It’s always nice when a manufacturer gives us a test car for a reasonable amount of time. Mazda gives cars for only a day. Porsche gives cars for a ridiculous 6 hours. And Aston Martin asks for your date of birth. So we boycotted those companies in terms of test-drive coverage. Ford is variable, depending on what’s available. The 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 seemed to be available. And they gave it to us for nearly a week.
Car enthusiasts may know of the only Audi to make an impression back in the early 1980s. That car was the 1983 Audi Sport Quattro, a severely shortened version of the boring Audi Quattro Coupe, done so to better compete in the gruelling Group B rallies of the day. A “civilian” version of the rally car was required as per homologation rules. In an ironic twist, the designer of the Audi Sport Quattro has described the car as “bloody ugly”.
The last time we drove an Audi A3, back in 2006, our review fumed the German firm’s Middle East office so much that they stopped all contact with us since then, choosing to ignore the brown guys with the cute little website. While the joke is on them now, it doesn’t change the fact that the A3 is a dynamically-challenged car. After years of sitting on the market, Audi finally sees it fit to release an RS 3 version of the hatchback.
When the Skoda dealer rep dropped off the 2011 Superb 3.6 at our doorstep and gave me a briefing, he chose to swiftly mention one little feature, called Park Assist, which we thought was just a parking sensor system. Later we were digging through the instruction manual to figure out where the USB port was (there isn’t one), and we found the section that told us how to operate the automatic parallel parking feature!
It’s the season of remakes, and the legendary video game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit has been relaunched with shiny new graphics and gameplay. To promote the game, the game’s makers seem to be going all out, releasing this promo video of a real life car chase between a Pagani Zonda and a Lamborghini Murcielago police car. If only games looks that good.
For those not in the know, Skoda is a Czech brand owned by Volkswagen. Skoda does fine in Europe, selling variantions of VW platforms alongside Seat and Audi. But thanks to sub-standard dealers and all sorts of internal politics, the brand never took off in the UAE. Now a new dealer has taken over sales of Skoda in the UAE, and they are looking to move cars in a big way instead of playing second-fiddle to VW. To coincide with the launch of their Dubai showroom a couple of weeks ago, dealers Ali & Sons released the 2011 Skoda Superb 3.6,
Mercedes-Benz has issued a recall for brand new 2011 E-Class, M-Class, GL-Class, and R-Class models in the U.S. due to leaky fuel filters.
Hyundai has quietly revealed that they are developing a larger new 5.0-litre V8 to use in the Genesis and the Equus full-size sedans, and it looks like the new motor will potentially be the best in the market.
Our black Renault Safrane V6, a brand new 2009 leftover model that we purchased last Ramadan, is on its way to completing 5000 km, and is soldiering on just fine. It also has the best fuel economy in our 3-car fleet by far, for obvious reasons.
The Mini Mayfair is a “special edition” model that was released as a celebration of Mini’s 50th anniversary. From memory, the Mayfair was first shown at the Dubai Motor Show a year ago and this specific test car has been in circulation since summer, so it isn’t exactly new. It is the first Mini model we’ve driven that is fitted with the new-for-2010 direct-injection engine with an extra 12 hp, so it was worth a look, but since it is so similar to all the other Mini variants we’ve already driven, we’ll do a shorter “first drive” article later on,