A day’s worth of travelling and transit flights brought us to the little town of Verbier in Switzerland, which, for the time being, had become overrun with all-new 2016 Audi Q7 midsize luxo-crossovers, as we were hosted at this sleepy skiing village for the international media-drive event. The Q7 is a big deal for Audi, as their best-seller has finally undergone a complete re-engineering after almost a decade unchanged.
Does an SUV belong on a racetrack? There are several German brands trying to answer that question, but their offerings are so compromised in the pursuit of Nurburgring lap records that they hardly qualify as SUVs. And then there’s the new 2015 Range Rover Sport SVR, which set its own ‘Ring record for SUVs, however briefly it held. The difference between the SVR and other super-SUVs is that it can still go offroad. We drove one of these battering rams at a media event in New York last month.
The Audi A6 has received a facelift for the 2016 model year, along with a few engine upgrades. The current generation has been around since 2012, and with the latest changes from the design department at the four-ringed German manufacturer, they have managed to make an already decent-looking midsize sedan even better. We had a long drive mapped out for us from Dubai to Ras Al-Khaimah, giving us some time to get accustomed to the new A6.
Well, is it better than the 3-Series? Let’s get rid of that obvious cliched question first. We don’t know if the all-new 2016 Jaguar XE is better, but it is certainly equal to BMW’s often-mentioned benchmark, at least when it comes to the driving factor. We had to slum it out all the way in Navarra, Spain to figure that out.
Some say it’s blasphemous to have a Ford Mustang with anything less than a V8. And yet, most of the Mustangs running around the UAE are of the V6 variety. True, the V6 used to be a joke, but it has held its own in the performance stakes for a good while now, easily matching up with older V8 versions of the Mustang. And now, with 2015 bringing us an all-new “modern” Mustang, there is a 4-cylinder offering as well, and it even costs more than the V6. Blasphemy!
“I. Am. Invincible!!!!!” That’s what I was shouting when, yet again, we accepted an invitation to the annual Jeep Jamboree back in December, and came out of it alive and in one piece. This year’s event was murder, to the point where about 99% of the participants came in with just Wranglers, whereas previous events have had a mix of Cherokees and Grand Cherokees as well. The course was that tough. And we were provided with a bone-stock 2015 Jeep Wrangler Sahara by the local dealer in Dubai.
The Cadillac ATS sedan that was launched a couple of years ago was the General’s answer to the BMW 3-Series. And at least in terms of chassis dynamics, it had succeeded. Now there’s a coupe version. We briefly took one for a spin recently.
Al Futtaim Motors just celebrated their 60th anniversary this week. That’s right, the UAE’s sole Toyota distributor has been at it for more than half a century, so it’s a bit of a surprise that they’re doing anything TRD-related only now. TRD is Toyota’s performance arm, and UAE dealerships now offer add-on TRD parts for various models. We picked the TRD Aurion to take for a spin, skipping more intriguing models such as the TRD FJ Cruiser and the TRD 86.
It’s not often that a launch event is held for a minivan. But Kia felt the all-new third-generation version of their people-carrier is important enough to be highlighted, especially since they’ve added “Grand” to the Carnival’s name now. So off we went for a convoy drive in and around Abu Dhabi.
What makes a sports car? Should it have two seats or are five acceptable? Should it have two doors or is four okay? Should it only be rear-wheel-drive or will all-wheel-drive do? While Audi is generally seen as a maker of cookie-cutter sedans, they’ve been breaking conventions for a while now with a few of their niche models, such as the Audi TT Quattro and the Audi S3 Sedan. We drove both of them at the GCC launch event in the UAE.
