WhichCar weekly auto news round-up

Saturday salutations on this big motoring weekend, friends of WhichCar.

It’s also been significant week for Aussie car lovers, capped off by the unveiling of the Australia-exclusive supercharged Ford Mustang R-Spec that’s set to arrive in early 2020 for around $99,980, with its circa 520kW/820Nm blown V8 backed by a full five-year factory warranty.

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The team at Motor has dug deep present everything known so far about this incredible muscle car, including pricing and features, the engineering work behind it, and why this overnight sensation has been years in the making.

Another home-grown performer was revealed this week too, with Nissan announcing it’ll be bringing out a new top-spec Navara called the N-Trek Warrior to do battle with other tricked-up 4x4 utes such as the Ford Ranger Raptor, Toyota Hilux Rugged-X and the HSV SportsCat.

Speaking of battle utes, one pickup that received plenty of interest this week was the military-spec Ranger by Ricardo, the UK company responsible for the design and construction the British Army’s attack Land Rovers.

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And while we’re still in 4X4 land, it turns out Aussies are turning to big-American pick-up trucks like the RAM 1500 in droves, Isuzu teased its all-new 2020 D-Max … and would you pay $150,000 for a meticulously restored 1981 Toyota LandCruiser FJ40?

Toyota also dropped a bombshell this week, revealing a “concept” version of its second-generation Mirai hydrogen huffer that boasts some seriously sexy sheetmetal. Is it cool to be into hydrogen now? Toyota’s certainly doing its best to make it so.

On the general news front, alarming video shows autonomous emergency braking isn’t very good at avoiding pedestrians, the legendary Autobahns might get speed limits, and there’s been another Toyota recall, with the hugely popular Prado SUV having fuel leak issues.

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It was also a big week for us at WhichCar with our first outside broadcast of the WhichCar Weekly podcast, where yours truly joined Dan, Scott and Andy at the legendary Espy hotel in St Kilda to chew the fat over some of the big topics mentioned in this email.

Meanwhile we reviewed an eclectic range of vehicles including the revolutionary Porsche Taycan EV, the Porsche 911 Turbo-crushing BMW M8 Competition, Audi Q3 TFSI 35, Renault Megane RS280 hot hatch, updated Lexus RX, and Tony O’Kane bid farewell to our Hyundai Ionic Electric long termer.

We’ve also previewed this weekend’s big motoring events, Motorclassica in Melbourne and of course the Bathurst 1000 to arm you with everything you need to know. Our Motorsport section will feature more Bathurst news as it happens.

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Oh, if you’re tired of watching the Great Race on TV, you can buy a house at Mt Panorama on 40 hectares with 288m long stretch of absolute frontage right onto Conrod Straight. Prefer to drive on race tracks yourself? Tony O’Kane paid a visit to the fearsome Nurburgring Nordschleife to have a stab at the world’s most famous race track, but not after spending plenty of time getting some virtual practice in first – here’s why.

To keep in touch over the weekend, make sure you follow the WhichCar and 4x4 Australia Facebook page, the Wheels and MOTOR Instagram accounts and Street Machine’s amazing YouTube channel.