His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the popular Ruler of Dubai who is also the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, has apparently become the first customer of the 2013 Range Rover in the world, after local dealer Al Tayer Motors delivered a white one and a black one to him recently.
Volkswagen recently held a mega event for media, dealer staff and fleet customers last week at the Yas Marina circuit to celebrate their best ever sales period in the Middle East, witnessing 22% growth for 2012 over last year. The event consisted of an overnight stay at the Yas Viceroy hotel with various activities the next morning, such as track time with the VW Scirocco, drag time with the VW Passat CC, and skid-pad time with the VW Golf GTI. Now, the problem with attending a mega event means that there is a lot of standing around doing nothing,
As I’m flying over Dubai and Sharjah towards Ras Al Khaimah in a Bell 412 crammed in with 13 other people, I am thinking that helicopter travel isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. The flight is noisy, tight and industrial, completely at odds with the “luxury” experience we were supposed to be having. But damn is it quick. We reached our destination in only 20 minutes, landing at the Banyan Tree resort at the northern tip of the Emirates, having enjoyed a great view and not feeling fatigued at all for the 2013 Lexus LS launch event.
When the Toyota 86 was launch earlier this year, Al Futtaim Motors had also announced their sponsorship of the Emirates Drifting Team, a UAE-based outfit that takes part in regional drifting events. While their main driver, Ahmed Al Amri, was using a Toyota Soarer earlier, he is now switching to this Toyota 86 now, although there isn’t much left of the original car any more.
The 2012 Infiniti FX50 Sebastian Vettel Edition was launched in the GCC this week, at an event in Dubai, coinciding with the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix. Additionally, there was an event held for potential customers to take a ride with Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel around the Al Forsan karting track in Abu Dhabi.
Toyota’s UAE dealer says that a government-owned Toyota Land Cruiser Pick-up has clocked nearly 1 million kilometres.
We held our sixth quick meet back before the start of summer. Direct invites went out to our meet regulars while a last-minute announcement about the meet was made in the MyRide forums, so that we could keep it a small affair where everybody gets to talk to everybody. It was again a great afternoon, as our Honda S2000 made its first public appearance, and we brought along a Lexus IS 300C and a Lexus GS 350 so our attendees could take a closer look at them, and even take them for a spin.
There isn’t much info attached to this photo released by the Dubai Police. It seems to show a heavily-modified GMC Suburban fit for almost military-grade use.
It’s not often that we get invited to Bentley’s events, but this was probably the most interesting one yet. We were given a tour of Bentley’s service workshop in Dubai, run by Al Habtoor Motors, the UAE dealer for the British brand. This 189,000 square-feet site in the middle of nowhere also happens to be the largest Bentley workshop in the world. They also opened a new dealership in Abu Dhabi, displaying the one-off Bentley EXP-9F 4×4 concept there as well.
In a move that no one expected, the Fisker Karma just became the first plug-in electric car to officially go on sale in the Middle East. Mitsubishi briefly thought about making an entry here with the i-MiEV, while Chevrolet has a couple of Volts running around Dubai since last year for so-called tests that never seem to end. But the upstart brand Fisker managed to come to market first, with a launch event held in the UAE.