I was just reading the August edition of Motor magazine and noticed that they mentioned that the Mazda RX8 GT was eligible for this years contest but Mazda said they could not provide one?!? Mazda did however manage to provide them with both an MX5 and an SP25-Mazda 3? Seems to me that Mazda did their sums and realised that the 2 cars they provided would do well but didn't make an RX8 available as they knew that it would be shot down in flames.
What do you guys think?

 

Maybe...and just maybe they didn't have a spare car for the clowns at Motor to thrash.

I've ditched Motor as a car rag. The quality of journalism has gone down the toilet in recent months.

Speaking of BFYB, that Clio Sport thing is a good deal I reckon, if you like hatchbacks and can't stretch to an S3 like the elder members of the forum...

 

I agree. Actually while we're on Renault's, day bought a Megane F1 R26 to take in Targa Tassie last week. Seems like the Renault's are the yardstick for front drive hot hatches at the moment.
I also stopped reading motor a while back for the same reason but have recently renewed my subscription. I think it is still better than Top Gear Australia Magazine which I find too busy.
It does show how far forward the goal posts have moved though when any 0-100kph time was considered slow unless it was in the low 5's..

 

Yeah, well Motor. IMO has been a crap read for years...

Wheels is OK, same owners, but once my sub runs out, no more.

I get all I want from the net..

By the time you get the mag it is OLD news by many weeks...in most cases I look at the pictures and put it down, and never read it again, sad hey...

 

I selectively buy the issues that feature the car of interest from any mag, otherwise most info and review can be found on the net, especially forum where people who own and live with the car.

 

HUH, Yeah, What I also found time and time again Motor will review a car and basically bag the crap out of it, then WHEELS will be singing praise on the very same car/model....???? GO FIGURE!!

 

But I need something to pass time while in the toilet ;D

 

The 8 would have got walloped at BFYB. Similar price to cars with 240kw, similar power to cars that cost $40k. Er, why did we buy these things again? (joke)

As far as mags go, I bailed on Wheels. Found it totally boring (do we really care about new Hyundai's and Toyotas?), and enjoyed the recent Motor articles on buying and developing a car with a $10k budget. I quite like Top Gear mag as well, a bit more light hearted than Motor.

 

I'm with you Tim. I've let Motor and Wheels expire and subscribe to TG now - it's a bit of fun, the reviews don't labour the tedious stuff and if I want to find out more about a car I can hit the web.

I agree Motor would have savaged the RX8 in BFYB - not nearly enough grunt and torque to compete these days. Morley is a hater too. You buy them for their handling, not their pace. If all I cared about was acceleration there's lots of other cars on the market which would serve.

If Mazda can find a way to endow these things with more power without fuel economy totally disappearing though, they'd have a huge hit on their hands...