When my friend, who is looking for a new car, told me that Toyota was offering a 2009 Toyota Camry Sport for only Dhs 65,000 in Abu Dhabi, I figured he was hallucinating. However, he described to me what a Camry Sport is, and it seemed even more unbelievably stupid.
The 2010 Hyundai Accent has been given a hefty facelift for its Korean home market. Dubbed the Verna Transform, it is possible that this new face will become the GCC-spec 2010 Accent, even if the rest of the car is largely the same.
The hybrid version of the Toyota Camry was only on sale in a couple of developed countries earlier, but the Japanese firm has now started building the petrol-electric car at its plant in Thailand, to supply the Far-East Asian market.
It is a popular fact that there are more sheep than people in the island state of New Zealand. The country’s love for domestic animals is being taken advantage of by Mitsubishi. The Japanese automaker in New Zealand is offering a free goat with every Triton pickup sold before August in a novel effort at “correcting the economy.”
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In this case, it is for the benefit of car enthusiasts. The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, a car that originally retailed for more than Dhs 180,000 in the UAE, has gone through two discounts to come down to Dhs 150,000 now. And now the dealer is offering the choice of a further Dhs 5,000 discount or, interestingly enough, a 330 hp engine power upgrade.
While the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X is only available in a limited number of variants here in the UAE and other GCC countries, the UK market is the only one to get as many as three different versions. Beyond the standard FQ-300 and the upgraded FQ-330, the new Evo X flagship model in Britain is the FQ-400, complete with a factory-tuned 403 hp turbocharged engine.
The 2009 Infiniti G37 sedan is finally on sale in the UAE and other GCC countries. While it looks exactly the same as the outgoing G35, it receives a new engine and auto gearbox this year.
The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X was first introduced in 2008, but while the whole world, including the GCC, has received only a single version, Mitsubishi Motors in the UK regularly adds special models to their line-up. The UK now has a new Evo X FQ-330 SST model to look forward to.
The 2010 Subaru Legacy sedan was unveiled a few months ago at the recent New York auto show, and while it is unknown when the new model will come to the GCC, the Japanese market already has a wagon version of the Legacy, showing the dimwitted designers at VW how to draw a proper station wagon.
The first-generation Nissan Murano was launched in the UAE only in 2005, but the Japanese-built crossover had been on sale since 2003 in the United States. The NHTSA, America’s transport safety agency, has ordered Nissan to recall about 360,000 first-generation Murano models in the U.S. because of a defect that can cause an engine stall. Apparently, the material used for the Murano’s air-intake ducts is prematurely aging and shrinking, leading to a risk of separation in the system. That separation can cause an engine stall if the debris gets sucked into the engine.