And so there we are. Saab, TVR, Humber, Riley, Gilbern, Wolseley, AC, De Tomaso. All dead. And now it seems Lotus is peeping through the cemetery’s rusting gate.

Indeed, earlier this month, there were reports that the axe had already fallen. Can you even begin to imagine the torrent of stories that this would have generated, had it been true? We’d have read reams about the engineering prowess of founder Colin Chapman, who realised in the Fifties what other carmakers are only just beginning to understand now: lightness is everything.

Motorsport enthusiasts would have produced thousands of words about the black and gold JPS Lotus F1 cars. There would have been eulogies about the seven world championships, and interviews with Emerson Fittipaldi. And tears would have turned the purple prose into a mauve mush.

Then you’d have been treated to miles of column inches on road cars from the glory days. Men with beards would have gone to Norfolk and driven around in old Sevens. There would have been pictures of Diana Rigg who used an Elan in The Avengers, and Roger Moore who had an Esprit in various Bond movies.

And I wouldn’t have been surprised by any of it, because Lotus did indeed have a veneer of excellence. But behind the outer layer of sharp handling and Ayrton Senna and boffins working their magic among the turnip fields of East Anglia, Lotus is actually a company with a hopeless and, in some ways, slightly disgusting past.

It all began well enough in some London stables. And there can be no doubt that Colin Chapman was deeply clever. Having coined the mantra “Simplify, then add lightness”, he proceeded to do no such thing. He added complications, many of which were very successful. It was he who brought aerodynamics to motor racing. He who invented ground effect. He who introduced composites.

But, sadly, it appears that he wasn’t a very good businessman. Which meant that in 1980, when sales were low because of a global depression, he didn’t innovate or invest his way out of trouble. He made an arrangement with Toyota whereby Lotus would offer expertise in handling in return for not much, so far as I can tell.

Meanwhile, to boost sales in the US, he did a deal with an American lawyer which was one gigantic tax-avoidance scheme. Anyone who invested was given a personalised Esprit Turbo. I’m sure it was all very clever, but when you are moving columns of numbers around in ledgers, you are not thinking up the next big thing in your car factory…

That’s why the next big thing was in someone else’s car factory. John DeLorean’s. Mr DeLorean had employed Lotus to design a chassis for his new sports car which would be built in Northern Ireland, in a factory paid for by the British government.

All was well until it transpired a great deal of money had gone missing. DeLorean fled and was subsequently busted for dealing cocaine. DeLorean went t**s-up. And Her Majesty’s tax inspectors turned their attention to Colin Chapman, who promptly died of a heart attack. He was only 54.

The company was saved by a group of businessmen who did some kind of a deal with the taxman. And there was much cheering and waving of flags in the turnip fields. But it quickly became obvious that the businessmen, though wealthy, were not wealthy enough to go it alone in the car world. And so, in 1986, Lotus was sold to GM.

It was a vanity project really for the then GM chairman, Bob Eaton. But, quite soon, the bean-counters and shareholders and everyone else realised that entrusting a small, boutique sports car company to the biggest car firm in the world would be like United Biscuits taking over Prince Charles’s shortbread operations.

So, six years later, Lotus was flogged to a company in Luxembourg which was run by a chap called Romano Artioli. He commissioned a new car, named it after his grand-daughter Elisa. And then went bust.

FROM THE EAST…

So along came Proton who seem to have invested the grand total of £0. They kept on making the Elise in various guises until it started to feel old-fashioned and a bit rubbish. Then they kept making it some more. And then they employed Dany Bahar who’d been senior vice president (small cog) at Ferrari’s aftershave division who said that he would take Proton’s £0 investment and use it to turn Lotus into the best and biggest sports car company, with lots of exciting new models, all of which would be better than any Ferrari. He was suspended and then dismissed.

