There was a time when sports cars were low-slung and had two seats, while SUVs were slow, lumbering behemoths that were good at hauling loads and conquering rugged terrain, but not much else. However, boundaries have been blurred over the past decade and a half, and a sub-genre has emerged that morphs these two divergent vehicle types into a single entity.
As comparison tests go, this isn’t the most exciting, but it is probably relevant to a whole lot more people than pitting Porsches and Ferraris against McLarens and Lamborghinis yet again (spoiler alert: Porsches and Ferraris are always better). What we have here today are the newest segment of vehicles to sprout from the SUV revolution — the sub-compact crossovers. Not quite SUVs, but not really cars either, the sub-compact crossover gives owners the feeling of driving an SUV while keeping ownership costs within car-like levels. The newest of the bunch is the Honda HR-V, going up against the immensely-successful Nissan Kicks.
BMW has been exceptionally proactive over the past decade in fattening up its model line-up with a dizzying array of coupe-wannabe SUVs, chop-top sedans, ‘Active Tourers’, M-tweaked road rockets and electrified vehicles. Yet, it’s taken until now for the Bavarian marque to dip its toes in the potentially lucrative luxo seven-seater SUV segment.
Chevrolet recently launched the all-new 2019 Silverado pickup truck in the Middle East, as well as adding two exclusive models just for our region. The new Silverado is not only longer, wider and taller than the outgoing model, it is also lighter thanks to the partial use of aluminium for the first time in its construction.
The all-new Kia Telluride is the long-awaited replacement for the Mohave, and it appears to be almost as good as everyone hoped it would be.
We briefly drove the 2019 Kia Cerato at the Dubai Autodrome in the UAE. Here’s a quick review of the Korean carmaker’s latest compact sedan.
We drove the facelifted Nissan Maxima at the launch event in Dubai to see what’s new and if it’s still a relevant premium sedan, as well as explain the difference between the SV and SR trims.
Kia is no stranger in the full-size SUV 7-seater market, having already had the Mohave in their lineup for the past decade. However, despite being forcefully kept on life-support, the Mohave never really caught on with the general public as their other more-modern models have. Hoping to change that, Kia has now introduced an all-new model, the Telluride. We were invited to a media launch event in Dubai to try it out on a pre-determined route.
The 2019 Peugeot 508 has finally made its way to the UAE and other GCC markets since it was officially revealed at last year’s Paris Motor Show in October. The reason for the slight delay is apparently because Peugeot has been testing the cars in this region to address any reliability issues. That’s good news from a brand that became synonymous with cars that didn’t go more than a few years before they were given up on, including us when we owned a Peugeot 307 XSi a decade ago.
We take the all-new Lexus UX 200 for a spin to find out if the little luxury crossover has what it takes to compete with the Germans.