Road testing is the cornerstone of any motoring magazine, but in South Africa, that practice is even more complicated due to the high altitudes at which most people live having an adverse effect on the manner in which their cars perform.
Normally aspirated cars suffer altitude sickness – in Johannesburg, most cars produce around 18% less power and endure the resultant loss in performance simply because the air at higher elevations is that much thinner than that it is at the coast. That’s why when travelling to the coast; cars seem to perform so much better there – because quite simply they do.
Fuel grades and fuel quality at inland pumps are also generally inferior to that at the coast and while most turbocharged petrol and diesel-powered cars may overcome much of that altitude sickness thanks to their forced induction, they suffer from increased throttle lag and launch failure – a car’s inability to efficiently pull away from a standstill...
In other words, car road tests conducted at the coast, or even more so overseas, where fuel grades are far superior to those in South Africa, have little or no bearing on how a car actually performs at South African high altitude – altitudes where more than 70% of South Africans drive everyday.
Most car road tests currently published in South African motoring magazines are conducted at the coast, which means they have little or no bearing on how that car performs where the majority of South Africans will drive it at altitude. This is a relatively new phenomenon, since several motoring titles that previously tested at altitude, recently moved their operations – and road testing – to the coast, where as noted above, cars perform markedly differently to how they do at higher altitudes...
There is an exception – Cars in Action magazine has always tested at Reef altitudes and since the exodus of its rivals from Gauteng, that magazine has significantly enhanced its road testing programme and system to ensure its readers have a full, complete and comprehensive set of information on how all the cars it tests perform at higher elevation...
From the March 2007 issue on sale this week, the new Cars in Action Road Test includes comprehensive data derived at Reef altitudes to ensure that motorists who drive at such altitudes every day have access to all the information they need in a road test conducted in those same conditions.
“This issue sees the introduction of Cars in Action's full Road Tests,” Cars in Action Publisher Michele Lupini confirmed. “We've invested in the latest hi-tech test equipment and we now measure all the car’s vital parameters in these full tests. “Our new full Road Tests are also presented in an interesting, easy to digest and most meaningful new layout along with all the most important test results and data.”
“Road tests conducted at the coast in most cases simply reiterate the manufacturer’s claims, so we can really take those maker’s claims to be the coastal figures,” Lupini said. “Our high altitude Cars in Action magazine Road Tests however, are basically unique when it comes to reporting on how a car performs at altitude in South Africa – and that’s as a rule significantly differently do how they act at the coast, so the Cars in Action Road Test is actually quite important to anyone who lives and drives at higher altitudes…”
Another significant aspect of the new Cars in Action Road Test is using the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit to help determine each car’s true dynamic performance envelope. “While most other motoring magazines use a single breakaway or short slalom test to figure a car’s dynamic abilities, there’s nothing like a full telemetry flying lap of a well-known racetrack to illustrate just how quick or nimble a car is,” Lupini pointed out.
“Our new Kyalami Hot Lap not only lists the seven vital aspects of speed, g-force and gear selection on each of Kyalami’s twelve corners, but it gives you each car’s times across the circuit’s three sector times, its fastest lap and the average lap speed too,” Lupini explained. “Don’t forget that is over and above a comprehensive set of normal acceleration, flexibility and braking data, not to mention all the car’s vital statistics and specifications, a broad selection of opinions and all the road test regulars...”
The March 2007 issue of Cars in Action is on sale now at most news stands and other magazine vendors at R24.95.
Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Action Publications' niche motoring titles - Cars in Action, Bakkie & Truck Action and Classic Car Africa - offer an ideal motoring media platform and SA's second-largest motoring ABC.- more....
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Normally aspirated cars suffer altitude sickness – in Johannesburg, most cars produce around 18% less power and endure the resultant loss in performance simply because the air at higher elevations is that much thinner than that it is at the coast. That’s why when travelling to the coast; cars seem to perform so much better there – because quite simply they do. 
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