Growing up in Dubai, my memory suggests that the Toyota Crown was cancelled in the UAE by the early ’90s with the arrival of Lexus. However, the Crown soldiered on in its Japanese home market, where it continues to be on sale, competing with their own Lexus LS for conservative fat-cat customers. The fifth-generation Crown Majesta happens to be Toyota’s flagship in Japan.
The 1950s Mercedes-Benz 300SL, better known as the Gullwing Merc, has to be the coolest Benz ever created. For those bored with the SLR, the SL or even the upcoming SLS, the Gullwing has been recreated by an aftermarket firm in Germany, but with modern technology under the skin.
The most famous launch at the recent 2009 Shanghai Auto Show was the Geely GE, a car so blatantly derivative of its source material that Rolls Royce considered suing the Chinese company for copyright infringement.
The 2010 Chevrolet Camaro has barely been released in the United States, and already it has been hit by a factory recall. It is a problem that causes the V8-powered Camaro SS to shut down, and a few American owners have experienced it. The issue is a battery cable that runs from the boot. Its insulation wears off from rubbing up against the starter and eventually causes a short, which ultimately causes the car itself to shut down.
Italian auto design firm Stile Bertone, now under the creative direction of former Pininfarina designer Jason Castriota, revealed their much-hyped new supercar called Project M, which turned out to be nothing more than a rebodied Chevy Corvette ZR1, calling it the Bertone Mantide.
German tuner PPI Automotive Design GmbH, who unfortunately only modify unfortunate models from Audi, has created their own fully-built supercar from the Audi R8, calling it the PPI Razor GTR.
Ford is now offering a new Sport trim level in Europe that will be available on the three-door models equipped with the 96 hp 1.4-litre and 120 hp 1.6-litre petrol engines as well as with the 90 hp 1.6-litre TDCi turbo diesel.
In all honesty, we have never driven the new “improved” Cadillac CTS. We kept asking for one, only to either be given something else or altogether forgotten. Now we will never get to drive one, because GM is going bankrupt and they have stopped giving out test-drive cars already. Even then, American tuner Hennessey may have figured that even the latest CTS-V is lacking in certain departments, and is offering performance packages to boost power to insane levels.
G-POWER, known for creating pointlessly fast variants of BMW models, have now introduced the G-Power M6 HURRICANE CS, possibly the fastest BMW ever.
Toyota recently announced the 2010 Toyota Land Cruiser is going to get a new engine and transmission option, retiring the long-running 4.7-litre V8 to replace it with a Lexus-derived 4.6-litre V8. The upgrade is only for the Japanese-market model currently but may spread to GCC and other markets later.