In an interesting twist to Toyota’s latest recall, Honda has announced that it is recalling a total of 470,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to the same failing master cylinder problem that caused Toyota to recall 1.66 million vehicles worldwide a few days ago.
So we finally put our money where our mouth is and bought a car that we recommended as an Editor’s Choice more than a year ago. That car happened to be the 2009 Renault Safrane V6, a midsize sedan that is badged as a French Renault, built by Korean Samsung, and designed by Japanese Nissan. That last bit was crucial in coming to our decision, for the Safrane shares a platform with the Altima and the Maxima, with various key components that are purely Nissan items. As luck would have it, the Safrane is not a resounding success, which means buyers can pick up brand new 2009 leftovers at nicely-reduced prices straight from the dealer.
Toyota has announced yet another worldwide safety recall, now involving approximately 1.66 million vehicles around the globe, for leaky brakes.
We were directed to this documentary video by a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia. Keen-eyed observers will realise that it was made in the United States, but while it delves on many stereotypes, it is wholly inaccurate on two counts — Saudis don’t dress like that, and Saudis wouldn’t ever want an Audi.
Anyone who visited the 2010 Sharjah Auto Show last week would’ve got a look at the gaudy bodykitted Lexus LX570 at the “Invader” stand. The so-called Invader is a tuning and customisation programme for the Lexus 4×4 by Japanese tuners ASI. Who else besides the Japanese can come up with something this cheesy.
So General Motors went bankrupt, and part of its effort to save itself was to sell loss-making Saab to any schmuck who’d buy it. Spyker came along and bought it, so now they have a handful of new models with GM platforms that the General had pretty much finished developing before selling off the brand. Now the Swedish firm is debuting the new 2012 Saab 9-4X, based on the Cadillac SRX platform, at next month’s 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show.
Mitsubishi held its GCC launch event for their all-new 2011 ASX sub-compact crossover at the Dubai Autodrome racetrack a couple of weeks ago. To make things interesting, they even had a few 2010 Nissan Qashqai crossovers at hand for comparison. Incidentally, the Qashqai has been facelifted for 2011, though changes are minimal.
Fans of the Toyota Yaris have leaked Japanese brochure shots of the 2011-2012 model of the subcompact hatchback. And yes, there are fans of the Yaris.
The 2011 Infiniti M was launched earlier last week in the UAE, and displayed for the first time at the 2010 Sharjah Auto Show. Just before its launch, we asked for a test-drive whenever possible, and surprisingly got an answer that we can have it that same weekend. And so, here is a look at the GCC-spec Infiniti M56 for the first time ever.
Specs for the updated 2012 Nissan GT-R have hit the net, and it looks like the GT-R gets a power boost to go with that facelift, and a quicker ‘Ring time.