Tag: AUSmotive

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Torque of the town

Canberra Torque

AUSmotive has taken a contributing role with a new start-up magazine Canberra Torque. The mag is produced by Capital Magazine Publishing who have a strong record in the ACT region. Issue one came out a few weeks ago and 10,000 copies of the mag will be distributed around Canberra every month. It’s free, so if you see a copy make sure you pick it up and have a decent read. Issue two is not far away.

There’s a good mix of stories from the region as well as old, modified and new cars. If you’re not in or around Canberra, you can keep up to date on the magazine’s progress via Facebook.

What does this role mean for AUSmotive? Aside from increased opportunities to test and review new cars there should be no change to the way the website is currently operating. The odd news item will also be adapted from AUSmotive for print, as well.

On the review front I currently have the keys to a Jaguar XF. You’ll be able to read the results in print and online soon.

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Audi Targa Tasmania Top Gear

AUSmotive – Best Stories 2008

AUSmotive.com

For my last post of the year, a quick reflection on my favourite stories from 2008.

Getting a world exclusive on Top Gear filming in Vietnam was right up there—thanks to Andrew for giving me the scoop on that one, it has provided some nice traffic to the site, that’s for sure, with Jalopnik and autoblog just a few to reference the story.

Sharing my experiences as a Targa Tasmania service crew member for friend and privateer entrant ‘Robbo’ was also a rewarding process to go through. All going well, I should be back on board helping out Robbo in 2009, so stay tuned for that.

Credit goes to Ross and Debra for taking me back to my youth by bringing their Audi RS2 to the Shannons German Autofest. If I made a list of the cars that have shaped my love for most things automotive the RS2 would be in the top five. Putting together that piece and seeing the car up close and personal was a real highlight.

I also enjoyed covering the MINI CHALLENGE during 2008, there were plenty of thrills and spills, and here’s to a bigger and better 2009 for the MINI team.

A special mention to Gabe and his team at MotoringFile/BimmerFile for their support, their willingness to reference both AUSmotive and AUSringers has been a great help in building up traffic.

Finally, thank you to all of the readers out there. Your comments have been great, but, please, post lots more of them! Page loads and unique visitors to the site have really grown in the last few months, a trend I hope will continue well into 2009. If you have any feedback about AUSmotive that you would like to pass on, please share your thoughts below in the comments section. Your feedback can only aid the continual improvement of this site and help me provide the content you want to read.

Thanks
Liam

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Top Gear

Top Gear – Series 12, Episode 8 (Vietnam Special)

Top Gear - Series 12, Episode 8 (Vietnam Special)

The last episode of Series 12 was the highly anticipated Vietnam Special. News of Top Gear filming in Vietnam was revealed exclusively right here on AUSmotive back in early October. At 75 minutes, this episode is the longest Top Gear special to date.

The challenge set to the Top Gear trio was to get from the south of Vietnam to the north in just eight days. They had 15 million Vietnamese dong each to fund their purchase of suitable transport. Turns out all those millions don’t go very far, and the lads were left with no choice but to go for motorcycle power, despite Jeremy’s protestations. The usual hijinx followed, with the added comedy value of seeing Clarkson struggle on two wheels.

As an overall episode, though, it didn’t reach the highs of the USA or African specials, for example. That said, the Vietnam Special was a thoroughly enjoyable journey to watch, with the usual standards of Top Gear cinematography doing a great job of capturing Vietnam’s inspiring scenery.

A few captures from the episode are shown below. Australian readers beware—the pics below may be considered spoilers if you want to wait until this episode airs on SBS in a couple of months time. I just want to know what happened to the Red Stig?

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