So it is the Lexus LS600h L Landaulet that is in limelight here, and not the wedding ceremony of H.H Prince Albert II of Monaco for which the LS600h L Landaulet was exclusively designed and prepared. Just as the fate of the German makers of the only other Landaulet model is hanging on a thin strand of cobweb, Lexus marches in boldly with their finest piece of engineering till date.
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.
Fast Rent A Car is raising the bar in the UAE car rental market this summer by offering great half-price deals on all bookings in the Emirates, while also making international bookings for residents travelling overseas easy courtesy of a special tie-up with the world’s largest car rental broker, Holiday Autos.
Not so long ago did we report about the all new super-compact 2012 MINI Coupe dressed in designer camouflage, and now the Coupe has been unofficially unmasked revealing more interesting details.
“Real” journalists with Western passports fly to foreign destinations every other week, fully paid for by carmakers, with 5-star hotel stays and business-class flights. For that, all they have to do is “review” a car. Of course, third-world jerks like me don’t get foreign invites all that often, especially since I reveal more than just the test-drive itself. The couple of invites that I did get, I couldn’t go mostly due to visa hassles. So when Hyundai’s UAE dealer invited me for a three-day trip to South Korea to test-drive the all-new 2012 Hyundai Elantra, I agreed of course.
The Renault Koleos, a rebadged compact crossover built in Korea, has never really sold well in the GCC since its launch a couple of years ago. So the carmaker is going at it a second time with a facelifted model for 2012.
Toyota USA has unveiled their all-new 2011 Lexus LS 460 Touring Edition which is essentially a body-kitted version of the ongoing LS 460 model with few other enhancements.
Renault, the French carmaker known for their weirdly-designed cars, has now revealed their latest 2012 Mégane Renaultsport 265 Trophy hot hatch ahead of its debut at an event in Nurburgring, Germany.
So its summer time again – a period of nature’s harshness which is inevitable. And hence it was time for me to test one aspect of my Mondeo, which is actually a factor majorly considered when it comes to purchasing cars anywhere in the Middle East – the air-conditioner.
Some of you may have noticed that my brother Marouf does not write news articles for us any more. That’s because he is now a web editor at a sports newspaper in Abu Dhabi. And that means he has to drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back everyday, a distance of 270 km daily. We’d already sold our Peugeot 307 2.0 last year, I wasn’t going to have him rack up miles on my fuel-hog Jeep or my exotic BMW, and our Renault Safrane is in use by the Old Man of the house. So he was doing the daily road-trip in our trusty old 1997 Toyota Corolla,