Now, Lotus is run by a company called DRB-Hicom. Which doesn’t sound very romantic. The original Lotus Sevens are now made by an outfit whose F1 car turns up at the track every other weekend to come last. And then there’s the actual Lotus F1 car which isn’t a Lotus at all.

So. To recap. Lotus was mismanaged from Day One by an endless succession of owners who didn’t know what on Earth to do with it. People who used it as a tax dodge. Enthusiasts. Massive corporations.

All lured into the web by some piece of engineering cleverness in the Fifties. And then all spat out again by the harsh reality that image won’t sustain an inferior product for very long.

Where have we heard that before? On the epitaph of every British car firm that’s gone belly-up in the past few years. Take Austin. They made the Mini, and it was very clever. So they kept making it… for 40 bloody years.
Then you have Land Rover, which, after the war, made a sturdy 4WD car. It, too, was very clever and they’re still making the damn thing today.

When Lotus really was in trouble and really did need to scythe its way back to prosperity, what did it do? It built a new Elan. And what’s it doing now? God knows. Not preparing to shock the world, that’s for sure.

If VW was being run by the British, it would still be making the Beetle. If Citroen were based in Coventry, it’d still be churning out 2CVs. If Apple were a UK business, its computers would still be six-feet across. We seem to have made resting on our laurels a national pastime in this country, and I worry we are seeing the same sort of thing going on today at Aston Martin.

I like the current range. Everyone does. But I can sense when I drive the supposedly new Vanquish that it feels old-fashioned. Buzzy buttons don’t completely mask the fact that it comes with a whiff of the 10-year-old DB9. This is no good. To survive these days, you need to find money so you can invest your way into the future.

Or you need an innovation so brilliant that buyers will come in droves anyway. You can’t just bumble along in a red-phone-box state of mind saying: “But we’ve always done it this way.” Or you’ll end up like the London taxi.

Meanwhile, the 20th series of TG will be back in the winter, featuring The Stig, Stars in the Reasonably Priced Car and items in which Richard falls over and James gets lost.

The post Jeremy Clarkson on: Lotus… appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

In hot pursuit of the latest GT6 press release, confirming it’s launch date. The Forza media team wasted no time in unleashing this next clip, promoting their eagerly anticipated racing game – Forza Motorsport 5. Created for the Xbox gaming console the latest installment aims to deliver an even more realistic/eyes-widening gaming experience. Now how can one not look forward to that? Watch the trailer below, featuring the new McLaren P1, and see for yourself what all the fuss is about:

The post Video: The latest Forza Motorsport 5 trailer appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

Authentic 4×4 people – those who only wear khaki, always have a GPS unit in the pocket and chew biltong sinew instead of bubble gum – will tell you any vehicle with air-suspension is totally unsuited to Safari vacationing in Africa.

They’ll tell you the air-suspension bellows, sensors and seals foil up when exposed to dust, heat, humidity and tropical mud; resulting in failure. And truth be told: you don’t want to be stuck in broken terrain, darkness approaching, with your 4×4’s ground clearance defaulted to the ‘access height’ setting.

If you take this axiom of air-suspension as a definite 4×4 debit, it discounts most all station wagons 4x4s sold in South Africa with a low-range transfer case, bar the rather utilitarian Land-Cruiser 70 and Land Rover’s Defender. And both those are terribly slow and a touch uncomfortable on tar, and to get out of South Africa to start your adventure you’ll have to drive on tar – and for about 90% of your 4×4’s lifecycle too. Bit of a compromise, that.

Well, let it never be said that demand does not yield an alteration in supply. Land Rover has just announced that you’ll now be able to buy a new Disco4 XS for R598 600. Sound a bit cheaper than usual, doesn’t it? Well, it is – for good reason.

These Disco4 XS models forgo air-suspension, although they do retain their low-range transfer case and a locking centre differential. Some intervention systems remain (off-road graded ABS and hill descent control) but the terrain response dial and its functions have also been deleted, something sure to thrill 4×4 purists who believe less electronic harnessing onboard equals greater reliability.

