UAE

We attended a press conference today at Yas Marina Rotana that marked the launch of the 2011 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the local desert rally event that attracts various international and local teams in a race across the inner sand dunes of the Emirates in cars, trucks and motorcycles. Highlights included overtaking a rally-modified Mini Countryman driving on the street, watching footage of previous races, and a hilarious episode where Mohammed Ben Sulayem jokingly got annoyed at being referred to as “MBS”.

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Abu Dhabi Motors, the dealer of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, has just opened the world’s largest Rolls-Royce showroom in the Umm Al Nar area of Abu Dhabi. It could be seen as a celebration of them being the biggest-selling Roll-sRoyce dealer in the Middle East and one of the top five dealers in the world, managing to sell more than a hundred cars last year for the first time.

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أعلنت “بريدجستون الشرق الأوسط وأفريقيا المنطقة الحرة” اليوم عن إطلاق “بوتنزا S001″ و”بوتنزا أدرينالين RE002” في أسواق الشرق الأوسط وأفريقيا. وتم تطوير هذين النموذجين الجديدين من الإطارات باستخدام أحدث التقنيات والتصاميم المبتكرة لتوفير تجربة قيادة رياضية ذات أبعاد جديدة لمالكي السيارات.

تعتبر “بوتنزا” الطراز المميز للإطارات الرياضية من “بريدجستون ” منذ عام 1979 منذ إطلاق الجيل الأول من إطارات “بوتنزا”، حيث أصبحت الخيار المفضل لهواة السباقات الرياضية ومالكي السيارات الرياضية. وقد أنشأت علامة “بريدجستون بوتنزا” انطلاقاً من الشغف بسباق السيارات، وطورتها “بريدجستون” لتلبي احتياجات التحكم في القيادة ضمن حلبات السباق والقيادة الرياضية. وبفضل تفوق منتجات “بريدجستون” وخبرتها في تقنيات السباقات، أصبحت هذه العلامة تمثل شريك الإطارات الرياضية لسلسلة من السباقات الرياضية المعروفة مثل “فورمولا وان”، و”جي بي 2″، و”سوبر جي تي”.

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Bridgestone Middle East & Africa FZE today announced the launch of the new POTENZA S001 and POTENZA Adrenalin RE002 in Middle East and Africa markets. These two new tyre models developed with the latest technologies and innovative design will enable car owners to experience a new dimension of sports driving.

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With a choice of three V8 engines, two of them supercharged, Jaguar apparently were not finding enough buyers for their all-new XJ flagship sedan in “developing” regions such as Russia, China and the Middle East. So as per “demand”, they’ve released a new base model with a 3.0-litre V6 just for these markets.

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After recently introducing the first “manufacturer-approved Japanese brand certified pre-owned program” for Nissan in the UAE, Arabian Automobiles has opened the UAE’s largest used cars facility in a media event held yesterday. The company is the sole dealer for Nissan, Infiniti, Renault, ZNA and MG in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, and they have chosen to get into the used car business in a big way with this 7000 square-metre facility.

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The AMG version of the 2012 Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe has debuted. We have to say, it doesn’t look as monstrous as the outgoing C-Class AMG model, but it will still have that insane 6.2-litre V8 engine.

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The last Porsche World Roadshow for the UAE was held two years ago at the Dubai Autodrome. It was a superb event for highlighting the entire Porsche line-up in one go. Seemingly open only to existing Porsche customers and us media types, it was a well-organised event that got us some wheel-time with the 2009 models. We haven’t driven any 911s or Cayennes in the past two years since then, simply because Porsche refuses to give us test cars for more than a few hours, but they did invite us to the 2011 edition of the Porsche World Roadshow,

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Inden Design has decided to make the 2011 Mercedes-Benz S500 to look more like the S65 AMG version. It’s probably because the price of the Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG is insanely high and this will offer consumers the same level of sporty looks but without the same level of oomph, not that we are saying this will be any cheaper. Performance is improved slightly, so it’s not all cosmetic.

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One of our regular readers, M. Hajooni, who usually drops all sorts of spy shots on this site taken by himself, just dropped an email to me with a picture of a 2011-2012 Nissan Patrol interior. The interesting bit is that the interior seems to have a manual gearbox.

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