GINIEL DE VILLIERS UNVEILS NEW RALLY YARIS

Imperial Toyota unveiled its brand new South African Rally Championship challenger at a function in Nelspruit on Thursday evening.  The Imperial Toyota Yaris, which was built and prepared by Toyota Motorsport, will be in action on Friday and Saturday in the Sasol Rally with Giniel de Villiers behind the steering wheel and Greg Godrich reading the route notes.

The new two-door, four-wheel drive Yaris replaces the Imperial Toyota Auris in which De Villiers has been contesting the premier S2000 class alongside Toyota Motorsport team-mates Johnny Gemmell and Leeroy Poulter since the middle of last year. Gemmell and co-driver Carolyn Swan and Poulter and co-driver Elvene Coetzee will be making their second appearance in their Castrol Team Toyota Yaris rally cars this weekend after the latest in a long line of successful rally Toyotas made its debut in the Total Rally in March.

“We’re delighted to be able to put Giniel and Greg into the latest Toyota rally car,” said Imperial Toyota CEO Andrew Miller. “Giniel has been flying the Imperial flag high in this exciting and popular form of motorsport, just as he has done for the past two years in the Dakar Rally.  We wish him and Greg every success in this weekend’s Sasol Rally and in the remaining events this season.”

The rally Yaris is a first for South Africa and Toyota Motorsport, who helped pioneer the introduction of the S2000 class in South Africa in 2006 with the uniquely South African Corolla-based RunX rally car and its successor in 2008, the Auris. It is the first Yaris to contest a national rally championship anywhere in the world.

STORY BY TOYOTA

DEZZI RACEWAY CHALLENGE REPLACES KNYSNA HILLCLIMB

After the Knysna Hillclimb was unexpectedly cancelled for 2013 due to late sponsor withdrawal, South Africa’s fastest and greatest drivers will be converging  at an all-new venue for an all-new motorsport event, and one which has the potential to capture the hearts and minds of South African motoring fans all over the country. 

Created initially as a replacement event for the 2013 Knysna Hillclimb, the new event, which will run independently to any future Knysna Hillclimb events, has the potential to become an annual spectacle and a huge attraction on the South African motorsport calendar.

Inaugural Dezzi Raceway Invitational Challenge to set KZN alight
Set to take place on 18 and 19 May 2013 in Port Shepstone, Kwa-Zulu Natal, the inaugural Dezzi Raceway Invitational Challenge – the brainchild of Dez Gutzeit who built the world-class racing facility originally for personal enjoyment – will see some of South Africa’s best drivers and fastest cars compete head-to-head in a flying start, time attack scenario. The 2.9-kilometre track, which is based on a runway and features numerous technical corners, has been built to FIA standards and boasts a full pit complex, club house and safe spectator viewing points.

Together with support from other Hillclimb favourites like Wilhelm Baard of Global GT-R in Hatfield, Pretoria, the new racing event has massive potential and hopes to appeal to the high concentration of racing fans in KZN, providing a massive opportunity for motorsport in the region.  There has also been keen interest from the wider motorsport community and like the Knysna Hillclimb, this has potential to become a national event.

Baard, who won the Knysna Hillclimb in 2011, says he was pleasantly surprised by the track and has high hopes for the inaugural challenge. “Not only has Dez created a fantastic new location for motorsport in South Africa and Kwa-Zulu Natal specifically – where motorsport has dwindled in years of late – but the concept is a brilliant idea for all parties involved. We decided to run the event at the same time as what the 2013 Knysna Hillclimb would have taken place as the competitors had already prepared their cars for Knysna and had already made plans to travel and take off work in most cases. Motorsport is well known as being an expensive hobby to undertake and this way our friends and rivals are still able to exploit their hard work and well-prepared machines in an all-new and very exciting environment.”

Dez Gutzeit, whose son Jade won the Knysna Hillclimb in 2012, comments: “Running on an invitational basis at first, we have selected the top 25 cars and drivers in the country, largely pooled from the Knysna Hillclimb fraternity, to battle it out on the track at a professional and safe racing event.”

Gutzeit goes on to say that the new racing environment also opens the playing field for a host of other cars and drivers. Where the Knysna Hillclimb’s environment tended to favour the Nissan GT-Rs thanks to its twisty track where the Japanese supercar’s superior grip levels worked in its favour, the new event evens things out for other cars as well, specifically for the low-slung bona fide race cars which couldn’t compete on the rough and uneven surface in Knysna. This makes the competition even fiercer and more exciting for the spectators.

“We wanted to do something great for South African motorsport and the Dezzi Raceway Invitational Challenge is sure to create a stir. It will be the quintessential petrolhead event of 2013 and we hope it goes on to become an annual highlight going forward. The Challenge has very humble beginnings with massive potential,” concludes Gutzeit.

RIVALS FORD AND GENERAL MOTORS COLLABORATE

Ford Focus interior

Chevrolet Cruze interior

Two of America’smost iconic car companies are teaming up and pushing things up a gear, so to speak. General Motors and Ford will be developing a new gearbox together, one that will work with front and rear-wheel-drive vehicles, as well as AWD.

So what makes this one special? Well, it will feature not 6, not 7, not 8 cogs, but 9 and 10! Yes, these will be 9-speed and 10-speed and will beat ZF’s current highest of 8-speed. The reason the two companies have given for developing these systems is better fuel economy.

More details will be released closer to the time of launch.

MERCEDES-BENZ GLA CONCEPT IS OUT

Auto Shanghai in China is coming up this weekend, and some car makers are already releasing some pics and details of cars that will be shown there. Mercedes-Benz is one of them, with this GLA Conceptcrossover. The vehicle is the A-Classequivalent of Audi’s Q3, BMW’s X1 and Volvo’s V40 Cross Country.

The concept is based on a 4.38 metre long (just 0.02m short of the MINI Countryman), 1.97m wide and 1.57m tall structure. It will probably share most of its powertrains with existing A-Class models, including turbocharged 1.6-litre petrols and 2.2-litrediesels. If we are all lucky and meditate hard enough, there may even be a GLA 45 AMG in the works, pushing out 265kW from a 4-cylinder 2.0-litre turbo engine. Wouldn’t that be grand?

The GLA is expected to also get unveiled at the 2013 Johannesburg International Motor Show (JIMS) happening at NASREC near Soweto this October.

VOLVO S60 POLESTAR OFFICIAL

Volvo’s new S60 Polestar is about to enter the Australian market. Feverish with performance desire and dressed up in war garments, the S60 Polestar is huffingand puffing, taking the small premium performancesedan fight to the Germans. Straight targets? Audi S4 and BMW 335i.

Pushed on by a 3.0-litre T6 engine, the motor has been wickedly tweaked via Polestar software to produce a lovely set of numbers that look very tantalising, at least on paper. The car galvanises 257kW of power at 5700rpm, and about 500Nm of torque set between 2800rpm and 4750rpm. Driving all four wheels through a Haldex AWD system is a 6-speed automatic gearbox. Volvo says the car will sprint from 0 – 100km/h in just 4.9 seconds before hitting its electronically limited top speed of 250km/h at some point later.

Running gear includes a set of 19-inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Super Sport 235/ 40 R19 tyres matching the sporty front splitter, Polestar side sills, a lovely rear spoiler and a diffuser that’s flanked by two 3.5-inch tailpipes.

Volvo South Africa is keeping mum about the car, but we remain hopeful, given that Australia is also a right-hand-drive (RHD) market, and the fact that we’ve been given Polestar Volvos previously.