Dubai

We snagged an invite to the 2013 edition of Jeep Jamboree Dubai in early January, a dealer-organised event open to all Jeep owners in the country. We went to the Jamboree a year go as well, all of it a desert drive with a dealer-provided five-door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, so we figured this year would be the same. But they threw a few surprises at us in the form of a mixed wadi-desert combination, that too with a smaller three-door Jeep Wrangler.

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The Big Boys Toys 2013 luxury lifestyle exhibition has kicked off in the UAE, being hosted at the Atlantis Hotel in Palm Jumeirah. At this year’s show, they are offering the “Supercar Test Drive Pit”, where visitors get the chance to drive 15 different supercars, ranging from brands such as the Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls Royce and Ferrari.

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Some people think Alfa Romeo isn’t sold in the GCC. But it is, and has been for decades now. They just seem to keep a low profile, even lower than Saab or Opel. But all that is set to change, as the global game of musical-chairs means that Fiat now owns Chrysler, and since Fiat already owns Alfa Romeo, Chrysler’s Middle East office will help support Alfa Romeo in our region. Which brings us to the day-long media event for the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and the Alfa Romeo MiTo that we took for a drive across the UAE, flanked by Chrysler,

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The Road and Transport Authority of Dubai has revealed that they’re testing CNG-powered cars as part of their fleet.

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I drove five new cars in the last two weeks. One of them is the all-new Nissan Sentra, handed to us before it’s even gone on sale in the UAE. It is always exciting to be among the first to test any new model, but this is simply an indirect replacement for the lowly Tiida sedan, so we had the lowest expectations from this one. We don’t like economy cars much. And we especially didn’t feel like driving anything built in Thailand. But the Sentra turned out to be the biggest surprise of this month, and quite possibly, the best car in its segment for the price.

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Korean carmaker Kia needs no introduction, as the masses already know them as a brand that has transformed from virtually nothing into a fairly strong game-changing contender in almost all of the hotly-contested car segments, all in a surprisingly short span of time. In recent months, Kia has been rolling out several new models, and their latest offering is the all-new 2014 Kia Cerato, which was officially launched at a media test-drive event in Dubai.

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The 2013 Honda Accord just had its GCC launch at an event in Dubai. The UAE played host to the debut of both the sedan and coupe models, and it was interesting to see that the Middle East version actually got its own unique mechanical specifications, based on consumer sensibilities here.

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The Road & Transport Authority in Dubai has announced that CARS garage will now offer annual vehicle testing and registration renewal services.

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British sports-car maker Aston Martin started off their centenary celebrations in Dubai itself, with an event at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai.

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Toyota is very proud of the fact that the RAV4 started the “crossover” segment back in 1994, before these jacked-up cars were even known as “crossovers”. It took us the better part of a decade to accept these as legitimate options for consumers, considering their too-tall-to-handle and too-low-to-offroad market positioning, but several of these crossovers have actually moved on to become quite competent in their on-road dynamics, with useful all-weather capability to boot. The RAV4 has always been one of the better options in the market, but the older model had a few shortcomings which the new 2013 model addresses rather well.

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