Without air suspension Disco4 XS has a set ground clearance value of 216mm, which is 94mm less than air-suspended Discos, but with approach and departure angles of 32- and 24-degrees it’s plenty capable all the same, especially as it rolls rather more sensible 255/60R18 tyres than most other Discos. We would have loved a lockable rear differential though…

DETUNED, TOUGHER, ENGINE

Shoring up the appeal of this Defender-type Disco4 XS is its engine, an Africa-spec version of the 3-litre V6 turbodiesel good for 155kW and 520Nm. Yes, those outputs are 33kW and 80Nm weaker than other Disco4 TDV6 models but for good reason: the XS engine has no diesel particular filter and can run on dirtier fuel, crucial for venturing into Africa. Very clever.

Splitting torque courtesy of ZF’s excellent eight-speed auto transmission it’s not slow either, especially for a 2.5t vehicle. Disco4 XS runs 0-100kph in 10.7 secs and pulls 180kph in gears 6,7 and 8. The upside of those three overdrive gears at the top end is consumption that averages to 8.8l/1ookm.

Inside there is climate control, a chilled cubby hold (which is massive) and typically simple and intuitive Land Rover ergonomics. The third-row of seats have been removed to enable greater loadability and the sunroof is now a sheet of aluminium; so if you want to view game, you’ll have to look out the side windows.

So, an African spec engine, no air-suspension or terrain response electronics to go wrong, sensible tyres and cloth seats only. For R589k, we think Land Rover has just given a lot of power to the khaki clad people.

Safari people, you can rejoice.

Land Rover Discovery4 XS

3-litre V6 turbodiesel 155kW @ 4000rpm, 520Nm @ 1500rpm, 180kph, 0-100 in 10.7 secs, 8.8l/100km, 2508kg

The post Hardcore Discovery XS now in SA appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

It’s pretty hard to talk about the all-new Lexus IS300h without using the word ‘alternative’. Not alternative as in ‘left-field’ or ‘edgy’ or ‘your mum wouldn’t get it’ – it most definitely isn’t those things. But alternative as in alternative to a BMW 3-Series. Alternative to an Audi A4.

Alternative to what almost everyone else chooses when spending R400k or so on a compact-ish four-door: a German two-litre diesel.

So it looks a bit different. It’s all about peaceful surfaces with distinctive details. At the front, that translates into a big waisted grille and islands of swoosh-LEDs. At the back, the light clusters seem to emerge from a slash in the bodywork.

Indoors, you’ve got an unusual and rather fetching 3-dimensional dash shape. Since it’s a Lexus, the quality of materials is pretty fine and the list of equipment goes on and on. The F-sport version has vaguely similar reconfigurable clocks to the ones in the LFA, and most excellent sports seats too.

That’s got the word sport twice into the same sentence. Which makes me sound like I’ve been taking deep draughts of their PR refreshment. They want us to think of the new IS as a sporty car.

Well to an extent, it is. Especially in the F-sport version with slightly stiffened chassis: the steering is sharp and the handling slop-free. It has a happy hunger for bends and roundabouts, eventually melting into an appropriate mild understeer when you’re after the last drop.

But then we get onto the engine. Because Lexus wants to build a different kind of sporty car, it has made the 300h a hybrid, while almost everyone in Europe is buying diesels. There’s another reason for this decision: Lexus is painfully aware parent company Toyota’s diesel engines aren’t as good as the Germans’.

So the IS300h has a 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine and hybrid drive. Together they make up to 165kW. Good on paper; more power than the rival 2.0 diesels anyway. But the Lexus/Toyota hybrid system depends for its efficiency on the engine revving up and down in a way that’s almost entirely unrelated to road speed. On a twisty road you lose all sense of your speed on the way into a corner. Then as you accelerate away again, its answer to the accelerator is squidgy and unsatisfying. Not sporty, then.

