Wednesday, January 5, 2011

BEST CARS OF 2010 (PART 3)





    For some time Jaguar defined the luxury sedan segment. With this new XJ the company is getting back to its innovative and sporting roots by doing things differently, while keeping the important stuff together; integrity, design excellence, performance and lavishness. The interior is best in class.

    It wasn’t even five years ago that a Kia could not even be mentioned in the also-rans sections. Today however, things have changed. The Koreans are building some of the best looking cars in the world, and engineering them even better. The Sportage is the current poster child of this growing movement towards being a top 3 global automaker and Kia couldn’t have chosen a better ambassador.

    The C-Class leads the pack in sales in its segment for a reason. Built right here in South Africa, the C220 CDI also leads by example in terms of driveability, comfort and enviro-friendliness. Although due for a facelift in 2011, the car still looks quite fresh, thanks to those convex/concave lines and aggressive front end.

    Over 1200km on one single tank? You bet! This is the S350 BlueTec’s major claim to fame, besides the fact that it’s the S-Class of the automobile world. BlueTec technology cuts C02 emissions to levels found in much lower classes of car, while performance improves (try 620Nm!) exponentially. Diesel engines have not traditionally been popular with Mzansi buyers in this segment, but after reading this it absolutely makes sense to at least have a look in.

    The hottest car of 2010 as far as South Africa is concerned turned up at our parking lot and created such a stir that we’d be very embarrassed to get inside, thanks to all the stares, cell phone camera clicks, gawks, questions, requests to sit in it etc etc etc! The worry was it wouldn’t be able to match its exterior heat with performance. Wrong. Blasting a 4.0 second time from 0 – 100km/h made it the fastest car we’ve ever tested, plus it turned corners too.

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