Behind The Scenes

We don’t like ragging on Nissan. Even though they have blatantly refused to give us ads, we like the company, if only because they give us access to their press fleet, however late we may get them. They also make good cars, starting from the satanic GT-R right down to our “recommended list” Tiida, all of which we’ve driven. But driving press-fleet cars after everyone else means we sometimes get abused cars with peeling trim, creased leather or below-average performance. However, the 2009 Nissan Murano we got wasn’t too old, having racked up less than 5000 km. But some previous journalist’s possible offroad excursion meant there was a loose panel beneath our Murano that kept clunking throughout our test drive.

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The 2010 Ford Mustang GT made its official UAE debut at an event on July 16th in the Dubai Autodrome, even while the car is already on sale. Looking very familiar, it has been overshadowed by the 2010 Chevy Camaro, so much so that Ford Middle East recruited the Emirates Mustang Club to drum up support for the launch event. Being among so many Mustang fanboys is enough to passively intimidate anyone into saying only positive things about the pony car.

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I asked for a GCC-spec Nissan GT-R back in March, after it seemed every magazine had driven it. Four months later and we finally got it from Nissan Middle East. I had lost all enthusiasm for this car by then and was ready to show my displeasure in the review. But slipping into the driver’s seat for the first time, putting it in gear and then pressing the accelerator pedal, the first thing I said was…

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The Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG is among the fastest 4x4s in the world. It held the title of world’s fastest-accelerating SUV for a while, but then the ugly Porsche Cayenne Turbo S took over the mantle this year. However, such statistics are too close to call. A difference in weather and road conditions was enough to change our 0-100 kph acceleration numbers. In this summer test, we couldn’t top the numbers we got from our Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8 winter test. It is therefore better to judge a vehicle by its overall merits.

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Mercedes-Benz rarely has cars available for testing. But when they do, they are usually very generous with the amount of time we get to keep the car. Indeed, we got to keep this black 2009 Mercedes-Benz CLC 230 for nearly a week. What most don’t realise is that a longer test drive is enough to change our minds about a particular car. Most car companies here stupidly think that giving us cars for longer will expose more faults. On the contrary, we had negative preconceptions about the CLC since the day it was launched. But driving around in one for so many days restored our faith in Mercedes-Benz.

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The all-new Chevrolet Malibu has been on sale in the U.S. for a while now. The midsize sedan had finally become an equal competitor to its Japanese rivals in the States, but the GCC line-up was making do with a lopsided range consisting of the Korean Epica and the Australian Lumina, neither of which has a 4-cylinder engine that could compare with those in the Camry, the Accord and the Altima. So General Motors decided to bring the Malibu here again, after a gap of nearly a decade.

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It was one of those rare times when I actually looked forward to those long usually-boring press driving events. General Motors Middle East imported ten new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro models to Dubai for the UAE and GCC press launch, and we were among the second bunch of people to drive them, after the “big” magazine people had their fill the day before, but as I saw later, the cars still generated lots of interest on the roads.

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I first saw this exact red Infiniti G37 Coupe at its UAE launch in Dubai more than a year ago. Since then, magazine after magazine kept grabbing this press car from under us for their stupid comparison “tests” against the BMW 335i, until the red car became so “old” that we didn’t bother asking for it any more. Anyway, since my request for the Nissan GT-R was pushed even further away (as expected), I asked for a G37 Coupe to pass the time. It turns out that red car is still in press circulation, with 16,000 km on the clock,

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We first got wind of the 2010 Lexus RX’s imminent launch when I and my PR buddy did the rounds of ad agencies a few months ago, trying to get advertisements for this website. At the time, Toyota UAE’s ad agency said they will not give us their upcoming Lexus RX ads because they only wanted to target women, and apparently we don’t have enough women visiting this site. A month later, we see ads for the RX all over MBC Action, AutoMiddleEast, Car ME and every other possible men’s media. While we were flat-out rejected for the ad campaign for flimsy reasons,

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I wasn’t planning to ask for the 2009 Honda City, but when Honda ME called me up and suddenly offered it to me this weekend, I agreed as usual. The previous Honda City was a cartoon-mobile that was embarrassing to be seen in, but this new one looked interesting from the day that spy shots started appearing last year, enough for me to dedicate posts to it.

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