23 Jun 2008
The Ultimate Car Buyer Guide is here
After 3 months of development, 2 months of painstaking research and data-entry, and a month designing and cleaning up the look, my ultra-exclusive, never-before-seen-in-the-region Ultimate Car Buyer Guide is finally ready to hit the public airwaves! I’ll be cleaning up the look some more over the rest of this week, but basically, every car now gets its own page, which means it becomes possible to add more info for each car in the future if time permits. Also, it is much quicker to update, and older models do not disappear any more. Be sure to check out the surprising reliability data for some of the cars, including the last-generation Chevy Lumina, the current-generation Kia Optima, and any-generation Volkswagen Golf. It’s so surprising that you’d think I’m lying, so do your own research too!
I’d like to thank my friend Imran, who runs a web-dev firm called AQL, for programming the complicated back-end for the Ultimate Car Buyer Guide absolutely free. Also coming up this week is a Classifieds section, a Car Comparison feature, and a brand new homepage, all being done on my own time during my self-imposed break from test-driving.
I’d like to thank AutoMiddleEast for declaring “war” on me and giving me the inspiration to complete this project exactly one month earlier than I anticipated. Even hacker attacks and lack of sponsors aren’t enough to slow me down.
by Imran, on June 23 2008 @ 2:00 pm
MashAllah! Happy abt the new guide. All the best! kEEP Up the good Work!
by Boris(K-sport), on June 23 2008 @ 3:15 pm
Nice one. I just went through the Mohave part in the new CBG. In the Good/Bad row, ‘fuel economy’ is in the ‘bad’ row. Its mileage is actually class leading. Better than ex-best fuel economy SUV, Tahoe.
by Saad Bashar, on June 23 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Nice going Mash…and with the number of viewers of this site increasing,the magazine will have to look for other subjects than cars.
Keep it up
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on June 23 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Still a work in progress. Boris, the Mohave is a midsize while the Tahoe is a fullsize. Either way, I usually add fuel economy as a negative for factory figures close to 13 l/100, unless I forget.
by Don Raj, on June 23 2008 @ 5:42 pm
good work man….
by Don Raj, on June 23 2008 @ 5:44 pm
in the picture tyre smoke luks fake…….any alteration done to it?
by infiniti must die, on June 23 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Imran, Where is your perfect 0 to100km in 6 sec.corrolla? just let mash to test it
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on June 23 2008 @ 6:10 pm
I will work on the smoke more.
Imran still has his 6-second Corolla. He uses its power to run away from RTA inspectors who try to fine him for giving free lifts.
by Mohammad Kamil, on June 23 2008 @ 6:10 pm
Mash Im sure Wheels magazine must be breathing a lot easier now that they’ve got ur guide to copy from….The bloody cheaters practically plagiarised their prices section from this site!!!
by Don Raj, on June 23 2008 @ 6:21 pm
free lifts and fines?isnt that legal……and what is with 6 sec 0-100 corolla ….?
by thatsit(mohamad), on June 23 2008 @ 7:34 pm
^^^^^
hahahaaha
mashallah mash at the end …. enshallah your website will be the best in region among the others…am waiting for the latest update
goooooooooooooooooood job
by rlasrado, on June 24 2008 @ 11:35 am
Congrats mashy.All the best. Will run through the site and give ya some constructive criticism.
by Bashar Dahdah, on June 24 2008 @ 7:18 pm
Very nice!!! I’m impressed mash…love the use of AJAX tabbed iframes
just one thing though…increase the time between each tab - its too fast atm.
glad to see caprice top of the reliability list woohoo
looks great! the use of more than one production year is awesome.
one more suggestion though: when browsing…lets say nissan, and you open the 2005 sunny page; let there be links to sunny of other years, or even other nissan cars. might be hard, but laziness is a way of life!
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on June 24 2008 @ 9:20 pm
AJAX? Is that what it’s called? I can make the times longer. There is a brand drop-down list at the top of each car page, under the title. That’s all you’re gonna get, buddy, because I didn’t program those pages! My web-developer friend doesn’t like working for free, which is what he did for the guide.
by Bashar Dahdah, on June 24 2008 @ 10:52 pm
np
by Don Raj, on June 25 2008 @ 6:15 pm
Suggestion:dude why not try a different background colour for the site…….other than this pure white to some dark colours which would defntly help in saving energy.
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on June 25 2008 @ 7:46 pm
Studies have shown that white is best. No kidding.
by assassin, on June 26 2008 @ 12:35 am
happy birthday..man
And your web-refresh is good.
But the web starts to be a little bit slower than before
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on June 26 2008 @ 11:01 am
Not sure about speed issue. My internet connection is always awful, but I hear from people it is still a very fast site. Not my birthday, by the way. I finished one month early!
by Muhammad Talha, on July 23 2008 @ 11:52 am
Really really good update on the site…!! everything is just awesome! by far the best car website for the Middle East… in fact i think its the ONLY car website for the middle east. the other websites are just phonies copying articles from european test drives. keep up the good work man… love the original content on drivearabia!!
how about allowing user generated content.. as in let viewers add their opinions about cars… u know just like the comments section under every blog entry u can have a comments section under ever car review page.
by Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury, on July 23 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Yeah, thought about that already. Technical challenges prevent that feature for now. It was hard enough getting free programming done for the new guide. I can only do page design, basic coding, graphics, data entry and research.
