The 2012 Toyota Camry is indeed the most anticipated midsize sedan to be launched this year. Between this, the Yaris, the Prado and the Land Cruiser, Toyota dominates a huge chunk of the GCC market. Does that make the new Toyota Camry the best family car in the market? Not by a long shot, although if you asked us, we wouldn’t be sure which one among the competition is better in every aspect.
The Jeep Jamboree is an annual event held in various parts of the world, where Jeep owners get together and go offroad over the course of a day. The UAE edition, of course, involves a whole lot of sand, and we were one of the few media peeps invited for the 2011 run, us being actual Jeep owners notwithstanding. While the general public had to bring their own Jeeps, we were given a factory-fresh 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, the one with the new “Pentastar” 3.6-litre V6. We were really looking forward to driving that one, and we were getting to do it straight where it belongs.
The V6-powered 2011 Volkswagen Touareg we drove some time ago was an impressive SUV. With upscale gadgets, a quiet ride and a luxurious interior, it was quite possibly the best road-going 4×4 in its class. But then we drove the recently-revealed V8-powered version, a model that VW took their time to release, and that too in only a few markets, as they pondered whether there was still a market for V8 models in a world where the latest fad is to go green. Considering we kept this rather-excellent SUV for the better part of a month, we decided to see if a V8 trucklet hurts or helps Volkswagen’s “green”
The 4th DriveArabia Meet was held on October 1st at the Dubai Outlet Mall. The “chief guest” of our small gathering was the 2012 Volkswagen Golf GTI. It was great again, as some of our regulars showed up, as well as some new faces. We had some fun doing repeated runs with the VW’s awesome automatic parallel-parking system, checking out how tight of a spot it could fit into. Some of the attendees shown up later in the night, during the free DriveArabia-sponsored dinner, so they are unfortunately not in these pictures.
As part of our re-acquaintance with the Mercedes-Benz brand, we were invited to the UAE leg of the 2011 AMG Performance Tour, held at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The deal was that we get to stay overnight at the fancy Yas Hotel, but before that, we were subjected to a brutal assault of the senses by a variety of Mercedes-Benz AMG models.
Driving while sitting two inches away from a raspy high-revving engine is rather uncommon for most people. It’d mean you’re either driving a Ferrari 458 or a Toyota Hiace. But somewhere in between is the Porsche Cayman, supposedly the most balanced sports car in the world. We can now confirm that, after our stint with the Cayman R.
Competition in the sub-compact segment is heating up, with entries such as the Hyundai Accent, the Honda Jazz and the Ford Fiesta pushing the boundaries of what is possible with small cars. And soon after we drove the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic for the first time, we were invited to the UAE launch of the all-new 2012 Toyota Yaris. Thus far, the Yaris has remained the segment leader, but we were eager to find out if it could maintain that lead.
It isn’t every day that we get to drive a Rolls-Royce. It isn’t every day that we get to drive an electric car either. But there we were, driving the Rolls-Royce Phantom 102EX, the British carmaker’s experiment with electric cars.
Let’s get it out of the way that, as much as Chevrolet would love to target a car like the Aveo at someone like me, I chose long ago to never own anything in this category of cars. And yet, I found myself at the GCC launch event for the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic anyway, lured in by the promise of a free overnight stay at the Atlantis hotel in Dubai.
We were offered a second round with the 2012 Ford Explorer to address some issues we had discovered with our previous abused grey-coloured test vehicle. So while we’ve already amended our original review to reflect that, we were now still left with a brand-new blue-coloured Explorer Limited for two days. So we did what we always do with extra time — conduct one of our legendary Economy Tests.