Top Gear Car Loans News

Wed, 2 May 2007
Interest rates on hold: reprieve for homeowners
In a boon for the nation's mortgage belt, the Reserve Bank decided at its quarterly meeting on May 1 to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent. The Reserve Bank's decision followed the publication of a much lower than expected March-quarter consumer price index, which showed inflation rose just 0.1 per cent for the quarter and 2.4 per cent for the year. This was well within the Reserve Bank’s target of 2-3 per cent. In a rare show of consensus, many economic forecasters are now predicting a further easing in inflation and most believe interest rates will stay on hold for the rest of 2007, particularly given the impending federal elections.

Fri, 11 January 2008
BMW GROUP AUSTRALIA
BMW Group Australia will demonstrate its leadership of emission-free Clean Energy mobility with a unique week-long public expo to be held in late January 2008.

As the worlds leading supplier of luxury vehicles, BMW is working towards mobility solutions that do not rely on fossil fuels.

The first-of-its kind exhibition will comprise a display of BMW EfficientDynamic technology at Melbournes forward-looking Federation Square from 21-29 January.

Sun, 03 February 2008
V8 TEST DAY'S MELB & QLD
V8 Supercars Australia will host two official team test days in Feruary allowing the media and public the first chance to see the new 2008 drivers,line-up and car liveries.

There will be one official test day at Winton Raceway on February 12 and the other at Queensland Raceway on February 14.These test days will consist of all Victorian teams testing at Winton and Queensland teams at Queensland Raceway.Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series teams will also be invited to attend.

Entry to Winton Raceway will be by gold coin donation with entry to Queensland Raceway a $20 per car fee.

Sat, 16 February 2008
New Format Grand Prix V8 Races
An exciting new format for the V8 Supercar races at the 2008 FORMULA 1™ ING Australian Grand Prix will create the ultimate showdown between Holden and Ford – The V8 Supercars Manufacturers’ Challenge.

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation and V8 Supercars Australia will introduce the new “Blue versus Red” format for next year.

Under the plan, the V8 Supercars will practice and qualify at Albert Park on Thursday 13 March and then race on Friday 14 March, Saturday 15 March and Sunday 16 March.

Qualifying will determine pole position as usual, but once a Ford or Holden has been placed at the head of the grid, all cars of that make will line up behind them on the same side, in order of fastest to slowest for that make. The other manufacturer will then line up beside them. One line of Blue versus one line of Red.

Total points will be combined for all Holden and Ford V8 Supercars to determine which manufacturer is leading after each race. Points from the first race will be carried over into the second and third races so that, although the lead may change hands, the winning manufacturer may not be known until the final cars cross the finishing line on Sunday afternoon.

Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Drew Ward said the format created the ultimate showdown between Holden and Ford.

“It’s the question that’s been around for as long as Ford and Holden: which make is better?” Mr Ward said. “We’ll find out in March at Albert Park.”

V8 Supercars Australia chairman Tony Cochrane said: “This Blue versus Red Challenge gives us the chance to showcase Australian racing, manufacturing and engineering excellence.”

Holden Motorsport manager, Simon McNamara said: “Holden is the current Champion and we’re running a new generation car. It’s obvious who the best manufacturer is. We’re really going to get behind this event.”



Tue, 18 March 2008
V8 Supercars chief flags a car design overhaul
V8 SUPERCARS Australia chief Wayne Cattach has flagged the possibility of a car design overhaul after the recent death of driver Ashley Cooper.

Cattach said V8SA would make a detailed review of the cars to see if safety could be improved.

He left open the possibility of a radical revamp of car design to make them safer through a purpose-built design rather than the current method of using production-based cars.

American racing series NASCAR has introduced a purpose-built racing machine this year to help improve its safety. Cattach said a similar solution could be looked at.

But he warned any change would involve heavy financial costs.

"I guess it's really the cost of making that rather massive change," Cattach said yesterday.

