Innholdsfortegnelse for #317 22-08 i Just Cars

The final units of Lotus’s Elise, Exige and Evora were completed just before Christmas, with the ‘last of the line’ for each model gathered for a group photo with Lotus personnel involved in their design, engineering, assembly and sales. The completion of the final cars on 22 December ends a combined production run lasting 26 years and totalling 51,738 units – this accounts for almost half of Lotus’s total road car production since the company was founded. Of that combined 51,738 total, the longrunning Elise accounts for the lion’s share, with 35,124 cars built. Exige production reached 10,497 and the Evora’s total was 6,117. In addition to their own product, Lotus also assembled over 9,700 other vehicles for third party clients on the same assembly lines at Hethel. The last…

After campaigning their GT-R in the Japanese Super GT Series’ GT500 class for the past 14 years, Nissan will field a new contender in the country’s premier domestic racing category in 2022 – the Z GT500. Developed in-house by Nissan and NISMO, the Z GT500 shares some visual styling cues with the all-new Z sportscar that’s due for Australian release in late 2022, but as it’s built to Super GT Series rules, it deviates from the road car in many other areas. One of the key differences is the engine. Where the road car runs a twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 with either a six-speed manual or nine-speed auto, the Z GT500 is powered by a 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder engine, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed paddle-shift sequential gearbox. While unconfirmed,…

Jessica Hepworth has been passionate about cars since she was a kid, but it was only recently that her passion turned to restoring a car of her own. Having been raised on muscle cars, the choice of a Mini Moke for that first build may seem a little strange, but as Jessica explains, it was her husband that steered her in a different automotive direction… From a really young age, my job was cleaning the wheels on my parents’ car. I’ve grown up around cars and car shows, but was never interested in Minis at all - I was more into muscle cars and V8s. That was until I met my husband, Kyle, who had Nissan Skylines and a Mini Cooper S. Inspired by this new direction, the hunt for…

Ford Australia has released details and pricing on the Mustang range for 2022, and while there are no major changes, an ‘all-American’ special edition will be added to the local lineup for the first time. Rather than treat the Mustang as something of a standalone model, Ford Australia are now lumping it in with the Focus ST and Fiesta ST hot hatches, with the three model ranges pitched under the Ford Performance banner. The Focus ST and Fiesta ST will beat the Mustang to local showrooms, expected in Q1, while the MY22 Mustang won’t arrive until Q2. While linking the hot hatches to the Mustang may suggest that the EcoBoost four-cylinder version of the pony car is on borrowed time, it remains in the range for 2022. ONE EXTRA FEATURE…

Following the lead of other prestige and luxury manufacturers, like Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini, Maserati has launched a new department devoted to the authentication and preservation of classic Maserati automobiles. Launched this past December, the ‘Maserati Classiche’ programme was actually announced back in 2020 as part of the Italian carmaker’s “MMXX: Time to be Audacious” event that laid out a pathway for the brand’s second century. As with other such classic certification programmes, Maserati Classiche aims to clarify the provenance of historic Maseratis by confirming the car’s original specification. Repair, maintenance and detailing services are part of the programme, too. Available for all pre-2002 Maserati cars, along with a selected number of post-2002 ‘special series’ models, the Maserati Classiche certification process is thorough, conducted by a committee of experts and…

A draft calendar for the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship has been released, which features 13 rounds in a season that stretches from March to November. First released on 5 December, the 2022 draft calendar has had some updates since, but remains provisional and subject to developments, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first Supercars season to be held under the series’ new ownership group, Racing Australia Consolidated Enterprises Ltd (RACE), will get underway on the Newcastle Street Circuit in March, followed by a return to Symmons Plains later in the same month, then the support slot for the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in April. A night round at Barbagallo, followed by rounds at Winton, Hidden Valley and the Townsville street circuit complete the first half of the 2022 calendar.…

A genuine Holden Torana GTR XU-1 is a rare sight these days, even moreso outside of Australia, which makes the appearance of a possibly genuine example in the UK all the more noteworthy. This January, UK auction house, Classic Car Auctions (CCA), announced a Torana had been added to their sale at the Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show in March. The car appears to be an LJ GTR XU-1, but the rarity of a Torana in the UK explains a number of errors in CCA’s press release, including identifying the car as a 1979, describing it as one of only 150 built and referring to the 1972 Bathurst 500 winner as “Peter Brook”! Of course, all these are wrong. CCA have since identified the car as a 1972…

Upgraded suspension and more standard safety features, along with a new interior trim and paint option, mark the 2022 version of Mazda’s MX-5, with the improvements applied to both the Roadster and Retractable Fastback (RF) variants. But with the gains comes a loss, as the 1.5-litre engine has been discontinued. According to Mazda Australia Managing Director, Vinesh Bhindi, this latest update to the ND generation sports roadster “maximises the MX-5’s innate potential in a wider range of driving scenarios than ever before, enhancing the sense of Jinba-ittai that it’s so well known for.” KPC - KEEPING THE BACK-END PLANTED The key change on the MY22 MX-5 is the incorporation of Kinematic Posture Control (KPC) technology for the suspension. Unique to the MX-5 within Mazda’s model lineup, KPC uses the existing…

In recent years, collectable car auctions have been dominated by classic Ferraris. Newer examples of the Maranello marque have been fetching big dollars, too, along with post-war exotics from other Italian manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin. In the pre-war sphere, vintage Bentleys, Duesenbergs and Mercedes dominate, with Alfa Romeo and various coachbuilt specials up there, too. Cars from the past thirty years, however, rarely achieve the eight-figure sums that their predecessors from the classic era do. That changed in 2021 when a “modern” automobile sold for a record and achieved the highest price for any car publicly auctioned in the calendar year. That car was a McLaren F1. RACETRACK TO ROAD The F1 has its roots in the late 1980s, when key members of the McLaren Formula One team decided…

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