First Drive

The awkwardly-styled BMW 1-Series has always been an acquired taste ever since it launched in 2004. But I’ve always been a fan of the top-spec 1-Series which have combined arguably BMW’s best inline-6 engines with an entertaining chassis and probably most closely evoke the spirit of past BMWs than most of the other current models. Having owned (and loved) a 2007 130i M Sport back in London, as soon as I saw the M135i I knew I had to have it as it promised to be even better than the old car.

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This was one overseas media event that kept throwing us surprises by the bucketful. I was invited for a trip to Milan by Fiat to drive something or the other. What we got was a romp in a manual 500 with a new turbo engine as well as a brief run in an insane Alfa Romeo 4C, but more on all that later. The car in focus during the event was the Fiat 500L Trekking, a recently-released crossover that’s tentatively headed to UAE shores by the end of summer this year.

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With all the hype over three-row crossover SUVs such as the Ford Explorer, the Honda Pilot and the Nissan Pathfinder, we’re wondering why more people don’t ask us about the Dodge Durango when discussing their shopping lists. They should, because we could hardly find a fault with the facelifted 2014 version that we just drove across the country in.

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If you’re the aging CEO of a well-to-do company and you like to be driven around, your ride of choice has probably gravitated towards default choices like the Mercedes-Benz S350L or the BMW 740Li. If you felt adventurous, you might even look at the Audi A8 3.0T, the Lexus LS 460 or, in a particularly down year, the Hyundai Centennial. But what if you’ve made your money a bit earlier in life, and you prefer to mostly do your own driving? You also like to not appear like an aging CEO around town, so you want a bit more style in your car than the traditionally-conservative choices.

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Maserati, the brand better known as playing second-fiddle to Ferrari, is adamant to prove that it is anything but. The Italian carmaker has its own racing heritage, and therefore they currently runs their own racing series, the Maserati Trofeo MC World Series, whose final was held at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi last December. During that event, we even got to hit the track in between races, with a street-legal Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale, the car on which the racing series is built.

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When our editor asked me if I wanted to attend a Roll Royce drive event, I didn’t think twice. And I didn’t even bother to ask which Rolls Royce I was getting to drive. Turns out the event was to introduce us to the newest member of the Rolls Royce family, the Wraith.

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When I was looking out for a manual transmission car, Alfa Romeo was never on my list. Though I knew very little about the brand, I always admired late-model Alfas like the 159 and the Brera. When I went to check out this red car, it was the very first Alfa 155 I was about to see. It was like ‘love at first sight’. A car that looks, sounds and drives like a race car. And for a used price tag of Dhs 10,000, I couldn’t resist the deal. Was the car reliable? Is it hard to find parts?

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Mercedes-Benz held their annual AMG Driving Academy event yet again, at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. It is that one night of the year where we get to thrash the heck out of various new AMG models, and the slightly new format for this year was better than ever. They packed in so much track-time under the floodlights that several of the others in our media bunch were quitting out of exhaustion by the middle of the evening. We carried on, of course. With cars like the A 45 AMG, the E 63 S AMG, the SL 63 AMG,

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What kind of people buy Toyota Corollas? Maybe the kind who walk into a showroom and the first thing they ask is “does it come with an automatic?” Maybe the kind who has a great job in the GCC and still keeps asking “how will I survive these high petrol prices?” Or maybe the kind whose first question to a Jaguar sports-car owner is “what’s the resale value?”

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Mercedes-Benz has just launched the new 2014 Sprinter in the UAE and Middle East. Just like the last Sprinter event we went to back in 2008, Mercedes-Benz emphasised on the safety features of the latest facelifted model.

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