Our 2008 Mitsubishi Galant GTS got a send-off last week, after having spent just under 2 years with us. Our fleet of four cars needed to be trimmed down, so it had to go. We find it rather unbelievable that so few people contacted us when the “for sale” advert went up, compared to the eleventy-million calls we got when we sold our 15-year-old Toyota Corolla.
One of the comments we keep hearing from the general public is how the Toyota Avalon should now be redundant, considering there is the Toyota Aurion on one end and the Lexus ES on the other end. We, for one, believe that it does have a spot in Toyota’s line-up, and that is to fit exactly between those two aforementioned cars, both in terms of price and size. It’s not rocket science to figure that out. Incidentally, Toyota shipped in their chief engineer for the Toyota Avalon to Dubai straight from the United States to talk to the press about the car.
Nissan’s UAE dealer, Arabian Automobiles, reports that sales of the Nissan 370Z have increased by “750%” after its “repositioning” in the market this year in terms of price. That’s basically a roundabout way of admitting they had overpriced the car to Porsche Cayman levels for the past several years, and have now brought it down to realistic levels after following the Toyota 86’s lead.
Alfa Romeo isn’t exactly a very popular brand in the GCC. But it should be, now that the Giulietta’s appeared in Fast & Furious 6 as the car that took down a cargo plane on the world’s longest runway. Incidentally, we took the car for a run just a week before the premiere of that movie in Dubai, which we attended courtesy of tickets from Chrysler-Fiat.
The parade of fancy cars from Dubai Police hasn’t ended yet, as uncredited photos have emerged of a BMW 6-Series and a Ford Mustang, in full police livery.
The 2013 editions of the venerable Honda Civic and Honda Accord are pretty darn good cars in their segments, and used to be big sellers in the UAE. But more recently, Honda’s sales plummeted in this country thanks to dealer pricing that kept pitching them against Volkswagens rather than Toyotas, while the Koreans were all too happy to take away their customers as well. It seems Honda Middle East has managed to twist enough arms on the ground, as we’ve just received word that prices of several models have been revised, most of them downwards by a large margin.
The Dubai Police chief has issued a warning for all motorists to refrain from playing loud music in residential areas or face getting their vehicles confiscated permanently.
A couple of new cars were launched in the last few weeks and a couple of cars will be launched in the coming few weeks, almost all fresh nameplates for the GCC, and all revealed at events in the UAE.
The Bentley Continental GT is among our most favourite cars we’ve ever driven. It looks great, drives great, and offers just the right amount of balance between performance, practicality and flamboyance. Of course, none of that will ever justify its apartment-sized price-tag, but there’s a lot to like about it. And in GT Speed trim, there’s a lot more to like about it.
As if the Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari FF cop cars weren’t enough, Dubai Police has gone ahead and added an Aston Martin One-77 to their fleet. Also seen in full police livery are a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG as well as a Bentley Continental GT.