European Car News

First drive: 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS in the UAE

First drive: 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS in the UAE


The Porsche 911 is probably the longest-running sports-car nameplate ever. It has retained some semblance of familiarity since its debut in 1963, improving with every generation, eventually reaching a point where they cannot further optimise the shape any more. There are thousands of 911s running around the world right now. And yet, very few people have actually been behind the wheel of these so-called “iconic” cars. Are they really iconic? Well, we finally got behind the wheel of the 911 Carrera GTS to find out, if only for a day.

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So we got a 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS

So we got a 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS


When we heard that Porsche Middle East had bumped up their test-drive period to a little more than a day now, we were more than a little pleased. Previously, Porsche used to hand over test vehicles for just six hours at a time so as to avoid naive journalists, drunk or otherwise, from trashing their cars. So we’d never bothered to drive their cars before, outside of their spectacular roadshows at local race-tracks. But things change, and we went ahead and asked for a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS.

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So we got a 2011 VW Golf R with DCC

So we got a 2011 VW Golf R with DCC


Exactly as the title says. Volkswagen’s Middle East office has like three or four VW Golf R hatchbacks on media duty. When we picked up the white VW Golf R earlier this month, the only one available happened to be the version without Dynamic Chassis Control, a system that adds adjustable suspension. So we simply asked for another round, this time with the DCC version, and they obliged. After driving the non-DCC car, we were already impressed, and had made up our minds that adding complicated suspension gimmickry would only add weight and nothing else. We were wrong.

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Mercedes-Benz B-Class 2012 spy shots and early photos

Mercedes-Benz B-Class 2012 spy shots and early photos


We’re not on good terms with Mercedes-Benz any more for personal reasons (theirs, not ours), so we were sitting on these photos for a while, pondering whether they’ll try to get back at us using archaic local laws for taking photos of their prototype cars. After consulting our lawyers, we’re told these cars were in public view and reveal nothing, so we’re going ahead and showing you our own spy shots of what is now comfirmed to be the 2012 Mercedes-Benz B-Class.

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