First Drive

Toyota is very proud of the fact that the RAV4 started the “crossover” segment back in 1994, before these jacked-up cars were even known as “crossovers”. It took us the better part of a decade to accept these as legitimate options for consumers, considering their too-tall-to-handle and too-low-to-offroad market positioning, but several of these crossovers have actually moved on to become quite competent in their on-road dynamics, with useful all-weather capability to boot. The RAV4 has always been one of the better options in the market, but the older model had a few shortcomings which the new 2013 model addresses rather well.

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The Nissan Sunny is one vehicle that needs no introduction, as every driver would have driven one, mostly while learning how to drive, or during some phase of their lives where a bullock-cart and a Chevy Spark would have been the only other cheaper alternatives. Many wouldn’t have known the fact that Nissan had actually gone ahead and offered some variety in their Sunny models at one point, by bringing in a Japanese model, and another one made by the Apple-biting manufacturers from the Land of “Gangnam Style”. In fact, we were so mesmerised by the Korean pop number,

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It seems like just yesterday when we drove the Isuzu D-Max around a racetrack in Bahrain. In fact, it was just earlier this year. But that was the old model. What we drove this week was the new 2013 model, completely new in almost every possible way. But why would you be interested in a pickup review? Well, we took it around an autocross course as well as offroad.

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Fisker as a carmaker has a bit of a checkered past. The American company was co-founded by a former Danish car designer who penned certain BMW and Aston Martin sports cars a decade ago, and then started peddling rebodied BMW coupes under the Fisker banner back in 2005. In 2008, they came up with a concept electric car so ridiculous that no one thought it’d get any further than the auto-show floor. After missing various deadlines, taking government loans and beating a Tesla lawsuit, the Fisker Karma beat all odds by finally hitting production in the summer of 2011.

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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,

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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.

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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.

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The most anticipated cars in this region are always the cars that are near the top of the sales charts, and the Nissan Altima happens to be one of those. As the second-best-selling midsize sedan in the Gulf, the 2013 Nissan Altima is going to be all over the streets of Dubai by the end of this year, and with good reason. The new car has improved in all the right ways.

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When we got the call to come drive the “new” Rolls-Royce Phantom models in Dubai, I had to think hard to remember why they were calling them new models. Then it hit me that Rolls-Royce did launch “new” models of their Phantoms, if only with minor changes. The Phantom Series II may just be a facelift, but the new tech added brings the flagship up to modern standards.

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