Hello, petrolheads! Today’s review regards the latest-generation Audi A4 Estate, powered by a turbocharged 2-litre, 4-cylinder 250 horsepower petrol engine. I must confess that, upon first eye contact, I was deeply disappointed with this new generation A4. Here is an all-new model, sporting a brand new chassis but looking mostly the same as the previous-generation A4. Or as an A3 Sportback… Of course, all Audi did was to play it safe, and rightly so. You see, the A4 is Audi’s volume model, this is the model most people end up buying after having seen some football players, any self-proclaimed digital-era celebrity or some Hollywood star stepping out of an R8, or RS6 Avant, and subsequently having mentally created this élan-picture of themselves on such a dream world. Let’s face it, most people who drive a new Audi nowadays – or even a BMW or Mercedes-Benz, for that matter – are more worried about 1) the (successful) image they project, 2) how many digital toys it has and 3) l...

Hello, Petrolheads! Tonight’s post addresses another question we, Petrolheads, are facing more and more often: how will we manage to enjoy our passion in the future? The horizon ahead lies full of, apparently, insuperable obstacles and challenges for people like you and me, true car lovers. Whether we’re speaking of Autonomous Driving, the SUV Trend or emissions legislation which will, undoubtedly, drive towards the demise of the mass-produced Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), it looks like threats are coming from all over the place. Personally, I couldn’t be any less worried! Autonomous Drive One of the “threats” most people talk about are Automobiles capable of driving themselves. It’s actually one of the things I’m more looking forward to, in the mid-term. Why? Humans are a complex system full of variables, designed – with aplomb – to be adaptable; these adaptation capabilities bring us versatility, and are the main reason for our success. We can adapt o...

Greetings, petrolheads! Today’s post is a bit of fresh air, as it has nothing to do with Smarts. In fact, it’s no car test whatsoever. It’s my personal view as an Industry insider and lover about the strongest – and most lucrative – trend in recent years: The SUV boom. This is a trend which, like Coca-Cola and McDonalds, we Europeans (and a great deal of other areas in the World) had to copy from the USA. However, if there is some point in many of those products – McDonalds brings cheap food to many poor areas, and Coca Cola’s ability for unclogging pipes never stops short of surprising – there are very little reasons to buy an SUV. The upsides are easily recognisable: a slightly taller, four-wheel drive car can be useful on icy roads or for towing capabilities, the very same things any good off-roader can. In comparison with these, the SUV is slightly less resource-wasteful on the road and, in theory at least, should have the edge on maintenance costs, due to the simp...

Cheers, petrolheads! Today’s review regards the starting point of the Smart range: the very first generation Fortwo (aka City-Coupé), with a petrol engine and Passion equipment level. The, then, City-Coupé, came to market in the end of 1998, the range comprising three equipment levels - City&Pure  (basic), City and Pulse (sportier) and City&Passion (more luxurious) - and two versions of the same engine, a self-denominated turbo-suprex (45 and 54 PS). First on selected European markets, expanding to most of Europe by the year 2000. By then, a Cabrio version was added to the range, as well as a diesel CDI version. As everything revolutionary, market response was very cold. Prejudice was the dominant factor, not helped by the fact that it only took two. If it’s true that most people drive alone most of the time – Smart’s own studies had shown an average of 1.2 person per car in west Europe – it’s also correct to assume that most people need, sometimes,...