Alfa Romeo’s female-focused SUV, the Stelvio, was introduced with all-wheel-drive as standard across its range. But now as it moves into another year of production, the 2019 Alfa Romeo Stelvio is now offered in a RWD variant that helps the SUV become cheaper and lighter than before.
Till date, the name NISMO has been synonymous with performance. Proudly worn by many performance oriented machines from Nissan, the NISMO moniker was celebrated by petrolheads. Now, another car from Nissan’s stable has worn the same badge, but this time there will be no firepower as it is electric. Welcome the 2019 Nissan Leaf NISMO, which will debut in Japan.
Ford’s Focus is a big seller in Europe, but it’s an underrated entity in our UAE market. Despite its tidy looks and arguably class-leading driving dynamics, the C-segment hatchback – and sedan – has been forced to take a back seat (in sales terms) to the likes of the Japanese and the Koreans in the GCC.
It may not be the first small, affordable or capable small SUV, the Renault Duster is however the people’s car of the crossover era. Bridging the gap between dedicated compact off-roaders like the Suzuki Jimny and small sensible saloons pitched at emerging markets, the Duster made the practical SUV an accessible option for budget-minded drivers, with 2.45 million sold since its 2010 launch as a Dacia and 2012 Middle East introduction as a Renault.
Harking back to the old days when naturally aspirated engines produced raw horses with no help from forced induction trickery, came the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Now for some added performance, Porsche has released a GT3 RS Weissach Edition which slashes some weight off the 520 hp beast.
Walking into another model year, the 2019 Audi A4 sedan and Avant wagon get some discreet updates. The changes are just enough to give the fairly fresh design of the A4 some momentum as it moves on to another year.
Automobili Pininfarina has announced a new PF0 electric hypercar of their own, and they’re already saying they are targeting the Middle East and the UAE in particular.
Hot in the wake of its crazy Coupe brother, the Challenger, the 2019 Dodge Charger gets a facelift as well. The new lineup starts from the base SXT to the mental Hellcat. The available variants include the SXT, GT, SXT AWD, R/T, R/T Scat Pack and the Hellcat. With the upgraded Scat Pack, there seems to be no mention of a specific Charger SRT model, so we assume it is continuing without changes.
We haven’t been keeping up with updates on our 2007 Honda S2000 because we didn’t drive it much over the past 12 months (apparently less than 700 km as per the RTA inspection). But it had some major work done last year anyway, so the armchair accountants among you will surely be throwing the “cost per km” number at us as if it’s a taxi cab.
In recent times, Toyota is a name that is synonymous with econoboxes and workhorse vehicles that can run for a million miles with no hassles whatsoever. But this boring existence of the iconic Japanese brand once had an exciting past. There were Toyotas that set the pulses of enthusiasts racing once they hear its name. Remember the scene in the original Fast and Furious movie in which the late Paul Walker shows up with a totaled Supra and his garage junkie/techie kid goes “2JZ? No s***!”. That’s the sort of respect these Japanese rockets got from the petrolhead lot in those early times.