No one gives a damn about the next Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG or the latest Bugatti Veyron, except for kids who love posters and rich people who don’t drive much. This is the first shoddy photo of the 2012 Toyota Camry, quite possibly the most anticipated car in the world, made a worldwide best-seller by regular folks.
As part of our Hyundai dealer-sponsored trip to Korea, we were given a quick tour of the Research and Development centre in Namyang, mostly to see the wind tunnel facility. The place was so secretive that cameras and phones were confiscated before entry, and even inside, all we saw were prototype cars in camouflage. Lots and lots of prototype cars in camo, all playing around their testing grounds.
So MINI is not really elated about their existing line-up comprising various sizes ranging from sub-compacts to crossovers, but all based on the same design – and probably this gave birth to their all new “super-compact” MINI Coupe. The performance focused Coupe is engineered to deliver the thrills of a go-kart and achieve performance figures which makes it the sportiest MINI ever.
At first it was the Chinese Chevy Sail, then the new Hyundai Elantra, and now there, I’ve spotted the all-new 2011 Chevrolet Spark. Looks like I hit a hat-trick with ‘spotting’ new cars.
You may have heard by now that Audi has launched their Mini-wannabe model, the A1, in the UAE. Armed with a 122 hp 1.4-litre “TFSI” engine, women and girly-men are being lured by various promotional activities for the A1, including product placements around malls, big billboards on the streets, and overly-positive “reviews” in local magazines. If you really want this front-wheel-drive supermini though, you can wait for this one. Caught by one of our readers, Nabeal Malik, it looks to be a higher-spec Audi A1 model.
General Motors has been releasing stupid “teaser” photos online of the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu in a bid to get multiple stories out of insipid bloggers. However, the first full photo of the redesigned Malibu has been leaked, although it is very likely GM “leaked” it themselves for publicity.
This is the 2012 Nissan Tiida, as seen in Chinese-spec trim. It looks much better than the current model, and now has a longer wheelbase than the Honda Civic, putting it firmly in the compact category, larger than the current sub-compact.
If you are a follower of automotive time-wasters, you would’ve noticed the photos of the prototype BMW M3 pickup, of all things, caught testing at the Nurburgring and around Germany.
One of our regular readers, M. Hajooni, who usually drops all sorts of spy shots on this site taken by himself, just dropped an email to me with a picture of a 2011-2012 Nissan Patrol interior. The interesting bit is that the interior seems to have a manual gearbox.
Hyundai showed off a concept hatchback “coupe” called the Veloster back in 2007. The compact coupe was a design study on how the direct replacement for the Hyundai Coupe would look like, considering the Genesis Coupe had moved too upmarket. The Veloster has already been spotted testing in Europe and elsewhere, but the Veloster prototype is also undergoing hot-weather testing in Dubai, even if it is winter here, as seen in these exclusive photos by reader Henry G.L.