The Lincoln Nautilus is basically the facelifted version of the outgoing MKX. As the Ford-owned American luxury brand steers clear of the ill-conceived “MK-whatever” naming convention that was introduced just a decade ago, proper names are back on the tailgates of Lincoln models, all of which are now taking design cues introduced on the flagship Continental sedan and made familiar with the new Navigator.
We went for a quick drive in the all-new 2020 Ford Explorer before its launch in the Middle East. This one is a RWD hybrid model, but there are more variants on the way.
Firstly, my genuine apology to readers out there who have been eager to hear further updates on my 86. Some have poked me a few times via comments on my previous articles and finally gave up, but work life and other commitments held me back from drafting an update.
The midsize sedan segment is a competitive one dominated by the Japanese. But Chevrolet has had a competent entry for a few years now that hasn’t gained traction, even with competitive pricing. The current Malibu garnered a decent review from us when it was launched in late 2016, but then the well-known Japanese trio all got redesigns as well, raising the bar for what a midsize sedan can offer. The Korean-built Malibu received a quiet facelift for 2019 though, along with a new engine that’s a huge improvement.
Our Jaguar XK never had a fair shot in this market. While the car is perceived to be a modern classic in the United States and Europe, it had a weird reputation here — a mix between expensively unreliable, driven only by old British men, and expensive enough to get a ton of road respect.
We drove the updated 2020 Nissan Patrol around the UAE and found out what has changed, and whether the positive traits of the old one has been retained.
Fiat-Chrysler has a notorious reputation when it comes to reliability and build quality. But right off the bat, we’ll be the first ones to say that we highly recommend the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger twins, and everyone who bought one after reading our reviews are very content. We’ve had our Chrysler 300 SRT for almost 3 years now. The car has been mechanically and electrically reliable for the most part, except for one nagging issue that no amount of warranty work is solving — the same small bits of interior trim keep falling off, again and again, twice every summer.
The last generation of the Jaguar had a massive factory problem. One of several electronic control modules on the HID headlights used to keep shorting out in some way or the other every time there was some sort of power surge, such as when your battery dies or sometimes even randomly, maybe once every two years. This used to cause the auto-levelling function to go stupid, making the headlights point permanently downwards even though they are perfectly working fine otherwise (while flashing a warning light in your gauge cluster permanently as well). Oddly enough, the warning light was for the turning-headlights feature,
A complete mental recalibration is called for. This is just the first three-quarter-throttle squirt out of the pitlane and onto the front straight of the Dubai Autodrome, yet it’s already evident the forward thrust being served up here is on the gob-smacking end of the scale. It feels as though I’ve been implanted in a movie that’s playing in fast forward, and the grey matter is still trying to comprehend this madness.
It’s not often that the launch of a new car is held in the basement. But there we were, in the underground parking lot of the Ford Middle East HQ, getting an exclusive walk-around of the all-new 2020 Explorer. Only two US-spec pre-production cars are in the country at the moment, in Hybrid trim, and we were among the first journos to get a look at them.