But the engineers have come up with an answer. A little switch buried under the steering column activates a loudspeaker that emits a synthesised ‘engine’ noise, which rises proportionally with road speed. It even has six frequency steps controlled by steering wheel paddles. To stress: it has nothing whatever to do with the true rpm, it’s entirely synthetic.

But it does offer you an auditory clue of speed. You can play games: do an upshift and hear the synthesised sound lower its pitch, while the real rpm, as evidenced by the tacho, keeps rising. It’s bizarre and it’s a gimmick but sometimes it helps you engage more with the car. Pity they didn’t sample the LFA’s V10 howl…

But the need for such jiggery-pokery only emphasises the fundamental incompatibility of the Lexus CVT hybrid system with sporty driving (geared hybrids like the Porsche 918 and BMW i8 are, of course, a different and much sharper kettle of piranhas).

No, the Lexus hybrid system is best for greasing silently through town, or gentle suburban driving, when the petrol engine is far quieter than a diesel and anyway is often switched off while the e-motor does the work. And used that way, it’s also guiltlessly economical. It gives an amazing 4.7l/100km in the official test, for 103g/km. On the other hand, drive it with much vim and it’s nowhere near as thrifty as the rival diesels.

Wouldn’t it have been better then to forget all the sporty get-up? Instead of attempting to be a fantasy racer for the twisting empty roads of our fond imagination, it could have had really soft suspension and become a uniquely relaxing and comfy insulator against the traffic-choked aggro that most driving really is. Opt for the version without the F-sport chassis and you’re getting closer.

New IS very much echoes the elements which made the original IS such a credible 3-Series rival. It’s going to be a battle royal when these Japanese compact luxury sedans go on sale here mid-way through 2013.

The post First drive: the new Lexus IS300h appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

The post Video: The Stig farm appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

This is the brand new BMW M5. Technically, technically, that statement is correct. But before you go scurrying off into the world shouting it from the rooftops, brace yourself: it’s just a facelift. Well, a facelift and some extra power, courtesy of something called a ‘Competition Pack’.

To coincide with the standard 5-Series facelift and mid-life refresh, BMW has treated The Best Super Saloon in The World to a series of tweaks to keep it on the boil. So, that Competition Pack. It’ll be available on both the M5 and M6/M6 Convertible, featuring an uprated 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8; power jumps from 412kW to 423kW, resulting in fractional improvements in acceleration: 0-100kph now takes just 4.3 seconds instead of 4.4, and 0-200kph is completed 0.2 seconds quicker (12.8s instead of 13s).

There have been some minor chassis tweaks too, to wring out more ability from its two-tonne physique. These include new coil spring/damper calibrations, stiffer anti-sway bars, a 10mm lower ride height (that drops the centre of gravity, too) and a retuned M differential for better traction.

BMW has also improved the steering with more ‘direct-programming’, while the dynamic mode in the stability control has been remapped for even schportier handling and less nannying and interfering. Just make sure you’ve got your bingo shoes on when engaging Stig Setting: Level Infinity.

The Competition Pack also brings in new 20in light alloy wheels, a sports exhaust with tailpipes finished in black chrome, a little M5 model badge in the kidney grille, optional adaptive LED headlights, a new M steering wheel, more storage space under the armrest, chrome trim around the iDrive central display and – later this year – new colour options.

Have a click through the gallery for the pics and then, using all the molecules of M Division fantasy locked upstairs in your mind, tell us what other kind of package BMW should cook up for the M5. Anyone for a stripped out, roll-caged super-stiff track special?

The post BMW M5 with new Competition Pack appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

Silver lake sand dunes – a place in the sun where rather peculiar people gather to see who’s truck is the biggest, and which driver is most daring. Along came Mike Higgins and his modified Ford pick-up. While he probably doesn’t posses the biggest of the lot, he’s not shy to demonstrate he’s degree of bravery. See him catapult his trophy truck (wrecking it in the process) well over 50 meters over a sand dune. His dazed, yet overwhelmed reaction afterward tells us this is probably not the last we’ll see of Mike. Watch the video below to observe how he’s reintroduced to the finer points of gravity.