"If there was supporting evidence to do that, then I guess we would do it. At this stage there is nothing on the drawing board to affect that. Certainly we wanted to keep the cars in a form that gave our manufacturers the chance to market cars from them.

"In other words, not go down the NASCAR route, but have them as a silhouette of the road cars and have them have swinging panels and so on and so forth.

"That would be a very big exercise, to start with a clean sheet of paper, (but) it might be something that we need to consider.

"Certainly if we are in any way unsure about the strength and safety of our cars, well, that might be one option.

"But at this stage I wouldn't draw that conclusion. I think the cars have, by and large, protected the drivers well.

"If you look at some of the colossal crashes we've had over time with very little injury, I think that's a testament to the strength of the cars."

Cooper, 27, suffered massive head and internal injuries when his Holden Commodore slammed into the barriers at the fast Turn Eight corner on the Adelaide street circuit on Saturday.

Cattach said the tragedy would be fully investigated.

"We have had a preliminary look at the footage of the accident, and from what it appears, his car may have clipped the guard rail on entry to the corner," Cattach said.

"There is nothing that we can find that would indicate any failure of the seat, his HANS device, the straps or the roll cage."

Cattach said V8SA would assist investigations into the accident by the South Australian Police and racing body CAMS in any way that it could.

Cooper is the second driver to die in a V8 Supercars accident since 2006.

New Zealand driver Mark Porter was killed in the Fujitsu Series race at Bathurst that year.

Cattach also said he and Adelaide event boss Andrew Daniels had spoken about the possibility of installing a new safety barrier at Turn Eight for next year's race



Sun, 30 March 2008
POWER QUALIFIES 21ST FOR INDYCAR DEBUT AT HOMESTEAD
WHAT THE TEAM HAD TO SAY --

Will Power - #8 Aussie Vineyards - Team Australia Honda/Dallara/Firestone

"I was basically flat all the way round, I felt the KVRT Aussie Vineyards -- Team Australia car was improved from practice today, but we were lacking a little bit of pace," said Power.

"For me it is just about the race, get as many miles as I can, learn how to run in traffic while finding more out about the car."

Craig Gore - Team Australia creator

"Will knows that this weekend is just about learning and playing on the conservative side of things," said Gore.

"It's been a great team effort to get to this point and oval racing is a tough discipline to master. Will has done very well so far this week and he will get a great deal out of the race tomorrow.

"With almost no oval experience, Will is finding his feet and picking things up quickly.

"There is a lot of excitement around IndyCar racing with tomorrow's race. Everyone involved in Aussie Vineyards and Team Australia is extremely excited to be a part of this new era in open-wheel racing and we're right behind Will."



Fri, 04 April 2008
V8 Supercars take a place at world motorsport forum


V8 Supercars Australia Chairman Tony Cochrane will address the leaders of Formula One and international motorsport as a guest speaker at the inaugural Motor Sport Business Forum Middle East in Bahrain next week.

Mr Cochrane will join Formula One team bosses Ron Dennis, Sir Frank Williams, Nick Fry, Christian Horner and Colin Kolles as keynote speakers and attendees at the forum.

“It is a huge honour for me to not only be invited to attend but to address this forum,” Mr Cochrane said.

“The business of V8 Supercars is booming and it is a fabulous opportunity for us to again sit at the same table as the very best in the world of motorsport.

“We know that many of these key world motorsport bosses have an interest in V8 Supercars and follow the sport regularly. It will be great to see and talk to them again after Melbourne last week.”

The Middle East Forum, which will be held at the Bahrain International Circuit, the Home of Motor Sport in the Middle East, in the run-up to this year’s fifth running of the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, has raised enormous interest throughout the region with a prominent line-up of guests and speakers.

It represents the first time the event has taken place outside its traditional home in Monaco and marks the increasing prominence of the Middle East in the global motor sport industry.

“This Forum is the first of its kind in the Middle East and we are delighted that so many companies from around the region are taking part in this opportunity,” Chairman of the BIC Talal Al Zain said.

