So Diego, my PR guy, picked up this 2008 Honda Accord Coupe. Currently, the only American-built 2008 Coupes running around Dubai are these test cars, as the actual car goes on sale in March. He brought the car over to me, complaining about how painfully slow it is compared to the Altima V6. Read more… »

Holden, the Australian division of General Motors that gave us the Chevy Lumina SS and CSV CR8, have cooked up a new car based on the same underpinnings. To be shown at the Melbourne Auto Show today, the tentatively-named HSV Commodore W427 is a new super-expensive offering with the 505 hp Corvette Z06 engine. Read more… »

The 2009 Volkswagen Scirocco was supposed to be unveiled at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show this March, but photos of the new hatchback have already been leaked. While the car does not have the usual corporate grille design, poor VW doesn’t seem to understand that yet another similar car is going to cut into sales of their own Golf GTI, Seat Leon Cupra and Audi A3. Having a bunch of overlapping cars so similar to each other is what put them in financial trouble, among other things. Read more… »

Gulf News reported that Dubai police fined as many as 50 of their own employees for having dark tint on their personal cars that is above the legal tint level. By law, the tint should have 30% “darkness” at most, but cops themselves were freely flouting the law, so this is a good decision by higher police officials, emphasising that they should act as role models. Read more… »

GMC held a Ride & Drive event to let the press have a go with the latest GMC offerings. The drive was a road-trip from Dubai to Fujairah and back, involving no offroading. So I sent my support-monkey brother and his buddy on the trip, should anything exciting happen. The event was also supposed to showcase the all-new Terrain compact 4WD. Read more… »

Ford has pretty much confirmed that they’ve sold their Land Rover and Jaguar divisions as a package deal to Indian carmaker Tata. It is expected that US$ 2 billion will change hands, and the official announcement will be made at the beginning of March during the 2008 Geneva Auto Show. Read more… »

While dumb shows such as Pimp My Ride become repititive after five episodes, it inspired drink-maker Barbican’s Supe-up Your Ride promotion, which offered regional owners of crappy cars the chance to win a free refurbishment and customisation of their ride. During their 3-month promotion, visitors were asked to upload videos of their old beaters on clipatbarbican.com, and other site visitors voted on which ones should be customised. The winners included this R32-spec Nissan Skyline GTS. Read more… »

To be shown at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show, and probably reserved only for the hatchback-loving European market, Mitsubishi is going to show a “concept” hatchack version of the new Lancer. Seen here are leaked early images. Read more… »

While I was playing with the Nissan Altima, I had to send my support-monkey younger brother to pick up this Lincoln MKZ. This is our third Ford-owned vehicle this month, after the Jaguar XKR and the Ford Five Hundred. I haven’t stepped downstairs to look at the car yet, but for some reason, he is impressed by this vehicle, citing good acceleration, great exclusivity, and even better handling. Read more… »

Among car-related topics, there are two things popular with misguided “hip” young today - front-wheel-drive “sport” compacts, and the “sport” of drifting. But as enthusiastic as they are, cheap front-wheel-drive cars cannot drift, and cheap rear-wheel-drive drift cars are not commonly available. Or are they? This video shows that somewhat-driftable vehicles are as common than Coca Cola.

I’ve hardly driven our Nissan Altima 3.5 SE tester at this point, but right now it isn’t what I’d call “class-leading,” considering how noisy the tractor-like V6 engine sounds. Combine that with a CVT tranny, and the whole setup just feels a bit “off” in a car with sporting pretensions. Read more… »

The 2008 Geneva Auto Show is nearing, but Volvo jumped the gun and revealed their all-new XC60 compact 4WD softroader. Quite possibly based on some Ford platform, the 2009 XC60 is admittedly aiming for a small niche market among Volvo fanboys, if there is such a thing. Read more… »

Ford has redesigned their Australian-only Falcon, calling it the FG series. While it looks great, it really looks like more of a minor update on an outdated car. But with rear-wheel-drive and insanely powerful engine, who cares. Read more… »

When we last asked for a VW for a test drive, the PR guy mumbled something about the magazines getting priority. It pissed me off enough to ignore them for the next few months. We figured we’d ask them again anyway, and this time they replied with their misguided policies in writing:

While we appreciate your continued interest in test driving Volkswagen
vehicles, our test driving policy stipulates that priority is granted to
publications in the first degree due to the demand and availability of
the vehicles for such activities. We hope that you can understand our
reservations and look forward to continuing on updating you with
information from Volkswagen.

Well, that’s the end of that. I guess having more users per month than any of the local magazines is not enough if certain people still don’t know how to use the internet. Read more… »

The Abu Dhabi numberplate auction held on February 16 has set a new world record for selling the most expensive numberplate ever auctioned. Organised by Emirates Auction in association with Abu Dhabi police, the Code 5 plate numbered “1″ fetched Dhs 52.2 million. That’s about US$14.4 million for a numberplate. The plate is expected to adorn a luxury car that only costs a fraction of that amount. Read more… »

Ford will be pulling the wraps off its first crossover 4WD in Europe next month in Geneva. Based on a previous concept, the Kuga is what the GCC would’ve got here if that niche wasn’t filled in by the Escape. Read more… »

Based on the Lotus Elise, the Rinspeed sQuba concept, to be shown at the Geneva Auto Show soon, is an all-electric vehicle with three motors, one to drive the car on land and two to power a pair of screw-drives for underwater movement. These are aided by two Seabob jet-drives that “breathe” through rotating louvers mounted on the car’s fenders and appear to give the car its manoeuvrability underwater. Read more… »

The fiesty Ford Fiesta has been on sale in the GCC for a few years now. But it is so rare on the streets that few people around here even know that it exists. However, it is somewhat popular in Europe, and the 2009 all-new model is about to debut at the Geneva Auto Show soon. Read more… »

At The Supercar Show in Abu Dhabi, we got to check out the Antas GT Berlinetta in person. The specific car on display cost about 1 million Euros, which comes to around a whopping Dhs 5.4 million. Built by an Italian company called F&M, named after founders Walter Faralli & Luca Mazzanti, the Antas was easily the main attraction of the show. And while all the “cheap” Lamborghinis and Porsches were locked up with “Do Not Touch” stickers all over them, we got a chance to sit inside the Antas, invited by none other than founder Luca Mazzanti. Read more… »

The production-ready Toyota iQ will be shown for the first time at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show soon. Based on an earlier concept, details are still sketchy about this European-market car. Read more… »