The all-new 2012 Ford Explorer, technically a 2011 model, is now on sale in the UAE. The dealers have been quietly taking orders for the new crossover since some time now. And we are probably among the first media people in the UAE to take an unofficial look at it in the showroom.
We’re not on good terms with Mercedes-Benz any more for personal reasons (theirs, not ours), so we were sitting on these photos for a while, pondering whether they’ll try to get back at us using archaic local laws for taking photos of their prototype cars. After consulting our lawyers, we’re told these cars were in public view and reveal nothing, so we’re going ahead and showing you our own spy shots of what is now comfirmed to be the 2012 Mercedes-Benz B-Class.
FastFit, the name of Al Futtaim Motors’ new Express Tyre & Battery fitting centre, is apparently the UAE’s first company to install the fastest wheel aligner in the world, the 4D Master Aligner.
We never even touched the 350Z. We didn’t drive the 370Z Coupe either. And we never asked for the 370Z Roadster. However, we never say no when we get offered a car, so we took this Nissan drop-top you see here for a spin. Trouble is, with 16,000 km on the clock, everybody and their mother has already test-abused this car, so we’re guessing it wasn’t the most ideal representation of what a “Z” car is supposed to be.
We’d heard rumblings that Honda had a batch of 2012 Honda Civic sedans shipped to the UAE, but backed off from properly launching the new model due to the supply shortage after the Japanese earthquake. These cars apparently went on sale quietly, and one of our readers snagged these photos of the Civic at one of Honda’s dealerships in Dubai.
Our 2008 Mitsubishi Galant GTS is now in full service, being used as a daily commuter for the Dubai-Abu Dhabi-Dubai slog every evening by my brother. So we racked up 3,000 km in less than a week.
One of our readers in Dubai, Afaq Soomro, caught what he says could be the new Mercedes-Benz A-Class or more likely a B-Class. And we’d say he guessed right, considering camouflaged Mercedes-Benz cars in the UAE are a common sight and these test cars seem to be escorted by other Mercedes-Benz cars.
The 2010 BMW 535i Gran Turismo left us many months ago, after less than three weeks with us. We figured we should do a wrap-up article before closing the book on this car, especially since BMW themselves are considering ending production of this car for obvious reasons.
Geely is on a roll in the GCC region, it seems. Two test cars in light camo which were spotted by two commuters in Dubai on two different streets that lay fairly close by, turned out to be two different models from the same manufacturer, Geely. This one is the Emgrand EC825.
So I was driving along Garhoud Bridge in Dubai a few days ago, and a seemingly mid-size sedan bearing light camouflage caught my attention. Like any other car enthusiast I was eager to find out what it was and soon got involved in a brief chase with the unknown driver of the unknown car. Though the chase did not help me get a clue of what brand the car possibly belonged to, I succeeded in taking a few pictures of the car. And as it turned out, what I chased was a Geely Emgrand EC718.