A weekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird.
Santa drives an Australian car
Good news this week from the land Down Under, where there’s little snow but always lots of festive holiday spirit. ’Tis a lovely place, apart from the drop bears, spiders, and snakeroos, and when they build a car, they do it right.
Ever wonder how Santa managed to visit all those billions of houses in just a single night? Wonder no longer: Holden (Australia’s version of GM) builds him something special. Specifically, they make the 2016 Holden Maloo LSA, a cherry red sleigh that’s part el Camino and part spleen-destroying supercharged V-8.
The Maloo is a ute, one of those car-pickup hybrids Australia loves so much. Ordinarily they’re powered by thrifty diesels so as to save dollarydoos at the pump. In the Maloo LSA’s case, it’s a 577 horsepower blown V-8 out of the Corvette Z06. Strewth. Strewth, and stone the crows too.
With little weight over the back wheels when unladen, this is not a machine to encourage good behaviour. If you own one already, don’t bother leaving out the cookies and milk – Santa ain’t coming.
Two Millionth Land Rover sells for $600,000
Land Rovers are best when simplest, like steak and kidney pie, or Lego instructions. Especially because, like Lego, Land Rovers tend to fall apart into their component parts when subjected to wear – or even when simply looked at for too long. But then you patch them all back together and it’s back on (or off) the road.
It’s a recipe that’s made both the brand and the machine a success over the years, a point that was driven home by the price fetched by the two millionth Land Rover built. Sold at auction, the white-hued Defender 90 fetched a staggering $600,000.
That’s a lot for what’s basically an agricultural implement, but most of the money is going to good, Land Rover-y causes. Some of the proceeds will benefit Kenyan wildlife conservation, and some towards the Red Cross.
Cadillac chief calls ELR a big disappointment
The very expensive Cadillac ELR has been a sales disaster. Based on the much cheaper Chevy Volt, the Cadillac version looked cooler but wasn’t mechanically much different. It flopped.
Even Cadillac’s chief marketing officer Uwe Ellinghaus calls the car a “big disappointment.” Speaking to Automobile magazine, he indicated that plug-in hybrid technology will be a staple in the luxury segment soon, but in the same way all-wheel-drive is, not for stand-alone specialist vehicles only.
Currently, Cadillac markets itself as a performance enthusiast’s brand, with the ATS and CTS sedans both offering great driving characteristics and flame-spitting V models. However, infotainment needs to come up considerably to compete, and the market domination of Mercedes and BMW is hard to fight. Further, Cadillac still mostly sells crossovers; like Lexus, if they didn’t have the soft-serve vehicles, they’d be sunk.
So no more rebadged Volt, but perhaps a car that looks like an Escalade without the conspicuous fuel consumption. That could be the way forward for the SRX.
Mazda ranks as most fuel-efficient automaker according to US EPA
Scroll to the top of the list of manufacturers ranked by overall fleet fuel economy, and you’ll find Mazda sitting comfortably at the top of the pack. As a company that’s long been about fun-to-drive character, the news may come as a small surprise: sure, the Miata was cheap and cheerful, but the 2.3-litre four of the original Mazda3 was surprisingly thirsty, as were the turbo rotaries and the turbo-four of the Mazdaspeed3.
However, by throwing R&D money at refining the internal combustion engine, Mazda’s come out ahead with excellent fuel economy across the board. Regrettably, they do so at a time when United States fuel prices are at an unbelievable low.
However, the results will at least be of good cheer to Canadians, who are getting hosed at the pumps thanks to a combination of taxation and oil companies offsetting wholesale losses by charging the consumers more at company-controlled filling stations.
1954 300SL a part of Vancouver history
Sold at auction for $1.9 million recently, a beautiful silver Gullwing Mercedes is one of the most expensive ’54 models sold. The 300SL is probably the most beautiful and iconic Mercedes ever made, and this particular example has a great history.
Imported into Vancouver by one Leopold Bentley, a lumber magnate, the car was used as a display model at the fledgling M-D distribution West. It then sold in 1956, and has been maintained ever since by Rudi and Company, a specialist crew over on Vancouver Island.
Vancouver’s car culture, I find, is a hidden affair, with all kinds of interesting stuff tucked behind closed garage doors.
We have Pebble Beach winners here, forgotten race cars, and private collections to boggle the mind.
This 300SL is a part of that hidden heritage of speed, now tucked away safely somewhere else.
Watch this space for all the week’s best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected].
