A lot can be said about the epic Hummer H2 on the rocks and in the desert. But what about inside the city? How the heck can those tiny men and big women owning these things manage on a daily basis? We finally found out, thanks to GM lending us their tank for four days. Read more… »

I have been regularly poking fun at the Hummer H2 almost since the early days of this website. So it came as a bit of a surprise that, during my never-ending vacation from testing cars, I got a call from GM asking if I’d like to test the updated Hummer H2. In traditional hypocritical Dubai fashion, I said yes. Read more… »

Our main product partner, Yellow Hat, provided us with a choice of 3M tints to be installed on our benchmark BMW M Roadster. We’ve had the tint on our car for about two months now, and the summer has been getting hotter. Read more… »

Imagine working for free, with one hand tied behind your back. That’s what I’m having to do right now, thanks to the local monopoly internet provider reducing my productivity with their slower-than-dialup broadband net speeds. Their stupid internet slows down to a crawl in the afternoon and at certain times in the evening. But I still managed to add an all-new feature to the Ultimate Car Buyer Guide — crash-test safety ratings. Once I figured out the code, and how to implement it efficiently, it took me only a little more than 2 days to manually enter the data. So now you can see basic crash safety ratings for most popular models, as tested by the American NHTSA and the Euro NCAP, right on the individual car pages. Read more… »

So a few weeks ago, the staff manning the front desks at the Immigration department made my father run around different counters over two days as he tried to get a residence visa for my college-going brother, since the clerks were on a power-trip and kept asking for random bits of unneeded paperwork, which in the end were discarded without being checked. Incidentally, a few days ago, while dropping my mother off at the airport, I argued with red-shirted staff as they weren’t letting me pull my mother’s heavy suitcase up till the first x-ray scanner (much before the actual check-in counters, and flying by Emirates no less), and they weren’t ready to help her pull it either, trying to kick me out of the building instead. Then a non-uniformed “official” with a walkie-talkie even threatened to call the cops on me if I didn’t come back out again after I convinced them to let me go. Right after that, a different set of red-shirted losers kept trying to kick me out when I was trying to buy a Pepsi. Anyway, I was recently contacted by Land Rover and they said an LR2 was ready for me today. What does a Land Rover have to do with my ranting? Absolutely nothing, except that it is nice to be respected around here sometimes. Read more… »

Now that our old guide has been officially given a decent burial, our new Ultimate Car Buyer Guide has firmly taken over as the region’s best automotive resource. I might be tooting my own horn, but please direct me to a better source if there is one, so I can copy stuff off it, because personally researching all this information is a real pain. If you missed the latest cars that were added during the launch of our new guide, they are listed below. Also, if you have any older cars in mind which you’d like to see added to the ever-growing guide, post it in the comments section.

Hyundai - i10, Sonata, H1 …bet you didn’t know these existed
Audi - A4, A5, R8 …finally the German Cherys get their own page
Mercedes-Benz - CLC-Class …haven’t we seen this somewhere before
Kia - Mohave …tossers didn’t invite us to the launch event
BMW - 1-series Coupe …so ugly they slashed Dhs 25k off the price now
VW - Tiguan …the sleep-inducing “GTI of SUVs,” as marketers like to call it Read more… »

I was pissed when my PR dodo told me he arranged a test-drive during my self-imposed break from road tests. It didn’t help matters when he said the only car he managed to get was a Ford Focus. I went and picked it up today, with a minor confusion as Ford and Jaguar/Land Rover are separating their offices, for obvious reasons. On top of that, the tester turned out to be the 1.6-litre version, instead of the larger-engined one. However, it is in Ghia trim, with upgraded 16-inch wheels and 205/55 tyres. After taking it away and pulling it through some corners, it just confirmed my previous beliefs — that the Focus has the best ride/handling balance in the history of compact economy cars. Read more… »

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! Read more… »

It is a bit obvious that updates to this website have been sparse over the last couple of weeks. Truth is I’ve been working on new additions to the website. The updates below will be the last for the current New Car Buyer Guide. Because I have been working on a new version of the guide since March. To be called the Ultimate Car Buyer Guide, it will include some interesting new information. Also coming are a car comparison feature to see various specs side-by-side for a couple of cars, but it is very simple, so don’t hold your breath. Additional changes will include moving the Future Preview section into the blog, an all-new Classifieds section, and a new homepage layout. Although I might launch earlier, my self-imposed deadline is on my upcoming birthday. Now you only have to figure out when that is.