The post Video: Big dune jump gone wrong appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

The poor old Kuga didn’t even get a facelift. After just four years on sale, when most cars would get a refresh, it was killed and replaced with this new version.

We can blame the Americans, because when the time came to replace their shoddy – but popular – Escape, they took one look at the Kuga and decided that would do nicely. But new Fords must now be global, and the Kuga was very much a Euro thing, so it was decided that an all-new one would be built.

And, sure enough, they’re queueing around the blocks to buy one. But what about the rest of us? We rather liked the outgoing car, especially the way it looked and the way it drove. Like the new multinational Focus, this new Kuga has lost some of that magic in favour of clone-ish styling and less playful driving experience. But what it loses in dynamic sparkle, it gains in space and value. The boot is 200 litres roomier than before, depending on the angle of the rear seats, which now recline. There’s an optional, kick-activated tailgate – just swing a leg under the rear bumper, and it motors itself open. Helpful if you have armfuls of children.

Get things wrong, and it’ll help you, too. There’s a full roster of safety stuff here, from lane assist to ‘active nibble compensation’, which counteracts little tugs and pulls through the steering column. And, sure, it’s less nibbly, but nibbles let you know it’s alive. We miss the nibbles. The old Haldex 4×4 system has gone, replaced by Ford’s own torque-vectoring system. You’ll probably notice the difference up an icy driveway, but you’d have to be driving quite heroically to feel it at high speed, where there’s not enough power to give it a proper workout.

We tried two engines: a 120kW diesel and a 134kW petrol. The diesel feels strong and well-bred, but the petrol feels a bit out of place, especially with the torque-converter auto that kicks down if you even look at the throttle (blame the Americans again). Perhaps the lighter front-wheel-drive versions will feel a bit sweeter, though you’ll have to make do with less power: 110kW in the diesel. And prices? You’re looking at around R289k for a petrol Ambiente, up to R418k for a diesel Titanium, which is fortunately not affixed with ‘X’ in South Africa as it is in other RDH markets. Really, ‘Titanium X’ – sounds like an adult film instead of a vehicle naming convention.

Fine. But here’s the thing: where the first Kuga rebelled against more restrained rivals, this one has grown up and bought some proper trousers. Ford predicts it will continue to find new buyers, and while it’s hard to argue against a safer, more affordable product, we’d have a good look at the new Mazda CX-5 before joining them…

Dan Read

The numbers

1997cc, 4cyl, 4WD, 120kW, 340Nm, 6.2l/100km, 154g/km CO2, 0-100kph in 9.9secs, 196kph, 1692kg

The verdict

Ford’s globalisation project continues, this time with a safer, roomier Kuga. We’ll miss the old one, though…

The post Tested: Ford’s Kuga 2.0 TDCi appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

No red-blooded male would be seen dead in the current version of the VW Beetle Cabrio. As masculine as a miniskirt and with less testosterone than a female kitten, it’s the automotive equivalent of a make-up-packed handbag. And not a particularly great one, at that.

All of the original promise of it being a simple, fun convertible – a cheaper, more upright Porsche Speedster for the masses – was immediately washed away when we first saw and drove the thing. It is far too tall and pastel-coloured to be taken seriously; it has a cramped, vase-equipped interior that can only just hold two normal-sized people. And it is boring to drive, with almost instant understeer and bodyroll only a sailor would find acceptable.

That doesn’t matter to the skirt-wearing people who buy them, as the roof goes up and down electronically on all but the most budget of versions, it is absolutely undemanding to own and it’s a VW, so it can be bought and serviced easily (if a little expensively) too. VW sells plenty of them, and they hold their value extremely well, so whatever we say, it works, and there is no reason to change it massively.

