First Drive

In terms of sheer volume, there is no bigger automotive segment than the one comprising compact SUVs. Jeep recognised this more than a decade ago and rolled out the Compass and Patriot to target the horde of (mainly) young buyers snapping up crossovers by the hundreds of thousands. It was a new foray for a brand that had until that point focused on larger, heavy-duty SUVs that embodied Jeep’s conquer-all-terrain roots.

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The Kia Rio is the South Korean carmaker’s sub-compact hatchback offering. It’s not exactly the first car that comes to mind in this category, primarily dominated by the Japanese, but it has some presence in the UAE market (and rocking it in the KSA market) due its decent price-tag. However, the all-new Rio seems to have upped its game, and we recently had a go in it at a media drive event in the UAE.

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It’s not very often a car museum wheels its finest exhibits out the door, transports them to a destination with fantastic driving roads, throws you the keys and says: “Here you go. Have fun!” It’s not a common occurrence even for us weather-beaten career motoring hacks. However, the Porsche Museum handed a small selection of automotive hacks from around the globe (including this DriveArabia scribe) what amounted to an early Eid present, laying on an epic road trip through the Scottish Highlands in some of the finest ‘toys’ in its collection.

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When we went to Nevada for the U.S. launch of the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk (and visit SEMA) late last year, we had a bit of free time to explore Las Vegas, and we were provided a new Chrysler Pacifica minivan to do it in on our own accord. We figured why not take the chance to review it, since it’s likely destined to hit Middle East shores eventually, maybe within a year.

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Confession time: I was mildly sceptical (and I’m certainly not alone here) of the Lamborghini Huracan Performante’s claimed 6min 52.01sec lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife when it was announced a couple of months ago.

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The Nissan Pathfinder has had a long and varied life. In its first generation, it was a five-seater body-on-frame compact offroader back in 1985. Since then, it switched to a unibody, body-on-frame, and then again to a unibody in its current generation, this time fully becoming a crossover with seating for seven in 2013. The model has now received a makeover for 2018, and we drove it at the media launch event in Fujairah.

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Honda is adding to their portfolio of redesigned models with the introduction of the all-new 2017 CR-V in the UAE and GCC. Completely different, yet familiar as a CR-V, the compact crossover has some new tricks up its sleeve.

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Remember that time when Chinese cars were considered to be at the same level as week-old sushi. And speaking of sushi, believe it or not, even Japanese cars had just as bad a reputation about half a century ago. The Koreans were on the same boat just a decade ago, and now they are among the top sellers in most developed car markets thanks to their world-class quality at affordable prices. So how far are the Chinese is reaching the level of established brands in terms of design, quality and image. Not far, as we’re seeing, and leading the charge is Geely.

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