“Like the Monaco version of the Forum, we have gathered a super line-up of speakers and I think that has provided enormous pulling power to generate interest from these companies as well as from those further afield.”

Since 2004 Bahrain, as the home of the first round of the FIA Formula One World Championship in the region, has been at the forefront of the explosion in public interest and commercial investment in the world of motor sport, making this the perfect venue for this exceptional Motor Sport Business Forum.

The V8 Supercar Championship Series has twice raced at the Bahrain International Circuit and enjoys an extremely strong relationship with the BIC and the Crown Prince.

The Championship returns to Bahrain for the Desert 400 from November 6-8.

Source:V8 Latest News



Sat, 03 May 2008
Sydney could lose V8s
The Australian Race Drivers Club (ARDC) has announced it will commit $350,000 for a feasibility study into improving Sydney's Eastern Creek International Raceway complex but it could be the city's last chance to remain on the V8 Supercar calendar.

According to V8 Supercar chairman Tony Cochrane in the latest V8X Magazine, if V8 Supercars Australia's (V8SA) proposal for a Homebush street race is not given the green light by the NSW State Government, and the much criticized Eastern Creek round was not given a new lease of life, Sydney could be in jeopardy of losing a V8 round altogether, Big Pond Sport reported.

"The [V8SA] Board has accepted that we just can't seem to get any traction of any note at Eastern Creek," said Cochrane.

"If you look at the crowds of our first four events this year: Adelaide 290,000; Formula One (Melbourne) 302,000; Eastern Creek 28,300; and on pre-ticket sales it was 150,000 plus at Hamilton... so pick the odd man out.

"If we can't find some solution in Sydney we're going to have to bite the bullet and drop Sydney off the calendar. At the end of this year we lose Oran Park, then the only other game left in town is Eastern Creek and Eastern Creek is a financial bloodbath," Cochrane added.

The ARDC leases the western Sydney circuit from landowner the NSW Government. United Kingdom company Apex Circuit Design will carry out the study in the second half of this year. It's findings will then be presented to the government for funding consideration.

While the ARDC itself admits the 2008 V8 round in March attracted less than impressive crowd numbers, club general manager Geoff Arnold has said the study would be the first step towards rectifying that but added that the responsibility of the lacklustre event still should be shared with V8SA, according to Big Pond Sport.

"One thing Tony [Cochrane] needs to remember is that we have worked with [V8SA] when they wanted to try some experiments; we agreed to run two events here and have the grand finale for two years, we agreed to try running on a public holiday... we did that in good faith," Arnold told V8X.

"In fairness, we ask that having demonstrated the good will over the years, can we please now have an event at the same time of the year in August so that we can develop with them the crowd which we haven't been able to do until now."

While upgrading the circuit to FIA Level 1 classification - which would enable it to run a Formula One event in future - is part of the study's brief, Arnold estimated that concerning costs to upgrade the circuit to suit would leave "absolutely no change out of $20m," he said.

Eastern Creek Raceway, which was built in 1990 to host a round of the World MotoGP championship, has hosted rounds of the A1GP, V8 Supercars, Australian Superbike Championship, the annual Muscle Car Masters, and multiple car shows and exhibitions throughout it's history.

Early plans for a revamped complex indicate interest in developing two race tracks that could be run simultaneously, plus further expansion of it's driver education facilities.

The ARDC hopes the study will provide a masterplan to double Eastern Creek Raceway's full-time capability on a year-round basis. - BigPond Sport





Tue, 03 June 2008
Property crash not likely


Despite continuing gloom overseas, there's good news for owners here.

Rapid increases in interest rates have slammed Australian home owners with a mortgage to a point where they are now making the highest repayments in the developed world. Thankfully, one consolation is that generally house values are holding up.

I know there is a big increase in home repossessions and loan defaults, and property values are relatively stagnant, but compared with the rest of the world our real estate prices are staying pretty solid.

The question now is whether Australian residential property prices are overvalued and could we see the same sort of cracks which are happening overseas.

