First Drive

Some people think Alfa Romeo isn’t sold in the GCC. But it is, and has been for decades now. They just seem to keep a low profile, even lower than Saab or Opel. But all that is set to change, as the global game of musical-chairs means that Fiat now owns Chrysler, and since Fiat already owns Alfa Romeo, Chrysler’s Middle East office will help support Alfa Romeo in our region. Which brings us to the day-long media event for the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and the Alfa Romeo MiTo that we took for a drive across the UAE, flanked by Chrysler,

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A new Honda model release is always a cause for anticipation. The brand may have fallen from its peak in terms of regional market-share for a while now, but it is one of the few carmakers that has genuine respect from family men and brand fanboys alike. And with the previous-generation Honda Accord being among the best offerings in its segment, we were keen on trying out the new 2013 model, which builds on the outgoing version rather than completely redoing it.

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And didn’t crash it in the first 2 minutes. In fact it’s been about 2 weeks now and the car surprisingly still refuses to go sideways. It must have something to do with certain drivers’ skill level (or driving like a girl — Ed.). Based on a Nissan crossover, the pre-facelift 2011 Koleos is rather an oddball of a car. Bought in August 2010, the car is in almost pristine condition driven extremely carefully by the previous owner. In fact, apart from a few mall-parking door incidents, the car looks and feels brand new even with 60,000 km on the odometer.

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Korean carmaker Kia needs no introduction, as the masses already know them as a brand that has transformed from virtually nothing into a fairly strong game-changing contender in almost all of the hotly-contested car segments, all in a surprisingly short span of time. In recent months, Kia has been rolling out several new models, and their latest offering is the all-new 2014 Kia Cerato, which was officially launched at a media test-drive event in Dubai.

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Toyota is very proud of the fact that the RAV4 started the “crossover” segment back in 1994, before these jacked-up cars were even known as “crossovers”. It took us the better part of a decade to accept these as legitimate options for consumers, considering their too-tall-to-handle and too-low-to-offroad market positioning, but several of these crossovers have actually moved on to become quite competent in their on-road dynamics, with useful all-weather capability to boot. The RAV4 has always been one of the better options in the market, but the older model had a few shortcomings which the new 2013 model addresses rather well.

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The Nissan Sunny is one vehicle that needs no introduction, as every driver would have driven one, mostly while learning how to drive, or during some phase of their lives where a bullock-cart and a Chevy Spark would have been the only other cheaper alternatives. Many wouldn’t have known the fact that Nissan had actually gone ahead and offered some variety in their Sunny models at one point, by bringing in a Japanese model, and another one made by the Apple-biting manufacturers from the Land of “Gangnam Style”. In fact, we were so mesmerised by the Korean pop number,

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It seems like just yesterday when we drove the Isuzu D-Max around a racetrack in Bahrain. In fact, it was just earlier this year. But that was the old model. What we drove this week was the new 2013 model, completely new in almost every possible way. But why would you be interested in a pickup review? Well, we took it around an autocross course as well as offroad.

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Fisker as a carmaker has a bit of a checkered past. The American company was co-founded by a former Danish car designer who penned certain BMW and Aston Martin sports cars a decade ago, and then started peddling rebodied BMW coupes under the Fisker banner back in 2005. In 2008, they came up with a concept electric car so ridiculous that no one thought it’d get any further than the auto-show floor. After missing various deadlines, taking government loans and beating a Tesla lawsuit, the Fisker Karma beat all odds by finally hitting production in the summer of 2011.

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Volkswagen recently held a mega event for media, dealer staff and fleet customers last week at the Yas Marina circuit to celebrate their best ever sales period in the Middle East, witnessing 22% growth for 2012 over last year. The event consisted of an overnight stay at the Yas Viceroy hotel with various activities the next morning, such as track time with the VW Scirocco, drag time with the VW Passat CC, and skid-pad time with the VW Golf GTI. Now, the problem with attending a mega event means that there is a lot of standing around doing nothing,

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