Maserati - GranTurismo
Volvo - XC70
Kia - Picanto
Mercedes-Benz - SL-Class
Read more… »

One of our readers, Mohamad, pointed us to a thread at nissan-arabia.com, showcasing photos of a consignment of seven American-spec 2008 Nissan GT-R models which have made their way to Abu Dhabi for local customers who can’t wait till next year’s release of a GCC-spec version. The same reader also spotted a GT-R at a Nissan workshop in Dubai, probably used for technician training. Yet another reader, Don, spotted the all-new 2009 Nissan Maxima trundling around at a freezone in Dubai, which is the first real confirmation that the new Maxima is indeed coming to the GCC. Read more… »

The week when we picked up our first Infiniti EX35, we also drove a Honda Accord, a Jaguar XF and a CSV CR8, while also covering the Yellow Hat tint install on our BMW M Roadster — a hectic week for sure. I didn’t spend too much time going over the EX35’s features after measuring its performance figures. So we asked for an EX35 again, before I take a break from testing any more cars for a while. This second greyish EX35 is actually a different car than our previous silver tester, but all else was the same, except this one came with the navigation DVD. Read more… »

If you are interested in taking dynamic photos and videos of your moving car while on the move, instead of having your buddy hang out the window of another car, the better option is to invest in a car camera mount. Car camera mounts are not available at all locally, and have to be ordered from abroad through the internet. Prices range from US$ 50 (Dhs 184) to thousands of dollars for the big ones used in movies, plus shipping. But after extensive searching, we found this unbranded possibly-homemade one on Ebay.com for US$ 25 (Dhs 92), plus shipping from America for US$ 32, for a total of around Dhs 200. And it works fine in most cases. Read more… »

I usually don’t bother responding to racist jerks who send me insulting comments while assuming that I am “Indian.” I am a Muslim first, but I am also a Bangladeshi, and I won’t deny my heritage if asked. The forward-thinking nation of Bahrain has banned issuing work visas to all 90,000 Bangladeshis in the country, because one of them murdered a Bahraini a few weeks ago, and another killed a woman last year. Since we are such serial killers, this probably means I will not be able to go to the Bahrain F1, or any manufacturer events that might be held there, even if I wanted to. Read more… »

I’m not too familiar with Peugeot’s various engine offerings any more, especially since Peugeot’s local reps have always been unenthusiastic in dealing with us specifically. However, we recently gave them a call and asked for a 407 Coupe again. The last time we asked for it, it was in 2006, and it got postponed 4 times, so we moved on. Looks like it went missing again. We got a 308 instead, but we’re not complaining. Read more… »

Okay, so it is impossible to compare a Honda Accord V6 with a Jaguar XF V8. But both are midsize sedans, both are redefining their genres and both happened to be parked under my place at the same time. So why not? Read more… »

This week is turning out to be hectic. After returning the CSV CR8, we drove to a GM/RTA press conference halfway across Dubai in evening traffic in my manual BMW, only to find out it was cancelled and no one told us. Wasting the whole of yesterday night, we had to wake up early today and run around town to pick up two cars. One is the long-awaited Honda Accord V6, and the other is the exquisite Jaguar XF. Read more… »

We never get any invites to Mercedes-Benz car launches, and haven’t had any test-drive cars made available to us in years. However, their commercial vehicles division operates independently, and they invited us out-of-the-blue to the local launch of the Sprinter workvan. What caught our attention was the venue — Dubai Autodrome. We just had to go to this one. Read more… »

We spent the entire morning today at the Dubai Autodrome, driving around in the most unusual vehicle, at a German manufacturer’s launch event. But we will talk about that drive later, because we came home to have a new unrelated test-drive car delivered to our doorstep. And that new tester is the CSV CR8, which belongs at the track, but just to clarify, it’s not the car we drove at the track. As tired as I am, I took the CR8 for a 2-minute spin before typing out this note. And I am already sold on it. It is the most pleasurable driver’s car I’ve had the opportunity of piloting in the past year. Notice that I skipped over the Corvette ZO6, the Continental GT and even over the new Mini. It is that much easy fun. Read more… »

I’m just guessing, but this is probably the first Middle East report you’ll see of the 2009 Infiniti EX35, considering all the rags seem busy with the G37 Coupe. Due to tight scheduling competition with all the magazines, we only managed to snag it for 2 random days, but this also happens to be a very busy week for me, so testing was done hurriedly. We’re going to try to get it again later, assuming my moronic PR guy (who probably won’t read this) doesn’t try to aim for a hard-to-get weekend date to show off this car to his weekend date. Read more… »

Another rundown of the updates to the New Car Buyer Guide over the past two months. I continue to get some flak for incorrect prices, but then again, I make pocket-change for doing what little I do anyway. As usual, if you cannot see the updates in Internet Explorer, hold CTRL and click on REFRESH in your browser while cursing your internet provider.

Bentley - Arnage
BMW - X6
Chrysler - Grand Voyager
GMC - Terrain, Sierra 1500
Infiniti - G37 Coupe, EX35, M35
Jaguar - XF
Jeep - Cherokee, Grand Cherokee
Lexus - LX 570
Mercedes-Benz - M-class
Mini - Clubman
Porsche - GT2
Saab - 9-3

Read more… »