First Drive

Al Futtaim Motors just celebrated their 60th anniversary this week. That’s right, the UAE’s sole Toyota distributor has been at it for more than half a century, so it’s a bit of a surprise that they’re doing anything TRD-related only now. TRD is Toyota’s performance arm, and UAE dealerships now offer add-on TRD parts for various models. We picked the TRD Aurion to take for a spin, skipping more intriguing models such as the TRD FJ Cruiser and the TRD 86.

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It’s not often that a launch event is held for a minivan. But Kia felt the all-new third-generation version of their people-carrier is important enough to be highlighted, especially since they’ve added “Grand” to the Carnival’s name now. So off we went for a convoy drive in and around Abu Dhabi.

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What makes a sports car? Should it have two seats or are five acceptable? Should it have two doors or is four okay? Should it only be rear-wheel-drive or will all-wheel-drive do? While Audi is generally seen as a maker of cookie-cutter sedans, they’ve been breaking conventions for a while now with a few of their niche models, such as the Audi TT Quattro and the Audi S3 Sedan. We drove both of them at the GCC launch event in the UAE.

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We wanted a vehicle to take a trip from Dubai down to Abu Dhabi for some event, so we hit up Chrysler. They offered a 2015 Ram 1500 Laramie, a truck we last drove back in 2012, but figured we’ll give it another look. Nothing much has changed, has it? Well, some things have changed.

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Some carmakers change a couple of headlights and shamelessly call their facelifted model an “all-new” car because, you know, we’re all idiots. However, Honda held a rather late media-drive event for their already-launched 2015 CR-V and they kept reiterating that it is, indeed, just a minor update. But from what we could see, there seems to be some substantial changes under the familiar skin.

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The only electric cars you’ll ever see in the GCC are at golf clubs, with little wheels and no doors. Sure, there are the unloved Lexus hybrids, there was that pricey Fisker Karma with the backup petrol engine, and some Chevy Volts were spotted testing in Dubai before disappearing for obvious reasons, but there are big things happening this week on the electric front. Dubai’s DEWA utility company has just announced the first dedicated charging station here for electric cars, in what is to become a network all over Dubai soon. And Renault is hoping to bank on that with the Zoe hatchback and the Twizy runabout.

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Mercedes-Benz make some very nice luxury cars. In fact, we really liked the new S-Class and the newer C-Class when we briefly drove them around town a few months ago. Mercedes-AMG make some very fast cars. In fact, they make those fast cars simply by upgrading their luxury cars with bigger engines and stiffer suspension. They go very fast in a straight line. But when you reach a corner, one of two things happen at the limit — if ESP is on, you are made to slow down and understeer forcefully, but if you turn off the ESP nannies,

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In a surprise move, the 2015 Lexus NX 200t has made its GCC debut, rather quickly after going on sale in Europe and America just recently. Hitting the ground running, the UAE dealer already has cars in the showroom, and put us in a few of them, although it was just a brief convoy-style drive in traffic.

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Harley-Davidson is on a roll. Not only did sales grow in 2014 compared to the year before, Harley-Davidson also released some all-new models to complement its already massive line-up of motorcycles. One of those models, and the most notable of them all, is the new Low Rider. After being shelved for half a decade, Harley-Davidson has resurrected the Low Rider name.

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Audi is generally known as a carmaker that doesn’t take risks. Their design language, their cabin layouts and even their base engines have simply been mildly tweaked versions from generation to generation. But sometimes, they pull a fast one out of the hat. There was the TT. Then there was the R8. And next came the RS 7. And now there are the station-wagon twins — the RS 4 Avant and the RS 6 Avant.

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