Flawed in all the right places

The only derriere that will fit
snugly in the new Astra seat will be like
J Lo’s. PHOTO: nymag.com

OPEL released the new Astra sedan with two engine options back in September, the most frugal being the five-speed 1,6 and the most fun being the six-speed 1,4 Turbo.

The 1 595 cc makes 85 kW and 155 Nm, while the blown 1 364 cc makes 103 kW and 200 Nm.

We drove the 1,4T along the N3 to where the GP plates come from and found the sedan to be like J Lo — flawed in the all the right places.

Consumption

Opel claims 5,9 l/100 km for the 1,4T in combined driving, but even after firmly keeping the rev needle near the 2 000 mark over a distance of 1 200 km, I only managed 6,0 l/100 km (16,6 km per litre) on the open road and while dodging the toll roads this dropped to 15,8 km per litre. Still, these are consumption figures I would not mind on a motorbike.

eBikes inspire new styling

Not quite the most powerful electric bike its makers
claim it to be, the Wattman nevertheless turns heads.

TWO new electric motorbikes point which direction motorbike design may take in the coming months.

Voxan launched Wattman, claiming it’s the strongest electric motorcycle currently on sale.

Gizmag.com reports it is not the strongest — the Lightning Motorcycle Corporation’s Electric Superbike has 30 more American horses — but the Wattman’s styling is based on a scorpion exoskeleton, showing where designs are going on two wheels.

Cargo scooter inspires lust

LIT Motors, a start-up electric vehicle company based in San Francisco, California, have put a second vehicle on Kickstarter for crowd funding.

Called the kubo, this one has the industry all excited, as these quotes from Kickstarter show:

“It’s a very nifty piece of work. Once you see it, you wonder why something like it hasn’t been made already.” — TechCrunch.

In Africa, go south for best taxis and buses

A typical taxi rank in Uganda is not for 

the novice traveller. 

PHOTO: ChrisinUganda.wordpress.com

COUCH surfing has been around since 1999 and now have more than five million members, all of whom joined under the lofty ideal of exchanging cultures while crashing on someone’s couch for free.

Using public transport to get to that couch is always an adventure in Africa. We asked couch surfer Emmyht, a 53-year-old mother who travelled solo through 15 African states to South Africa, to rate her wheeled experiences.

Q: Would you rate South Africa’s taxis/buses/trains as average, the worst, or the best you’ve been on?

Couch surfer Emmyht in Uganda on her way to track
Mountain Gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
In Uganda, chickens are ever-present,
making the question not why,
but how did the chicken cross the road?

I have not been on the trains, but as for buses and

Corsa Enjoy aptly named

By stripping out the interior for the new Corsa, 

Opel proved less is more and created the fasted cellphone-

pairing car that we drove in 2013. PHOTO: Quickpic

IF anything, the Opel Corsa 1,4T Enjoy is being undersold by its name.

I did not just enjoy my time with this four-door hatchback, but went from mild surprise to total relish in 12 seconds and two days. The seconds was how long it took us on average to take the willing little turbo engine from 0-100 km/h.

The efficient little engine makes 88 kW from 4 800 to 6 000 pm and 175 Nm from a low 1 750 to 4 750 rpm. The torque may not sound a lot, but a variable turbo and proven gearbox makes the most of this power for a delightful drive, with no torque steer or turbo lag.

The two days was how long it took to discover just how pragmatic a hatchback the Enjoy is,

First word processor, bigger not better

The author trying out the first word processor.
That bulge in his pocket is not excitement,
but the cellphone that has since replaced the antique.  

As you slide your fingers across the screen or keys to read this, be grateful for the main advantage of going digital: tiny sizes.
For during the late 1920s and early 1930s, this was the "word processeor" of choice among printers.

The night Madiba died

In perhaps the best demonstration of the legacy left by Nelson Mandela in South Africa, luxury car dealers, the Daytona Group, celebrated its tenth year in Umhlanga on Friday Dec. 5, as South Africa's first democratically elected president, died peacefully in his house in Johannesburg.

Thanks to his legacy, the showroom boasted all colours and creeds, all of them able to dream or scheme of one day also owning one of the very expensive mobile status symbols sold by Daytona.

The star of the show was the R8,2 million Rolls Royce Wraith, which the new owners, Durban’s infamous developers and most ardent car lovers, Sbu and Shawn Mpisane, were happy to share with the fans. This author was one of the fans who queued to

Narrow miss on longest ride

Bushy McKelvey: never mind the wheels
coming off, check that heel.

PIETERMARITZBURG’S inspiring biker Bushy McKelvey missed bettering the world record for the longest distance in 24 hours by a mere 100 km at the Phakisa oval track in Welkom this week.

He was aiming to go further than the 3 249,9-km record set by American Russell “Rusty” Vaughn on a 2010 Harley-Davidson FLHTK Electra-Glide Limited in Texas in August 2011.

McKelvey told us he was doing well chasing this distance around Welkom’s biggest traffic circle, but heavy rain then saw him hit the deck, hard, on the new BMW GS 1200.

The fall damaged the Boxer engine’s cowling and the bike lost all its oil, causing the pit crew to spent 90 feverish minutes to make running repairs, including half an hour of agonized waiting for a patch of gun gum to dry as the seconds ticked by.

McKelvey was trying to raise funds to buy a prosthesis for a lady that has lost her leg above the knee.

His previous attempt to set the longest bike ride in a day, held in Gauteng in March, saw him complete 2 267 km by 3.30 am when the tyres on the scooter he was riding could do no more.

For his attempt at Phakisa over the weekend, the Free State Tourism Board lend him the use of the famous oval track, which next year sees a return of international superbike racing.

McKelvey has two prosthetic legs and started “Out On A Limb”, a project that aims to encourage and motivate people to do more despite any physical challenges. More on www.ooal.org.za

The dirty on green evees

Andy le May, who sells e-whizz scooters.

Techno whizz Kyle Venktess meets four early adopters of electric vehicles.

FULL electric vehicles (evees) are easy to market — just mention the fuel price — but difficult to sell.

They typically cost double the price of a similar-sized internal combustion engine and the batteries’ slow charging times can turn any evee into a ball and chain. An evee owner cannot, for example, just drive to fetch a sick child from school if the batteries only have a few metres of charge left.

None of these concerns worried Greg Ball, the first man to buy not one but two Nissan Leafs in South Africa in November.

Shotgun rides with KNZ's top drifters

Reece Williamson light up the night in his GTR-powered beemer.

The skilled drivers of Pietermaritzburg’s oldest drifting club, Sidewayz, host their last event for the year at Mkondeni Market on December 14. Gates open at 1 pm and the drivers will give free shotgun rides to all spectators from 1 pm to 4 pm. Gate fees are R40 per person.

Father and son team Lionel Jordaan spin against crime in the rain
at the Drift-khana staged at Msinga on Nov 30.

One to meet mum, the other for a one night gig

The Westen Cape got unusally wet for summer in Nov 2013,
just as I tried putting foot in Fiesta ST.

(As aired on Radio Overberg and published in The Witness )
A COUPLE of weeks ago, I was in a hurry to get from Cape Town’s airport to Bredasdorp, South Africa’s southernmost town, for a one-night gig at Radio Overberg. (That was a rocking playlist guys!)

I was in the right car to be in a hurry in: Ford’s sprightly Fiesta ST, but I was also in all kinds of the wrong weather.

The history books will show that the skies over the Western Cape on that Saturday did not so much rain as “turn into an upright sea with little holes innit”, to quote Sir Terry Pratchett. Going down Sir Lowry’s Pass, the fog was so thick even the cat’s-eyes were using little white sticks.