Most of you people aren’t even interested in Volvo. Neither were we. The only Volvo we drove previously was the XC60, which was technically advanced but dynamically underwhelming. Then we drove the all-new S60 2.0T recently. Stuck behind a slow Gulf News journalist on a track convoy, we didn’t get much out of that event. Now we got the S60 T6 for five days. And the car is phenomenal, hot damnit.
The 2010 Abu Dhabi International Motor Show is nearing its opening date. Set to run from the 7th to the 11th of December at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, it will be open to the public from 5 pm on the first day. Various new cars will be launched for the first time at the show, with tickets costing Dhs 20.
The 2012 Audi A6 has made an early debut in pictures, and is supposedly a fully redesigned model. Good luck spotting the new model when it hits GCC streets in a year though, because it looks like designers spent about 2 seconds photoshopping bits of the 2010 A4 and the 2011 A8 onto the existing A6 to come up with this design.
General Motors Middle East has announced that they will be revealed three new 4×4 models at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Motor Show, namely the 2011 GMC Acadia Denali trim package, the all-new 2011 GMC Terrain, and the facelifted 2011 Chevrolet Captiva.
It’s always nice when a manufacturer gives us a test car for a reasonable amount of time. Mazda gives cars for only a day. Porsche gives cars for a ridiculous 6 hours. And Aston Martin asks for your date of birth. So we boycotted those companies in terms of test-drive coverage. Ford is variable, depending on what’s available. The 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 seemed to be available. And they gave it to us for nearly a week.
The last time we drove an Audi A3, back in 2006, our review fumed the German firm’s Middle East office so much that they stopped all contact with us since then, choosing to ignore the brown guys with the cute little website. While the joke is on them now, it doesn’t change the fact that the A3 is a dynamically-challenged car. After years of sitting on the market, Audi finally sees it fit to release an RS 3 version of the hatchback.
For those not in the know, Skoda is a Czech brand owned by Volkswagen. Skoda does fine in Europe, selling variantions of VW platforms alongside Seat and Audi. But thanks to sub-standard dealers and all sorts of internal politics, the brand never took off in the UAE. Now a new dealer has taken over sales of Skoda in the UAE, and they are looking to move cars in a big way instead of playing second-fiddle to VW. To coincide with the launch of their Dubai showroom a couple of weeks ago, dealers Ali & Sons released the 2011 Skoda Superb 3.6,
Mercedes-Benz has issued a recall for brand new 2011 E-Class, M-Class, GL-Class, and R-Class models in the U.S. due to leaky fuel filters.
Hyundai has quietly revealed that they are developing a larger new 5.0-litre V8 to use in the Genesis and the Equus full-size sedans, and it looks like the new motor will potentially be the best in the market.
The Mini Mayfair is a “special edition” model that was released as a celebration of Mini’s 50th anniversary. From memory, the Mayfair was first shown at the Dubai Motor Show a year ago and this specific test car has been in circulation since summer, so it isn’t exactly new. It is the first Mini model we’ve driven that is fitted with the new-for-2010 direct-injection engine with an extra 12 hp, so it was worth a look, but since it is so similar to all the other Mini variants we’ve already driven, we’ll do a shorter “first drive” article later on,