Unless, like the VW management, you one day decide that you want to try to sell it to men, too. In that case, a proper root-and-branch reworking of the whole car would be required, to tone down the lipstick factor and increase the bloke appeal. It would need to be lower, longer, and wider to make it look a little more athletic. It would need an interior on a par with or better than a Golf’s, perhaps with a manly brand name thrown in to add guy appeal. And it would need to go, stop and steer way better than ever before.

Which is precisely what the company has done for the 2013 model year. A lot of the new Cabrio’s newfound upgrades come courtesy of the recently launched MkVII Golf that provides all the engines and other oily bits you hopefully will never see. With the world fainting with praise over the new everyman car, it’s a prime parts bin for the Beetle to plunder. And it shows right from the off, the 2013 Beetle being a better-handling car in every way than the outgoing model.

But before we get into the moving bits, we have first to deal with the styling tweaks. If those don’t work, the thing could have a Lamborghini drivetrain in it and it wouldn’t sell much to a male audience. And the good news here is that – by making the car lower and wider, lengthening and lowering the roofline, so it now apes the 1949 original Beetle, and adding a spoiler to all cars – the VW designers have managed to shift the gender of the car from purely female to slap bang in the middle of both sexes.

This masculine tilt continues with the interior. Gone are the rubbish high-concept Mini-like dials and flower-holders, replaced by a fabulously clear no-nonsense dash and centre console. Essential for any proper cabrio, there’s a big stereo, including an even bigger one by Fender, along with a Stratocaster-alike starburst wood option for the dash, which, against all normal taste tests, looks cool. The front seats are fine; the rear seats – which fold down so you can get more than a few bags of shopping in the boot – are now acceptable for children.

There are a few problems, though. All the plastics used aren’t fantastic, the fabric strip across the door in lieu of a proper door pocket is a little feeble, and the pedals are almost shockingly Alfa Romeo-style in their offset (more about this in a minute), but it’s a light year better than
the current model.

As is the chassis and drivetrain. There is the usual broad range of options here, à la Golf, stretching from the titchy 1.2-litre TSI all the way to the 2.0-litre 155kW TSI unit nicked from the GTI. The two options we got to try on this launch were the range-topping 2.0 Turbo and the 2.0 TDI diesel. While the petrol-powered car was infinitely more entertaining – good seats, rapid enough to be fun, good ride and handling – it’s the diesel we are going to focus on here, as that’ll be the biggest-seller.

And it isn’t half bad at all. Mated with the DSG gearbox, the whole car feels well sorted, not over- or underpowered, quick enough to please and steady enough in the corners not to cause sickness. There’s very little body shake, even over badly cut up surfaces, and, with the windjammer in place, virtually no air swirl in the cabin at all. The roof clears off in 9.5 seconds, with no levers to release, and reinstalls itself in 11.5 seconds at speeds of up to 50kph. It’s not exceptional in any way, but not shoddy in many, either.

The only issues we encountered, on a very British-like foggy and rainy test day, was that the roof collects water when it’s stowed. Lots of water. Water that falls into the cabin in two strong, crotch-soaking jets when you put the roof up. This is poor. What is also poor is the offset on the pedals in the manual version. It’s there in the two-pedal cars, of course, but much more noticeable and irritating in the manuals, as there’s less space. You can solve the first issue by being careful when and where you open/close the roof. The only way to cure the second is to get the DSG version.

Which, if you choose your colours and options carefully – and feel secure in your masculinity – VW is now hoping you might feel OK doing, even if you are a man.

Pat Devereux

The numbers

1968cc, 4cyl, FWD, 103kW, 320Nm, 5.6l/100km, 145g/km CO2, 0-100kph in 9.9secs, 200kph, 1505kg

The verdict

Massive improvements over current car broaden the Cabrio’s appeal. Avoid the manuals and putting the roof down in the rain

The post First drive: Volkswagen Beetle Babriolet appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.

