SA Roadtests
South Africa
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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday June 22, 2013
It had to happen eventually; our collapsing currency, oil producers’ and speculators’ insatiable greed, a rampant Australian dollar and, to be honest, changing tastes have brought the curtain down on rip-snorting, hairy-chested muscle cars in South Africa. The big Holden on which our Lumina is based is being phased out and replaced by a 580 horsepower (430 kW) Commodore HSV GTS that uses a supercharged 6.2-litre V8 straight out of the Camaro ZL1.
GMSA has no plans to bring it here, preferring to concentrate on products that sell, are affordable and make money. Since its introduction here in 2003, the company sold 3873 Luminas; 1818 saloons and 2055 Utes. A spokesperson told us that there is sufficient stock with dealers to last, at present rates, until October 2013. For fans saddened by its imminent demise, two enthusiast groups are active in Gauteng and Cape Town and to show you’re in good company, Jacques Kallis still owns one.
It’s quite right, therefore, that the run-out versions should be special. A sports suspension package includes stiffer stabiliser bars and dampers retuned for improved ride (says the official literature) and handling. Revised front brakes use four-piston, two-piece Brembo aluminium callipers together with massive 355mm pillar-vented discs for improved cooling and durability. To fit all this in, the original 18-inch wheels made way for 19” alloys fitted with high performance 245/40R19 Bridgestone tyres providing outstanding levels of grip. The downside is that the new rubberware won’t fit into the old emergency wheel well, so there isn’t a spare. Keep your cellphone and the helpline number handy.
The six-litre all-alloy V8 still puts out 270 kW of power and 530 Nm of torque. Anti-lock brakes with EBD and EBA, ESP and traction control work together with very sophisticated suspension to keep things tidy, while six airbags, even in the Ute, help to reduce the hurt should you still manage to lose it. Although a six-cog autoshifter is available, we were quite content with the man-spec six-speed manual ‘box fitted to our press vehicle.
The clutch action is heavy and bites hard, the gear stick likes to be shown who’s boss and the box itself is somewhat notchy but positive. The ride, on those low-profile tyres is, let us be honest, just plain hard. As for the engine, it demands to perform, to fill your ears with its rolling rumble and to get you where you’re going, right now. It’s so addictive you won’t want to arrive, but just keep going forever. There are other big and muscular V8s out there, but they’re mostly brutally expensive, overly sophisticated and frankly rather boring. This no-shit, two valves-per-cylinder, pushrod Chevy is special.
Being more sport sedan than full-on truck, the load bins on most customer Luminas probably go from year to year without their tonneau covers ever being pulled off, so we decided to do so for you. It’s 1920 mm long so you could sleep in it if you had to; 1420 mm wide at the top, and 500 mm deep. There is 1210 mm between the wheel arches so you could probably fit a DIN-sized pallet at a squeeze. Ho, ho! Load a scruffy pallet onto grandson of El Camino? Good joke there, Bruce. The opening handle is inside the tailgate to keep outside lines tidy and it loads at 610 mm, or just above knee height. In the interest of keeping things clean, the 1100-litre bin is fully lined with tough plastic.
Finally, people who are into such things have mommy porn in the fictitious person of Fifty Shades’ Christian Grey. We boys and those real women who love to drive have, for the foreseeable future at least, gasoline porn. It's real and it’s called Chevrolet Lumina. We'll miss it.
Test unit from GMSA press fleet
The numbers
Price: R467 800
Engine: 5967 cc, 90 degree, OHV V8
Power: 270 kW at 5700 rpm
Torque: 530 Nm at 4400 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 6,6 seconds
Maximum speed: 250 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 14,0 l/100 km
Tank: 73 litres
Ground clearance: 100 mm
Tare/GVM: 2385/3825 kg
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km; with roadside assistance
Service plan: 3 years/60 000 km; at annual or 15 000 km intervals
This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.
My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.
Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8