As a new year opens before us, we find ourselves making new resolutions – or as February comes to an end, more likely abandoning them. Well, it's free to dream a little, so how about a new car before the end of 2011? Let's just have a look at the best that the New Zealand market has to offer.
Finding out which car is the best in its category is no easy task, as the experts seem to endlessly argue about it on every media available. The debate can get quite heated sometimes, with accusations of corruption and bias flying low. The real difficulty, however, is finding which of those cars are actually available on the New Zealand market. Of course, one could import just any vehicle, but we've decided in favour of a more realistic scenario and stuck with the cars which can actually be bought at present (we've used Auto Trader, the AA and Trademe).
Now that the Tata Nano (left) has been turned away from the Kiwi market for safety reasons, is there still a hope for a new car under NZ$5,000 in New Zealand? Absolutely, says Chinese automaker Geely. It's new prototype the IG (Intelligent Geely), is forecast to cost NZ$3,100-$4,100. The Chinese version will be powered by a 988cc petrol engine, driving the front wheels through a five-speed CVT gearbox. The bad news is, it won't be available till 2012.
 In the meantime, it will cost you just under $15,000 for a Geely LC (right), which is the cheapest car available in New Zealand at the moment. With a 1.3 L petrol engine, it's not the most economical car at 6.9L / 100km, but it still beats the most expensive car listed on Trademe at time of writing, a Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster – which will lighten your bank account by a mere $745,000 and will make fuel disappear at an astonishing rate: 21.3L / 100km!
So what is the most economical car on the market? According to Rightcar.govt.nz, the Ford Fiesta Econetic 1.6D (left) takes the prize at 3.7L / 100km. A 5-seater powered by a 1.56 L diesel engine, it costs just over $30,000.
It is not the greenest car on the market, however with a carbon emission of 98g/km, compared to the Toyota Prius 1.8 CVT, a hybrid with an 1.8 L petrol engine and a price tag of just under $50,000 – making you wonder where the economy claimed by hybrid marketers really lies.
But who cares about saving money (or the environment for that matter) when we're only dreaming? Remember that Lamborghini on Trademe? Well there you go, of the 2010 top 10 fastest cars in the world, it is the only one available in New Zealand (that we could find anyway). The Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster (above) has a 6.5 L engine - not a diesel, as you may have guessed - that leaves behind an incredible 500g of CO2 per km. You won't have to breathe any of it though, as it will take you from 0 to 100km/h in a whopping 3.3 seconds.
That's still 0.8 seconds more than the Bugatti Veyron, or absolute speediest car in the world, which has been known to go as fast as 430 km/h – much more than you would ever have been allowed to drive on any New Zealand road anyway!
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THE CHEAPEST
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THE FASTEST