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/ 2 November 2004

Indian vehicles hit SA market

Just months after Tata launched its range of vehicles on to the South African market, rival Indian auto maker, Mahindra, has arrived in South Africa. Launched to the media recently, the Bolero and Scorpio will no doubt find themselves competing head on against the more established brands in the market, although at a slightly different level and price too.

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/ 2 November 2004

Erwin announces Denel board

Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin on Monday announced the board of directors to manage Denel, the state-owned arms manufacture. Spokesperson Gaynor Kast said Erwin believed the board — retaining chairperson Sandile Zungu, who has held the position since 2001 — had a good combination of experience and skill.

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/ 2 November 2004

Let the people decide

Americans will vote on Tuesday in what many believe is the most important election of their lives — a bitter contest over national identity that has broken political records. The two candidates ended their campaigns with every opinion poll showing the race as tight as it has ever been.

  • Media pessimism about Bush, Kerry
  • Last desperate days of US campaign
  • Republicans battle to the last
  • Bush wins boost from terror tape
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    / 2 November 2004

    Car owners: What to expect down the road

    How do you find out which cars are the least trouble-free out there? Why, you go out and ask thousands of new vehicle owners to list the problems they’ve had with their purchases in the first few months of ownership. JD Power and Associates have been doing these studies for over two decades in the USA, and the results of their first South African survey have just been released. Some of their findings are very unexpected …

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    / 2 November 2004

    Biker heaven and beyond

    German cartographer Karl Mauch would have approved. He was the man who first mapped the Sabie area in the 1860s, and nearly a century and a half later the German-built BMW R 1200 GS was put on the map in the same region. The R 1200 GS is lighter and consequently handles better than its predecessor over difficult terrain.

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    / 2 November 2004

    A ‘guided missile’

    If you did a search on Google and typed in the key words "guided missile", you’d come up with a multitude of products such as Exocet, optically tracked, laser-guided, wired-guided and nuclear. Page down and you’ll probably find "Renault Megane Sport" — hardly a product designed for warfare — hidden among the listings.

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    / 2 November 2004

    Smooth ride matches style

    There are countless cars out there that boast sequential gear shift, each with its own nomenclature. There’s SMG from BMW, Selespeed from Alfa, and M-MT from Toyota, to name a few. There’s tiptronic and multitronic too, just to confuse you. Each claim "almost seamless" changes, but few can match Audi’s latest trick, direct-shift gearbox (DSG).

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    / 2 November 2004

    Meet the baby Beemer

    BMW’s foray into the hatch market has brought it under the spotlight, and credit must go to not only to the Bavarian auto-maker, but also to its controversial designer, Chris Bangle, who took some heat with the current 5- and 7-Series models. But the 645i Cabriolet and the new 1 Series have elevated him to the favourites list.