The 2011 Kia Optima is hot. It is so hot that it is sold out wherever it has been launched so far. It is sold out in the UAE too, and it isn’t even out yet officially. The car will hit GCC roads by the first week of November, but Kia organised an all-day media test-drive in Dubai.
In an interesting twist to Toyota’s latest recall, Honda has announced that it is recalling a total of 470,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to the same failing master cylinder problem that caused Toyota to recall 1.66 million vehicles worldwide a few days ago.
Anyone who visited the 2010 Sharjah Auto Show last week would’ve got a look at the gaudy bodykitted Lexus LX570 at the “Invader” stand. The so-called Invader is a tuning and customisation programme for the Lexus 4×4 by Japanese tuners ASI. Who else besides the Japanese can come up with something this cheesy.
So General Motors went bankrupt, and part of its effort to save itself was to sell loss-making Saab to any schmuck who’d buy it. Spyker came along and bought it, so now they have a handful of new models with GM platforms that the General had pretty much finished developing before selling off the brand. Now the Swedish firm is debuting the new 2012 Saab 9-4X, based on the Cadillac SRX platform, at next month’s 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show.
Mitsubishi held its GCC launch event for their all-new 2011 ASX sub-compact crossover at the Dubai Autodrome racetrack a couple of weeks ago. To make things interesting, they even had a few 2010 Nissan Qashqai crossovers at hand for comparison. Incidentally, the Qashqai has been facelifted for 2011, though changes are minimal.
The 2011 Infiniti M was launched earlier last week in the UAE, and displayed for the first time at the 2010 Sharjah Auto Show. Just before its launch, we asked for a test-drive whenever possible, and surprisingly got an answer that we can have it that same weekend. And so, here is a look at the GCC-spec Infiniti M56 for the first time ever.
Specs for the updated 2012 Nissan GT-R have hit the net, and it looks like the GT-R gets a power boost to go with that facelift, and a quicker ‘Ring time.
The exclusive UAE dealer for Toyota has announced the launch of Lexus’ first high performance sports sedan from the ‘F’ series, the 2011 Lexus IS F.
The Lexus IS F is finally joining the Japanese luxury carmaker’s GCC line-up. Going on sale in the UAE by mid-October, the Lexus IS F luxo-sports sedan is designed to run with proper sports cars, and as such was track-tested heavily at Japan’s Fuji Speedway.
Now under Fiat ownership, Chrysler is on a brisk product improvement drive, and the latest model to benefit is the unloved Sebring midsize sedan. The Sebring is being replaced by a new model dubbed the Chrysler 200. And contrary to popular belief, it is more of an internal and external facelift with some mechanical upgrades, rather than an all-new platform.