Top five advice stories of 2020

In a year when many of us were confined to home for months on end, there were few options to keep car enthusiasts occupied. Reading about cars or watching car videos were often the only ways to satisfy our hankering for all things automotive.

Even our humble advice features saw an uptick in readership this year. Our new car calendar was viewed about 12,000 times more between January and November of 2020 than during the same period in 2019.

Leaving aside the calendar, which is usually the advice story that attracts the most readers, this year’s most popular advice features were not the same eclectic selection as last year. Popular stories in 2020 instead mirrored some of our personal and communal anxieties in a digitally-connected world.

5. What are the best SUVs for towing?

Australians love to tow. If we're not out towing then we are reading about towing. This has been a consistently popular story, reflecting our love for getting away from it all and our burgeoning fascination with SUVs.

Unlike motorhomes, an SUV and caravan combination provides you the flexibility of unhitching the van at a powered site and heading into town for a bite to eat. It’s little wonder that so many are preferring this choice to see Australia in a recreational lifestyle.

Read more about towing

A steady flow of readers tuned in for the latest information concerning vehicles that are ‘verboten’ for drivers on their probationary licence. It’s tempting to think some of these young readers are checking on the cars they CAN buy after three years, rather than the cars they can’t buy right now.

Here, in one place, is a list of all the cars that pose a danger to your health, your wellbeing and your bank account for the first three years of your licensed driving record.

Find out which cars are no go for 'P' platers

3. Hygiene when driving

Hopping in or out of other people’s cars was a concern at the top of mind for many readers from the moment this story was published, back in mid-March.

The popularity of the story over the course of this year indicates that people were taking the COVID-19 viral pandemic seriously, although motorists were unaffected unless they were frequently swapping cars, which was likely the case for drivers of fleet vehicles.

More about hygenic driving practices

2. FAQs: Car buying and COVID-19

The market for new cars had been slowing long before the COVID-19 pandemic reached Australia in January, but the further downturn due to the virus was immediate and drastic.

Supply from overseas was reduced to a trickle as manufacturing plants closed down, and many aspiring buyers were casting around for any information available concerning the purchase of a new car during this difficult period.

The situation was fluid – particularly for those of us living in Victoria – but the content of this story was timely, accurate and kept up to date.

All the latest on car buying and Covid

GM’s announcement in February of its decision to ‘retire’ the Holden brand and reduce its Aussie footprint to about the size of a toddler’s thong, was greeted with disbelief and outrage in some quarters and apathy in others.

Those with more than a passing interest in the Holden brand – either for the collectability of certain models, or just for the tribal passion – immediately began to consider which Holdens were the ones to procure.

John Wright’s story was first published in 2017, after the closure of the Elizabeth plant. The popularity of his story this year indicates that the devotion (or the opportunism?) centred on the Holden brand shows no sign of dying.

Find out about the best old Holdens to buy