Feature Stories

“I. Am. Invincible!!!!!” That’s what I was shouting when, yet again, we accepted an invitation to the annual Jeep Jamboree back in December, and came out of it alive and in one piece. This year’s event was murder, to the point where about 99% of the participants came in with just Wranglers, whereas previous events have had a mix of Cherokees and Grand Cherokees as well. The course was that tough. And we were provided with a bone-stock 2015 Jeep Wrangler Sahara by the local dealer in Dubai.

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The Cadillac ATS sedan that was launched a couple of years ago was the General’s answer to the BMW 3-Series. And at least in terms of chassis dynamics, it had succeeded. Now there’s a coupe version. We briefly took one for a spin recently.

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Al Futtaim Motors just celebrated their 60th anniversary this week. That’s right, the UAE’s sole Toyota distributor has been at it for more than half a century, so it’s a bit of a surprise that they’re doing anything TRD-related only now. TRD is Toyota’s performance arm, and UAE dealerships now offer add-on TRD parts for various models. We picked the TRD Aurion to take for a spin, skipping more intriguing models such as the TRD FJ Cruiser and the TRD 86.

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It’s not easy to drift. No, doing doughnuts in a parking lot or sliding out your tail in a left turn is not drifting. My skills are limited to initially mild slides and catching them, hence why I’ve never run a car into a tree in a decade of driving. But drifting requires a precise level of control over the steering, the throttle and occasionally the handbrake, continuously. It’s something that I’ve tried my hand at, in closed parking lots mind you, and mostly failed, except with that one car back in 2007 which had balance so perfect that I was able to hold a few drifts for a few seconds at a time.

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It’s not often that a launch event is held for a minivan. But Kia felt the all-new third-generation version of their people-carrier is important enough to be highlighted, especially since they’ve added “Grand” to the Carnival’s name now. So off we went for a convoy drive in and around Abu Dhabi.

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What makes a sports car? Should it have two seats or are five acceptable? Should it have two doors or is four okay? Should it only be rear-wheel-drive or will all-wheel-drive do? While Audi is generally seen as a maker of cookie-cutter sedans, they’ve been breaking conventions for a while now with a few of their niche models, such as the Audi TT Quattro and the Audi S3 Sedan. We drove both of them at the GCC launch event in the UAE.

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We wanted a vehicle to take a trip from Dubai down to Abu Dhabi for some event, so we hit up Chrysler. They offered a 2015 Ram 1500 Laramie, a truck we last drove back in 2012, but figured we’ll give it another look. Nothing much has changed, has it? Well, some things have changed.

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Some carmakers change a couple of headlights and shamelessly call their facelifted model an “all-new” car because, you know, we’re all idiots. However, Honda held a rather late media-drive event for their already-launched 2015 CR-V and they kept reiterating that it is, indeed, just a minor update. But from what we could see, there seems to be some substantial changes under the familiar skin.

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The only electric cars you’ll ever see in the GCC are at golf clubs, with little wheels and no doors. Sure, there are the unloved Lexus hybrids, there was that pricey Fisker Karma with the backup petrol engine, and some Chevy Volts were spotted testing in Dubai before disappearing for obvious reasons, but there are big things happening this week on the electric front. Dubai’s DEWA utility company has just announced the first dedicated charging station here for electric cars, in what is to become a network all over Dubai soon. And Renault is hoping to bank on that with the Zoe hatchback and the Twizy runabout.

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Mercedes-Benz make some very nice luxury cars. In fact, we really liked the new S-Class and the newer C-Class when we briefly drove them around town a few months ago. Mercedes-AMG make some very fast cars. In fact, they make those fast cars simply by upgrading their luxury cars with bigger engines and stiffer suspension. They go very fast in a straight line. But when you reach a corner, one of two things happen at the limit — if ESP is on, you are made to slow down and understeer forcefully, but if you turn off the ESP nannies,

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