The news from overseas is just appalling. A recent US house price survey by the National Association of Realtors recorded an average 7.7 per cent drop for the year to March - the biggest fall since records started in 1982.

Would you believe states such as California and Florida are seeing average falls of up to 30 per cent over the past year as the credit crunch bites hard. At this stage 1-in-194 homes in the US have been repossessed and that ratio is climbing constantly. There are reports that some financiers are repossessing homes and then asking the owners to stay rent free to protect the property from vandals.

Now there are fears this sort of property crash could spread to Britain based on its current valuations. Average house prices in Britain are running at six times average earnings, which is way above the historic average of 3.7 times wages.

Australian residential property values are currently double Britain's historic high - 12 times earnings in Sydney and 10 times in Melbourne.

Australian mortgage repayments are 57 per cent of average incomes compared with 50 per cent in Britain where the historic average is just 30 per cent.

A recent survey in The Economist magazine says Australia has the most overvalued residential property in the world.

All these comparisons make for very nervous reading and you'd think would point to an impending crash the size of that in the US. That may very well be the case a few years down the track.

But for the moment there appears to be a couple of significant planks underpinning Australian property values.

Firstly, the high skilled and business immigration numbers combined with low construction levels is creating a shortage of supply accentuated by the banks tightening development financing.

Full employment also means that even though higher loan repayments are stretching family budgets, household incomes won't fall.

The other factor is the rental crisis. Strongly rising rents are usually a precursor to rising values as investors chase property to take advantage of the strong yields.

For property owners it looks like a crash in values isn't on the cards for at least a few years. For those looking to get on the property merry-go-round for the first time, property is not going to get any more affordable either.

But it seems there is hope of picking up an affordable bargain if you know where to look.

Last week on my Sunrise program we interviewed Terry Ryder who is a former property writer and now runs a business called Hot Spotting, which analyses property issues.

Terry Ryder put together a list of the top 12 places to buy a house for under $200,000. Yep, $200,000 and many on the list are well below that level down to $90,000 in one area.

Now before you chortle and say they must be in the middle of nowhere, Ryder's 12 locations all have good community facilities and reasonably good employment prospects for people moving there, because they're booming.

There are only two locations on the list close to a capital city - Melton near Melbourne and Elizabeth on the outskirts of Adelaide.

Ryder says most areas close to Sydney and Brisbane were priced out of this list.

His personal pick is Parkes in regional NSW because of its location as a transport hub.

In Queensland, Charters Towers is the best pick while in NSW there's Broken Hill, Glen Innes and Inverell.

In Victoria, the best buys are Gippsland, Melton and Mildura.

Further south in Tassie, George Town and the Rosebery-Zeehan area are on the list.

In South Australia, Elizabeth rounds out the top 12.

Source: The Sun-Herald



Sun, 15 June 2008
V8 Supercars teams told to slash $1m


V8 Supercars Australia has ordered teams to cut $1 million from the running cost of each car over the next two years.

The drastic measure, which will take a total $29 million out of the sport, is designed to curb escalating costs of some of the top-end teams in the field, while also ensuring the low-end teams don't go bust in their push to be competitive.

V8 Supercars has already decided to trim the grid to 28 cars next year because of the difficulty for some teams to stay afloat.

There is also talk of turning to a "car of the future" in the next four to five years to standardise parts and centralise purchasing, which would significantly reduce the cost of building a V8 Supercar.

A similar model is used in NASCAR, where cars cost an estimated $A150,000 each, compared with $A500,000-$600,000 for a V8 Supercar.

V8 Supercars intend to maintain the popular Holden v Ford rivalry in the car of the future concept, with the Commodore and Falcon panels and cosmetics to be retained.

Top teams are understood to spend up to $6 million per car in a season while some single car teams spend about $3 million.

"We've had a direction from the board to reduce the operating costs of running a car in the first 12 months by $500,000 and then in the subsequent year another $500,000. All financial components will be considered," V8 Supercars Australia chief executive Wayne Cattach said on Wednesday.

