When we were hanging out at the 2012 Nissan Micra’s GCC launch in the UAE, we heard that almost every British expat has had seat-time in its predecessors dating back to the 1980s, sort of like how everyone here has some experience with the Toyota Yaris. It is interesting then, that Nissan chose to finally launch the fourth generation in the Middle East to do battle with, what else, the Toyota Yaris.
As a last hurrah before our 2012 Volkswagen Passat CC rides off into the sunset, we decided to properly check out what sort of fuel economy numbers it was capable of getting. Being a 300 hp all-wheel-drive midsize sedan had to be a fuel hog, right?
It’s rather ironic that anyone who’s been to the Sub-continent, or even maybe Europe, has some sort of experience with Compressed-Natural-Gas cars. And yet, we being the largest automotive guide in the GCC, had never driven a CNG-powered car before. The fact that we are in the GCC might be the reason. But there is a real push by certain entities to bring in vehicles with cleaner emissions here, and Volkswagen threw their hat in the ring with the VW Passat Ecofuel, a car that is already offered in Europe, which can run on both natural gas and petrol.
We’ve answered this question a million times before, but it is time to permanently settle this matter, so that if we are bothered by armchair-racers in the future, we can just point to this page.
It isn’t often that we get to fly to other countries to test-drive a car. So it was doubly interesting that our only fully-sponsored foreign trip of the year involves the 2012 Isuzu D-Max pickup truck. At the Bahrain Formula 1 circuit no less.
Kia, besides its sister-concern Hyundai, has been in a phase of rapid evolution over the past few years, rolling out several new models which are far superior than their predecessors and strong contenders to the current competition. One such new vehicle from the stables of Kia, is the all-new 2012 Kia Optima. First introduced in the UAE through an official media drive-event during late 2010, the new Optima has managed to gain respectable popularity in the mid-size segment solely due to factors such as affordability, build quality, value for money and visually-appealing designs. Nevertheless, it is still underrated when it comes to comparisons against its overpriced Japanese competitors.
We’ve never been to an event before where we drove so many different cars at once that all the names did not fit in the title of a story. At the recent “Mopar Power Drive” media event at the Dubai Autodrome, we drove the 2012 editions of the — in one big breath — Chrysler 300C V8, Chrysler 300 V6, Chrysler Grand Voyager, Dodge Durango, Dodge Challenger V6, Dodge Charger V6, Dodge Caliber, Dodge Ram 1500, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Compass, and finally, to throw a curve-ball, the Fiat 500.
Let’s face it, we didn’t have high expectations for the 2012 Lexus GS. We never drove the old model, which was never taken seriously anyway, and we didn’t like the way the new model looked in pictures, like a photoshopped Honda Accord. But then we started hearing good things about it in the foreign press, like how it was somehow better than the BMW 5-Series and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class. That was enough to pique our interest, and we started to look forward to the GCC launch event at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
It isn’t every day that a new Toyota Land Cruiser comes out. It still isn’t that day. The last time a new one debuted was in late 2007. Before that, it happened in around 1998, if what our grandpa says is true. Today, we took a look at the 2012 model, a facelifted version of the existing model, at an event in Dubai.
The Nissan Sunny was once a leader in the local compact segment, battling the venerable Toyota Corolla and occasionally even outselling it. Heck, most of us learned to drive on that thing, as it was the car of choice for driving schools here. But things changed once the impressive Tiida came into the scene, stealing sales from the Sunny and largely relegating it to fleet-vehicle status, having barely changed in more than a decade. Now that Nissan has decided to dust off the Sunny name and bring in a completely revamped model, keep in mind that it is not playing in the same segment any more.