First Drive

We are currently living in the age of the super-SUV, a crazy new market niche that’s populated by 4x4s that suck offroad, but can chase down sports cars in the straights and, with enough balls, even around corners. And the current poster-child of this unfathomable fad at the moment is none other than the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, the most affordable of this expensive lot that’s otherwise dominated by the Germans. We drove the 2014 iteration of the Jeep SRT8 at the launch of the updated Grand Cherokee range in Dubai recently. Apparently it’ll only go by “Grand Cherokee SRT”

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Well, not exactly prototypes. Ford invited us to hang with their engineering team who are responsible for testing whether upcoming models can handle the hot weather that we’re blessed with in the UAE. While all three of these cars — the 2013 Ford Fusion, the 2013 Lincoln MKZ and the 2013 Ford Ecosport — are already out in some other markets, the three cars that we drove are actually early pre-production models, and not cars that were just taken from a showroom in America or elsewhere. They’re being prepared for GCC release as 2014 models later this year.

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Premium hatchbacks are a uniquely European concept and one that I’m sure causes a lot of confusion in the GCC. Why would you spend 4×4-level money for a small hatchback? However, if you look at it from the European point of view, they make a lot of sense. The cost of buying and running a new car in Europe can be staggeringly high due to taxes on the car, annual taxes to renew the road licence, regular road tolls and the cost of fuel. In that environment, a smaller car makes a lot of sense. However, many drivers don’t want to give up the prestige and comfort features of a luxury car,

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So it was the usual monotonous evening when the big daddy of DriveArabia rang up to “offer” me something that I had least expected to come my way, before the world ended — to test drive a Lamborghini Gallardo, that too, on a racetrack. I was truly surprised, as much as he was by the friendly gesture from the Lamborghini dealers in Dubai, for the opportunity to briefly take the wheel of the luxury supercar manufacturer’s entry-level offering, the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2.

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As much success as Hyundai is experiencing nowadays, truth be told, they have a big gaping hole in their sales figures for models beyond a certain price-point. One of the those models is the Hyundai Centennial. As even Hyundai owners might not know, the Centennial is the flagship of the Korean brand, designed to tackle premium brands head-on. The car has been around for a couple of years now, but we finally took one for a spin at the launch of the mildly-facelifted 2014 model.

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After its dramatic birth back in the late 1990s as a 5-door Smart Car-alternative that went up on two wheels at the sight of a moose, the Mercedes-Benz A-Class went on to become rather popular in Europe, even though it was nothing more than a city runabout that shared the same badge as an S-Class. Of course, it never caught on in the UAE, where people prefer their luxury cars to look like, well, cars. But more than a decade later, the A-Class changes its ethos completely and comes back as a proper hatchback, apparently in search of buyers who don’t have white hair.

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When we tested the Volvo XC70 crossover wagon late last year, it turned out to be one of the biggest surprises ever, as we timed it in the 0-100 kph run to be quicker than many sports cars. It certainly lived up to Volvo’s tradition for building flying bricks. But Volvo’s local dealer wanted us to try it out again, this time with a Polestar ECU upgrade.

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The Nissan Pathfinder has never had a consistent heritage. The first one arrived in 1986 as a 3-door compact 4×4 on a body-on-frame pickup chassis. The 5-door version only arrived in 1990, still a compact. The second-generation model in 1996 moved up to the midsize category with a unibody frame as well as independent suspension, and people complained that it lost its heritage. In 2006, the third-generation moved back to a body-on-frame construction, retained its independent suspension and grew in size to accommodate a cramped 3rd-row seat, and people complained again that it lost its heritage. Now the 2013 model has gone back to a unibody,

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The Toyota Avalon never really did well in the UAE. Conservative design, woolly handling and a price-tag that slowly crept up to Lexus-like levels, it was never destined to do well here. I never though much of it either, until I sat in the back seat of a 2008 model when hanging with my chauffeur buddy. With its cushy voluminous interior, it suddenly dawned on me that it’s a darn good comfort cruiser, and would’ve done well were it not for its sky-high price tag. But now there’s an all-new model for 2013, and apparently it’s going after “younger”

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We snagged an invite to the 2013 edition of Jeep Jamboree Dubai in early January, a dealer-organised event open to all Jeep owners in the country. We went to the Jamboree a year go as well, all of it a desert drive with a dealer-provided five-door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, so we figured this year would be the same. But they threw a few surprises at us in the form of a mixed wadi-desert combination, that too with a smaller three-door Jeep Wrangler.

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