Subaru Impreza launch today, driving a tangled rural route that ended in Raglan for lunch by the sea. Reminded me how good many moderately priced bread-and-butter cars are nowadays; automotive whiteware they may be, but a keen driver can still have fun flinging them around a bit.

Subaru is separating WRX from Impreza to avoid one suffering from comparison with the other, and these cars are 2.0-litre normally-aspirated runabouts. Price-conscious buyers can get steel wheels and delete the reversing camera; as you move up the scale you'll get progressively larger wheels and thinner rubber for keener handling, though you trade reduced ride comfort.

Getting back to gridlocked Auckland was a bit of a letdown after a day of carving up country roads; my one-hour drive home took almost double that. Fortunately the Jaguar XF at least ensured I was comfy! 

Busy week which started with swapping Subaru's easy-to-live-with XV for a Mitsubishi Lancer. Turned round and returned  BMW's K1300R, a bike which will despatch 100km/h in first gear – with 2000rpm still to go to the red-line.
Swapped it for a Yamaha BeeWee 125cc scooter that even on full throttle slowed for uphills, and with rock-hard suspenders ill-suited to my bumpy rural commute.

Got home to a message saying I'd been given the wrong-spec Lancer. Swapped it for another one - which goes back Thursday, to be replaced by a Jaguar XF.

Thursday is also the Subaru Impreza launch, taking us via back roads to Raglan – no doubt visiting some obscure rally routes along the way, yee haa.

If variety is the spice of life, mine's pretty peppy right now...

Hyundai brings concept car styling to mainstream wallets. The extra door and adequate rear seats ensure this Veloster is more useful than it looks, and it handles sweetly enough that given a bendy road you can make the most of its modest power and light weight.

Fortunately the hapless Hyundai employee in the passenger seat seemed to enjoy it...

As for gadget freaks; you can measure your eco-performance in 10-minute bursts with the car issuing a score, or use the GPS it needs to calculate your progress to measure your true speed - the actual speedo reads slow.