Feature Stories

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.

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As is common knowledge by now, the 2010 Nissan Patrol was launched in Dubai on February 15, at an event on an offroad course within the Jebel Ali Shooting Club. Apparently the course will be used for customer test-drives once the all-new Patrol goes on sale. We have exclusive photos of the course, courtesy of our photographer Faisal Khatib.

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This urban comparo is about as meaningless as it gets, but for the sake of argument, we’ll give it a go anyway. We’ve had a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 since late 2007, and this is the first time that we’ve managed to drive another Jeep vehicle since then. Our Grand Cherokee was the epitome of American 4x4s back in its day, with capable off-road and on-road performance, packed with leather, full-time 4WD and a V8. The Wrangler has always been a simplistic offroader, but the latest generation claims to be the most refined and practical Wrangler ever, with options such as four doors and Bluetooth,

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Renault’s truck division introduced their new Kerax truck models at an event in Dubai. They also took the opportunity to introduce the Sherpa military 4×4 in civilian guise for the first time in the GCC. Also at hand were two of the 12 vehicles that went on a “cape to cape” expedition from Norway to South Africa to prove the durability of the trucks.

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As far as we know, we are the first people to review the 2010 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado in the desert. Everyone else drove it “off-road” at the launch event, to which we were not invited, but that was a carefully-planned event with easy gravel jaunts anyway. We took our Prado VX-L tester on the same dunes used by desert safari outfits in Dubai.

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The 1st DriveArabia Meet was held last weekend, on Friday the 13th no less. Two of us organised it, and ironically enough, 13 people showed up for an event that was conceived just a couple of days prior this November. The turn-out was relatively great, considering it was competing for time with the Diabetes Walk, the Motorsports Festival and some Pakistan cricket match, all on the same day in Dubai. Also, we kept the meet intentionally low-key, so a smaller number of people could interact without getting lost in the crowd. These peeps are now in our inner circle.

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The American Consumer Reports publication, quite possibly the only unbiased magazine in the world with no ads whatsoever, has released the results of their latest survey to determine the most reliable and least reliable cars sold in the United States.

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Barely three months after the world debut of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni in pictures, the real deal has already reached the shores of the UAE, as the limited-edition model was launched in Dubai, in the presence of the aging Lamborghini test driver after whom the car was named for his 40 years of service.

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Officially introduced in the UAE at a launch party in Abu Dhabi, Porsche held a media driving event for the all-new Porsche Panamera GT sedan. The road trip comprised of a drive from Dubai to Fujairah and back in cars shared with other journalists, and a free lunch somewhere in between.

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