Top 10 for NZ car of the year

October 15, 2013 by Alastair Sloane

Ford Kuga

Hyundai Santa-Fe

Holden VF Commodore

Subaru Forester

Volkswagen Golf

Mazda6

Volvo V40

Lexus IS

Subaru BRZ

Ford Kuga

Holden Volt

The finalists for the 2013 New Zealand Car of the Year are a mixed bag, including three sports utility vehicles, a sports car, a luxury vehicle and, for the first time, an electric offering.

The NZ Automobile Association and NZ Motoring Writers’ Guild will announce the winner in Auckland on December 5.

The top 10 finalists are:

Ford Kuga
Holden Volt
Holden Commodore
Hyundai Santa Fe
Lexus IS
Mazda6
Subaru BRZ
Subaru Forester
Volkswagen Golf
Volvo V40

The three SUVs – Kuga, Santa Fe, Forester – indicate the popularity of such models and their almost 30 per cent share of new vehicle sales.

At the opposite end of the scale is the Holden Volt, the first time an electric vehicle has been considered in New Zealand.

Safety is a feature of the Volvo V40 which is the first new car to have a pedestrian airbag as standard equipment.

Last year’s COTY was the Toyota 86 sports car and this year its sibling, the Subaru BRZ, is in the running.

NZMWG President David Linklater says guild members have a lot to consider. “Each of the finalists is worthy for a raft of reasons and selection of the final winner is likely to come down to some very specific factors,” he said.

Members of the guild will also vote on the best in class in nine categories:

Small car
Compact car
Medium car
Large car
Small/medium SUV
Large SUV
Sports/Performance car
Luxury car
Utility

The safest car for 2013 will also be announced, based on Australasian New Car Assessment Programme crash test analysis.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.