also a fact that at the velocities we were travelling didn’t kill us. The cynical would say it was because we were on a race track. This overlooks the fact that race drivers, the most highly trained and experienced drivers on earth and who regularly travel at illegal road speeds (on the race circuit), have a death rate, world wide, of a miniscule fraction of one per cent of those Australia has per year on the roads. The cynical would say it’s because we’re on a race track and not surrounded by other drivers. Again, race drivers are at higher velocities and surrounded by drivers doing similar high speeds.
The Jaguar Driving Experience has shown that it’s possible to travel at high speeds but, vitally, it’s shown how to travel at high speeds and corner properly, SAFELY. And that is the crux of any driver training and the crucial part that isn’t seen as essenially worthwhile by governments.
(With thanks to the Jaguar Driving Experience and The Formula Company.)
Car-Jacking 2016-Style: Can Your Car Be Hacked?
Fact number one: more and more components of modern cars are controlled by electronics and computer systems. Fact number two: cars are one of the most significant items in the Internet Of Things, where things that aren’t computers and mobile phones go online and send info from A to B or receive information. Tons of new cars of the more connected type have the ability to run a diagnostic test, send the info to the maintenance people and send you a report (e.g. Ford’s SYNC Vehicle Health Report). You can also get apps to help you find where you parked your car if you are one of those who have a tendency to get forgetful in car parking buildings. Many cars are so connected that they’re probably the most mobile of mobile devices.
Fact number three: hackers exist. Scary stuff. You’ve got a car with all these electronically controlled safety devices (including steering correction and brake deployment), your car is connected to the internet and there are evil-minded folk out there who like to create a bit of havoc.
Scientific American magazine in February 2016 ran an article that explained that hackers can’t take over your car. However, Norton – the internet security experts who put out some of the best online protection software (thanks, guys; it works on my computers) – warn that some features of cars can and have been hacked. Not that there have been cases of cars being suddenly taken over by Evil Dr Loony-Boffin, whisking the hapless driver and passenger away to a secret underground lab where sinister experiments are conducted (cheesy thriller film, anyone?). However, Norton reports that there have been cases where disgruntled employees have immobilized engines remotely, or where researchers have managed to trigger tyre pressure warning signals or even disable the brakes.
The most high-profile story about car hacking comes from the US, where a pair of cyber security experts hacked a Jeep Cherokee in the name of research, and managed to take out the brakes (and do other stuff) while someone else was driving it. Wired magazine filmed it:
For those of you who drive or are interested in this variety of Jeep Cherokee, this hacking attack was part of a security test and the offending weakness has been fixed with a patch (I haven’t done any coding since the old BASIC days in the 1980s when the home computer came out, so don’t ask me how this works).
The second reason why you shouldn’t panic just yet is that these hackers weren’t malicious but were doing a heavy-duty security test of the sort that MacGyver used to carry out: break into a “secure” system to discover its weaknesses. It also took them quite a long time to do it. Most brainy teenagers out to cause mayhem don’t have quite that level of dedication. The fact that there are inventive, creative and intelligent people trying to hack all these connected cars means that the weaknesses will be fixed. We saw the same thing happen with emails and computer viruses, and we’ve all got antivirus software and spam filters these days. Thanks to these guys, who have what must be one of the more fun jobs in the world, we’ll get cars that are connected and safe.
The third reason why you shouldn’t panic about your car being hacked is that the hackers in the Jeep video had to plug their laptops into the car first. That’s right: the hackers had to have physical access to the car first. If you follow all the usual rules about physical car security and use reliable, reputable mechanics, you should be OK. You should also be careful about what you plug into your car, especially those fleet monitoring devices or similar.
Fourthly, many of the attacks that were demonstrated in the video weren’t life threatening. In another test that wasn’t on the video, including one where the remote hackers took over the cruise control, a lot of the attacks could also be over-ridden by an alert driver. The hackers also said that if a driver has both hands on the wheel the way we were all taught to, the steering hack could be over-ridden. Handbrakes also exist if the brakes are cut remotely.
Fifthly, according to Norton, there isn’t much point in cyberattacks on cars, even for terrorists. It would take a lot of technical work to hack just a few cars, and what would be the point of that when we all know they can wreak a lot more havoc with truck bombs? Having tyre pressure monitoring lights and weird pictures coming up on the dashboard are merely annoying rather than being real threats.
Last but not least, not every car has this level of connectivity, even the newest models. If they’re not connected, they can’t be hacked. Those of you with older vehicles can now look smug. Even if you have a tendency to lose your car in parking buildings.
Level 2, 9 Help Street