First the trend among German carmakers was to build “four-door coupes”. Now the trend seems to be “four-door coupe station-wagons”, or whatever the marketing people want to call them. Porsche has just unveiled a near-production concept of their upcoming Panamera Sport Turismo wagon.
Hyundai have officially launched the fully-redesigned 2013 Santa Fe in the UAE. While elsewhere, there are two variants – a 5-seater “Sport” model and a 7-seater long-wheelbase model — we here in the GCC are uniquely getting the smaller “Sport” variant this year first. Except that it won’t be called “Sport”, and they’ve actually stuffed seven seats into it too.
The Maserati GranTurismo is a pretty good-looking car and they know it. That’s why they plan to release yet another variant of the GranTurismo at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, the Maserati GranCabrio MC.
More details and pictures have been released of the 2013 Shelby GT500 Super Snake. Only 500 of these reptiles will be made.
Beware, motorists in Sharjah! Apparently reverse parking your car in a parking space can result in a Dhs 200 fine. Also Dubai Traffic Police plans to introduce new fines for motorists for several offences, including for wearing sunglasses at night.
Kia plans will bring the 2014 Pro-ceed, or “Pro_cee’d” as their marketing monkeys have dubbed it, and Hyundai will follow suit, bringing the 2014 3-door i30 to the 2012 Paris Motor Show. The cars will be unveiled at the company’s press conference on 27 September.
The all-new Peugeot 208 was launched at an event in the UAE. The Art Sawa Gallery in Dubai played host to the 2013 model that will replace the 207, which was apparently a great seller for Peugeot in the GCC.
In today’s bit of non-news, Audi has launched the latest version of their infinitely-boring Audi A3 Sportback. As expected, it looks like the old model with some new headlights photoshopped in.
The MINI Paceman, the coupe variant of the Countryman which is also the seventh member of the MINI family has finally made it’s web debut.
Mazda plans to launch the new face-lifted 2013 Mazda CX-9 at October’s Australian International Motorshow. The Japanese outfit have released a few pictures of the refreshed model.