Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury

Renault Middle East is quietly celebrating their own little milestone in the region, selling more cars than ever this quarter and achieving their highest ever GCC market share. Granted, it’s only at 1.5% now, but there is cause to celebrate. Despite a decline in the region’s overall market, Renault Middle East actually managed a 0.29% increase in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the same period last year. We sat down with Marwan Haidamous, Managing Director of Renault Middle East, for a chat on this as well as future products.

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Chinese cars have still not hit their stride in the UAE, even as they are gaining acceptance in a few other GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia. Truth be told, they’re starting to become world-class now, and among the best Chinese brands right now is MG. As much as Chinese onwers SAIC are trying to push it as a British brand, MG has truly moved on from their heyday as a performance carmaker draped in the Union Jack. The latest MG line-up consists of economy cars and crossovers. This MG ZS here is their smallest crossover offering.

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We just attended a launch event at the Dubai Autodrome, although the car we were there to drive doesn’t really belong on a track . There is a new Kia Cerato in town for the 2019 model year, building on the best qualities of the previous model.

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This photo was sent to us by reader Mirza Baig back in December 2017. Back then, it was unclear what this mystery crossover could be. It was confusing to pinpoint what it was, because VW is busy launching a barrage of crossovers, from the Teramont to the T-Roc, with the Tiguan and the Touareg in between. But in March, Volkswagen also showed a model called the VW Atlas Cross Sport Concept, which is essentially what the prototype hot-weather testing in Dubai looks like.

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Hard to believe, but our 2008 Jaguar XK is a decade old now. I’d say we’ve kept it cleaner than most, even though we simply park it outside all the time and service it once a year. Real premium cars (not the rebadged stuff from mainstream carmakers) are generally built with better materials, so they last longer in terms of trim and leather (but not always mechanically). However, our Jag needed a bit of care to keep it looking fresh.

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We attended the inaugurations of new showrooms for three different brands in the UAE over the past couple of weeks.

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Building a luxury car brand is hard. It’s even harder when you’re trying to reinvent an existing brand as a luxury contender. Volvo used to be a purveyor of safe automobiles, slightly premium in price due to their Swedish sourcing. Some thought that the Chinese buying out the carmaker would be a bad thing. But things couldn’t be better once Volvo left previous-keeper Ford’s shadow. Starting with the all-new XC90 a few years ago, Volvo’s offerings have become premium enough to compete with the best that Germany has to offer. When it was first launched here though, the XC90 only came in T6 guise,

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