Links We Like September 19 2024

Peter Anderson

Sep 19, 2024 — 5 min read

Supra Supercars clay model and Toyota Australia head Sean Hanley (far right)

Another EV brand has entered the Australian chat, Toyota is entering the Australian racing series Supercars, new Camry hybrid is here, as is the new Mustang. Also a chat with a Cupra high up about betting the house on EVs and Alpine's new SUV spied.

Another Chinese EV brand Leapmotor has launched in Australia with a new mid-size SUV for less than $50k. Yeah, so what? It's an EV. I think you can say it's on like Donkey Kong if punters warm to this idea.

Leapmotor is partly owned by the Stellantis Group, which is primarily Fiat but a whole lot of other brands too. While it doesn't look particularly striking – and doesn't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto – an EV at this size for less than fifty large (so they're saying, anyway), is pretty wild.

Here's The Right Car?'s Matt Campbell with the lowdown.

In a pretty wild turn of events, Toyota is to enter the Supercars racing category in 2026 with a V8-engined Supra.

The Supra is a BMW Z4 in drag that most definitely does not come with a V8, but neither did the Nissan Altima, so that's hardly the point. It will run on the Gen3 Supercar chassis with a no-doubt lengthened Supra body plonked on top. And a top Ford team has defected to run the campaign, so that's a bit of added spice to a very tribal fan base.

Anyone who rides in a lot of Ubers or taxis will want to know what's coming up next for the brand's legion of drivers. So here's the new, hybrid-only Toyota Camry.

I've always thought that if Toyota could just punch out an electric Camry they'd basically own the road for urban mobility because government and fleet would lap it up and Uber drivers would abandon pretty much any other brand. But, Toyota is stubborn, so here we are.

The excellent John Law has tested the new Ford Mustang for Carsguide. John is a terrific young journalist who I have worked with and knows his way around the car market like few others. He's a dead-set champ and you should listen to what he thinks.

Also at Carsguide, another excellent fellow is Tom White. He interviewed Cupra's Executive Vice-President for Research and Development, Dr. Werner Tietz, who reckons betting it all on electric cars now is a bad idea. See what you think.

Car UK has got spy shots of the new Alpine A390 sporty SUV. Like Porsche and Lotus, to stay alive ya gotta go large(r) and this is where we find ourselves. As I will always say, as long as it means we get to keep delights like the A110 (or 911 and Boxster in Porsche's case), we just have to hold our noses.

And that's today's links we like. Cor blimey, it's been a busy week. Don't forget, if you haven't already, to read the first part of Did YouTube kill the car show?

And my first video review in a while, the Cupra Born Performance Pack.