Rob Margeit

Newtown

Features Editor at Drive.com.au

Features Editor at https://t.co/ulIA4cwSSQ at Nine Entertainment Co.

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Articles

Triumph Stag, the car so bad it ‘stag-matised’ its owners

Jul 31, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Original story by Tony Davis first published in Drive on 31 July, 1998. When an owner stands by his Triumph Stag, it's usually because he can't get the door open. Yet there was a time when the Stag seemed to represent an exciting future for sports cars. The styling was well received, the technical specification (including independent rear suspension) and luxury inclusions also impressed, while the 2+2 seating lent a degree of practicality not usually found in open sports cars.
16 models named after Olympics athletes and sports

Jul 29, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

As the world’s attention turns to the Olympic Games in Paris over the next two weeks and a veritable smorgasbord of sporting events, we thought it’d be fun to compile a list of cars that share a name with some of the high- and not-so-high profile Olympic sports that will take centre stage in the French capital. Sports and cars are a seemingly natural fit.
The Ford EL Falcon had a face like a fish eating a lolly

Jul 24, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Original story published in Drive on 26 July, 1996Ford's Falcon has been dealt a heavy blow with the ugly stick. Spy photographs published this week by Motor magazine show the new EL Falcon, due out in September, is not a pretty sight. But it seems Ford Australia's plastic surgeons were only following orders – the facelift is aimed at bringing Falcon into line with the company's new worldwide look.
Australia's own Holden was once the official car of the Olympics

Jul 22, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

The games of the 33rd Olympiad in Paris are almost upon us and while it’s the athletes who will rightly take the spotlight, behind the scenes a host of official Partners clamour for the attention and wallets of a sport-loving public. In the world of automotive, the field of Partners is led by Japanese car giant, Toyota, which has held the distinction as the Official Mobility Partner of the Olympics since 2015.
The rise and fall of the ‘hairdresser’ car

Jul 17, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Original story by Peter McKay published in Drive on 19 July, 2003Not even the world’s most powerful performance marques have been immune to a bad haircut. The late 1980s and early 1990s produced a much-maligned set of vehicles that oozed sporting style but lacked performance substance – and it was this set that Australian writers dubbed “hairdresser’s cars”.
This Alfa Romeo 164 was the wildest Alfa ever made

Jul 15, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

When it comes to absolutely outlandish automotive engineering, cars so wild they defy belief, few can top 1988’s Alfa Romeo 164 ProCar. The Cliff notes for the Alfa Romeo make for astonishing reading. A body and chassis built entirely out of carbon fibre, Kevlar and Nomex, a mid-mounted 462kW V10 Formula One engine, a total weight of just 750kg and 0-100km/h in a shade of over two seconds, all wrapped in a silhouette package designed to resemble Alfa Romeo’s then new flagship 164 sedan.
This car was meant to be a Mini killer. Instead it sent its maker broke

Jul 10, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Original story by Tony Davis first published in Drive on 10 July, 1998Every second advertisement and newspaper article used words like IMP-ressive and IMP-ortant to describe Hillman's new small car in 1963. Closer to the mark was IMP-rudent – the Imp was British small car innovation at its most venturesome, but it was also financial suicide. In the mid-1950s The Rootes Group (best known for its solid Hillmans and Humbers) began a “what if” small-car design exercise.
The sad fate of the cutest Volkswagen you’ve never heard of

Jul 8, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

If, like me, you grew up in West Germany in the 1960s and ’70s, then there’s every chance this cute, little, and cheerfully bright yellow Volkswagen is already familiar to you. But for the rest of the world, the Volkswagen Type 147 Kleinlieferwagen (literally, Small Delivery Van) remains an oddity, a Franken-Volkswagen that is, in reality, not a single vehicle, but rather an amalgam of four distinct Volkswagen models melded into one, practical, cute-as-a-button postal delivery van.
The world’s fastest engine swap happened 39 years ago

Jul 3, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Replacing an entire engine in a car is a big job. The daunting task involves multiple steps, each requiring intimate knowledge of a car’s mechanical and electrical components along with the skill to work with them. Typically, if you wanted to replace the entire engine in your humble hatchback, you’d need to bank on anywhere between eight to 15 hours. And that’s for professionals.
Australia’s most popular small car of the 1990s changed Hyundai forever

Jul 3, 2024 | drive.com.au | Rob Margeit

Original story by Tony Davis first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 1 July, 1994. If ever they start selling cars in supermarkets, wrapped up in black and gold packaging, those cars may well be examples of the latest Hyundai. Because with the 1994/95 Hyundai Excel, South Korea's Hyundai Motor Company has come perhaps closer than anyone to producing the generic small car. Is that a criticism? Not necessarily.