Our long-term 2011 Infiniti QX56 is getting easier to manage every day. It takes a while to get comfortable with a vehicle this size. It is, of course, made easier by a myriad of cameras and sensors making sure you don’t hit anything. We took the truck to Hatta this weekend, not for off-roading, but to use it as it was intended — as an all-terrain luxury picnic bus.
You know that all those years of being a good boy is paying off when people suddenly call up to offer you a black 2010 Chevy Camaro SS for the weekend. With an LS3 V8. And a manual transmission. For a second round. The manual SS is initially hard to drive, but having just about mastered the clutch-gearbox combo the last time, we figured we’d do something different this time around. We’ll do the first-ever fuel economy test for this car, while still driving in regular traffic at regular speeds.
Kia is putting a lot of faith into their all-new flagship model, the 2011 Cadenza. In fact, they are going all out to promote the full-size sedan. While even large outfits like Ford and VW cheap out at media driving events, Kia lined up close to 30 brand-new cars for the day in March. In fact, the fleet of Cadenzas was so big that most of the gathered GCC media scribes ended up one-person-per-car. I certainly enjoyed my privacy when pushing the limits of the car, instead of worrying about any aging passengers vomiting in the passenger seat.
A year-old club in the UAE called Emarat 4×4, in association with the Dubai Offroad Club, regularly arrange off-road trips for members, and last month they organised a “ladies drive” for women who wanted to try dune-bashing.