If you’ve spent amount of time in KZN you’ll know that nearly all the arable farmland is covered with sugar cane.

These tall, nearly impenetrable plantations of sugar house rats the size of cats, support of KZN’s rural economy and provided the routing (and background) for round three of the South African off-road racing championship.

Thanks to a benign attitude with regards to bakkies and buggy specials racing via the off-road tracks connecting their hallowed ‘cane, the good farmers of Eston (just outside Pietermaritzburg) allowed a rather substantial field of 75 racing bakkies and buggy specials to spend Saturday racing around their land for the day.

Consider the consequences – and cost – of a 2000kg racing car plowing into a field of sugarcane at speed (nearly 100m of destroyed sugarcane 2m wide) and one really has to raise a cane drink to the casual attitude of those Eston farmers who allowed the Sugarbelt 400 to run across their land.

RANGER VERSUS HILUX

Friday’s prologue was run in wet conditions and saw local many of the leading contenders outbrake themselves on long downhill sections into tight hairpins connecting the hectare blocks of sugarcane.

Saturday’s contrasted with clear, crisp, conditions and a Toyota team desperate for victory, especially after being bested in the prologue time trail by Ford. After another mercurial Dakar campaign (which saw the team finish second) Toyota’s V8 Hilux bakkies have not seen a win in the local off-road racing series in 2013. Ford, with its new V8 Ranger, has been the bakkie to best for victory.

After the prologue it was clear that Saturday’s racing would be a podium battle between the Toyotas of Anthony Taylor and Duncan Vos and Chris Visser’s Ford Ranger, who finished Friday’s time trail fastest, 21 seconds ahead of Taylor’s Hilux. Visser’s team mate, and Pietermaritzburg local boy, Lance Woolridge (whose father Neil, builds Ford’s racing Rangers), had a potentially catastrophic off during the prologue, lodging himself into a drainage ditch and losing much time. He would be forced to chase down an insurmountable time deficit from this braking error of judgement during Friday’s prologue on Saturday.

The racing pace amongst the Toyotas and Visser’s Ranger was monumental with the Hilux V8s and lone Ranger (excuse the pun) jumping undulations which hardly saw other competitors lift a wheel; such was the speed discrepancy between these three and the rest of the field. Excellent spectator points enabled easy viewing with excellent marshalling and time keeping provided by the local community.

After 380km of water splashes, ruts, forbiddingly narrow KZN off-road mountain passes Anthony Taylor managed to best Chris Visser by only 39 seconds, one of the closest finishes imaginable. Taylor’s team mate, Duncan Vos, took third.

There was a massive gap (ten minutes) between these three and the rest of the field illustrating the severity of the Sugarbelt course and the skill of the podium finishers. Taylor’s drive underlined his class as he vanquished Visser’s 21 second starting order lead on Saturday morning, passed the Ford Ranger, then powered on to win. It was a victory Toyota desperately needed and Taylor delivered.

An interesting aside was that Visser chose to cut the outer lugs of his tyres for Saturday’s race, expecting rain and wet conditions, whereas the Toyota team let Taylor run his rubber in standard tread; a superior technical decision by the Dakar experienced team.

Illustrating the brutality of the route, only 29 of the 58 national level competitors who started, finished. The Sugarbelt 400 was most definitely not a midlands meander. Round four of the South African national off-road racing championship is the legendary Botswana desert race, run over the third weekend of June.

With Ford’s Chris Visser leading the championship with 63 points from Taylor (48 points), the Botswana desert race, which awards one and half times the points value of a South African off-road race, will be crucial.

Motorsport as a metaphor finds resonance with these wailing V8 powered racing bakkies from Toyota and Ford mirroring the real world sales battle for South African bakkie customers. The 2013 desert race is going to be epic.

The post Hilux bests Ranger in V8 bakkie battle appeared first on www.TopGear.co.za.