Truth be told, we’ve become a bit bored with super-sedans nowadays. They look like their cheaper brethren, with a few subtle styling tweaks that only nerds notice, while packing a big motor whose power you cannot use anywhere legally. Big deal. We like the way Jaguar did it though — the XFR-S styling tweaks are a little more aggressive than the norm, while the motor makes all sorts of real supercar noises, even when parked. Eat your heart out, BMW.
Opel has a relatively non-existent rep in the GCC. Their cars have been available here on-and-off for decades now, but they had recently disappeared for a few years in between. Now that the brand is back, with no support from parent-company General Motors, they face an uphill battle to re-establish themselves in the fickle UAE car market. We’d say the best part of their re-emergence is that they brought over the entire OPC line of models, including this Insignia OPC sports sedan.
This dark-orange Opel Corsa OPC has been doing the rounds of local media since the beginning of this year. It is the Nurburgring edition, apparently making it very exclusive. And being a manual, it will be even more of a rare sight here.
Who would’ve thought that, 3 years ago when the Range Rover Evoque debuted, it was a sign of things to come, as the new face of Range Rover. Could it be that the Evoque is now the new “original” Range Rover? Anyway, our last experience with the Evoque wasn’t very satisfying, with its lethargic drivetrain and non-adjustable suspension in the mid-range version we drove. So we asked for it again, and this time, it’s equipped with a new 9-speed automatic and dynamic suspension.
Truth be told, I like this car. I’ve liked it ever since I saw photos of it a year ago. Yes, it’s been around that long in South-East Asia while we were still seeing that generic Japanese-built one around here. This new one’s built in Thailand, but from what we saw, that hasn’t made an ounce of difference in quality — it feels just as cheap as the Japanese one.
The first time I drove the Toyota FJ Cruiser, it was late 2007, I was only 6 months out of college, I owned a 1990 junker, this site was still growing, and I was barely getting any invites to automotive media events. Fast-forward to 2014, and I’m married, I own three cars, the site is a successful behemoth…and I’m still barely getting any invites to automotive media events. That’s how long the FJ has been around. But I digress. The Missus just got her driving licence after a month of lessons, and a manual one at that. As with any noob driver,
The Honda City has always held an odd spot in the market, too expensive to compete with other sub-compacts and too small to compete with larger compacts. But the all-new 2014 model has undergone a radical transformation, and it can finally justify its price now.
The Jeep Cherokee has always been boxy and upright ever since its debut in the 1980s. It wasn’t considered beautiful, but nobody called it ugly either. The new-for-2014 Cherokee however, is as controversial as it gets, designed to illicit a response, no matter what it may be.
This is it. The car that melds your muscle-car fantasies with your practicality needs. The 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT is expensive, but with performance that keeps up with all sorts of overpriced German SUVs, it’s a relative bargain.
The other day I had the misfortune of coming across a self-aggrandising comics-worshipping nincompoop who ran his own video-game blog that no one ever heard of, jabbering about which cars are good and which aren’t, because of his vast experience with Playstation racing games and taking “selfies” with other people’s cars. I generally walk away from pointless arguments with “progressive” hipsters nowadays, but if I had told this armchair-racing expert that the Bentley Continental GT V8 S is better than the much pricier GT Speed model, he’d have a hissy fit!