"The board understands that if we don't deal with this it will impact on the success of our sport.

"Traditionally motorsport suffers from the increasing cost of competition over time and if unchecked would eventually lead to a challenge to the very viability of the sport."

The costs can be cut in a number of areas, including staff numbers and general logistics. Triple Eight Racing, whose drivers include three-time champion Craig Lowndes and young gun Jamie Whincup, take up to 40 staff to V8 Supercar rounds.

Cattach expected opposition from some teams but said the move would benefit the ongoing health of the sport.

"We've got to keep the teams out there in a strong and healthy state while at the same time creating an environment where teams with the most money available to them aren't necessarily the most successful on the track," he said.

"It's a classic case of no pain, no gain. Inevitably there's going to be some pain to achieve the overall objective."



Wed, 09 July 2008
Holden to look at alternative fuels
Car producer Holden will look to a range of alternative technologies to combat escalating fuel prices, chairman and managing director Mark Reuss says.

Mr Reuss said the company planned to take a leadership role in what he described as the challenge facing all vehicle manufacturers.

"In the not too distant future you can expect to see Holden offering vehicles powered by dedicated LPG, ethanol and diesel as well as more fuel efficient petrol engines and hybrids," he said at the launch of the locally made Sportwagon.

"We will be looking to offer a range of alternatives rather than betting on one technology winner.

"I don't intend to give too much away on these future product plans today other than to reiterate that, like General Motors (GM) globally, we understand that change is taking place and Holden intends to be part of that change.

"I'd go even further than that and say that we also intend to take back a leadership role in several areas."

In May this year senior GM official Nick Reilly said Holden could be building a hybrid version of the locally made Commodore in about two years.

Mr Reilly said a diesel version was on the cards while a four-cylinder turbo-charged model was a "sensible suggestion".

Mr Reuss said the introduction of the new Sportwagon, which replaced the previous Commodore wagon, was an important development for the company.

Without a wagon to sell so far this year the company had dropped a percentage point in market share each month, he said.

"We can expect to see that change as we start getting Sportwagons off the line and into the showrooms over the coming months."

Mr Reuss, who took over Holden's operations in February, said he had been so impressed by the new model it would become his family's transportation in Australia.

"I've had a chance to drive some of the engineering test fleet cars and I like what I've seen," he said.

"This vehicle ticks all the boxes for me."

The new car increased the number of models produced by Holden's Elizabeth assembly plant in Adelaide to 42, with two more US export models for Pontiac to come later this year and in 2009.

It was also a compelling reason why Australia needed to keep world-class automotive producers in the country, Mr Reuss said.

"This car is another great example of a world-class product, designed, engineered and built in Australia," he said.



Sat, 02 August 2008
IndyCar Series confirms Australia race
The IndyCar Series will travel to Surfers Paradise, Australia, for the Gold Coast Indy 300 on Oct. 26, the first IndyCar Series event in the country.

"We are pleased to announce that the IndyCar Series will hold its first event in Australia this October to celebrate the completion of a successful first season of unified open-wheel racing," said Terry Angstadt, president of the commercial division for the Indy Racing League. "Dating back to 1991, the Gold Coast Indy 300 has been labeled the race with the hottest cars, the hottest parties and the hottest beaches, with one of the world's most famous beach-side cities, Surfers Paradise, hosting 96 hours of non-stop excitement on and off the racetrack.

"This is a great opportunity to expose a country with a rich open-wheel racing heritage to the faces of the IndyCar Series. And with drivers such as Will Power, Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon hailing from the South Pacific, it makes for an even better homecoming after the end of the season."

The 2.75-mile, 14-turn street circuit in Queensland hosted Champ Car and CART events since 1991. This year's race--the last event on the 2008 calendar following the Sept. 7 race at Chicagoland Speedway--will not count for the series championship; no points will be awarded to drivers.

It remains to be seen if Australia appears on IndyCar's 2009 calendar, which the series plans to unveil on Wednesday

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