Why this exists
Because almost every car review published in this country is written on a launch, on the coast, at sea level, in a car that was handed over clean with a full tank. None of that describes buying a car in Bloemfontein and keeping it for eight years.
Two people at a plain table with a notebook of measurements between them, a kettle and mugs at the far end.
What this site is
This site is run by two private individuals who like instruments. Between us there is a dial pressure gauge, a 3 m tape, a sound level meter, a spirit level, a satellite speed logger and a set of 20-litre crates for measuring boots. We are not a business with a reception area and we do not want to become one. The fees pay for fuel, for the instruments and for the hours.
The reason the loop is fixed is the reason any measurement is repeatable. Launch routes are chosen to flatter cars, and they vary, so two reviews of two cars tell you nothing about which is better. Our loop is dull on purpose: school-hour traffic through Universitas, the N1 south where the surface changes three times, and gravel corrugated by the last grader run. Every car gets the same unfair test.
We write for a reader we know well because we are close to being that reader. Over forty-five, probably on a second set of knees or at least thinking about it, with a boot that has to take a folded chair or a toolbox, with grandchildren who occupy a rear bench four times a year, and with a long run north on the N1 at least twice a year. That reader is badly served by car journalism and knows it.
There is a limit to what measurement can do, and we would rather state it than hide it. Numbers cannot tell you whether you will like a car. They can tell you which cars you will certainly dislike after three hours, which cars will cost you an unpleasant amount at 90 000 km, and which cars have been specified for a country with no hail and no frost. That is most of the useful work.
What we hold to
Measured or not mentioned
If we have not put a tape or a gauge or a meter on it, it does not appear as a figure. Impressions are labelled as impressions and kept short. Where a number is indicative, the word indicative sits next to it.
Paid by the reader
No money, loan cars, fuel or hospitality from anyone who sells cars, hires them out or imports them. It makes this site slower and smaller than it could be. It also means a note can say that a car is poor value, which is the only reason a note is worth reading.
The same loop, even when it is inconvenient
When a car is clearly good we still drive the gravel and still read the noise at three speeds, because the exceptions are how a method rots. Twice the gravel section has changed our conclusion after the first 300 km had already impressed us.
What you will not find here
- 01Scores out of ten. A single number cannot carry a seat base measurement and a payload figure at once, and it invites exactly the argument we are trying to avoid.
- 02Make and model names in the text. The photographs show what they show; the writing describes cars by type, size and layout.
- 03Advice on finance, insurance products or investment in anything. We are not licensed for it and would be bad at it.
- 04Any suggestion that we have driven a car we have not driven. If a note is based on one session rather than three, it says so at the top.