In the early hours of March 11, an accidental chain reaction caused a massive pile-up in Abu Dhabi. Eight people died in the accident that involved as many as 200 vehicles on the Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway. Thirty-nine people were injured in this unprecedented accident that caused 92 vehicles to catch fire. The cause of the accident was heavy fog and, of course, speeding drivers.
Update: Latest reports suggest 60 cars, 3 dead and 350 injured.
These are the latest additions to the New Car Buyer Guide. As usual, prices are a bit iffy, especially since they differ from city to city, and keep changing daily. Everything else should be in order, and more updates will follow later. Available information on some cars are limited, so do not hound me for any mistakes that might crop up, but do let me know so I can correct them. If the updates are not visible in your Internet Explorer browser, then press and hold CTRL, and CLICK on Refresh in the browser. And if you can’t figure out that instruction,
If you haven’t heard yet, there is now a federal law in the United Arab Emirates to actually enforce the black points system, whereby drivers get black points for various offences. Once a guy collects 24 black points, the licence will be suspended for three months. If he collects 24 points for the second time, the license will be suspended for six months. If it happens for the third time, the licence will be taken away for one year and will not be returned after that until the guy passes a training course from an officially-recognised driving institute.
Lexus unveiled their 2008 LX570 luxury 4WD in Dubai yesterday. The vehicle is largely based on a Toyota Land Cruiser, but includes a unique front end, a detuned 362 hp 5.7-litre V8, special trim and a totally different interior design. Interesting features include front, rear and right-side parking cameras, as well as active cruise control, variable suspension and a pricetag of Dhs 325,000.
Meanwhile, at a recent press conference in Dubai for the Gulf Air-sponsored Bahrain F1, it was mentioned that flights are getting full for the April 4-5-6 racing days, and it is advisable to book right now.
Gulf News reported that Dubai police fined as many as 50 of their own employees for having dark tint on their personal cars that is above the legal tint level. By law, the tint should have 30% “darkness” at most, but cops themselves were freely flouting the law, so this is a good decision by higher police officials, emphasising that they should act as role models.
Ford has pretty much confirmed that they’ve sold their Land Rover and Jaguar divisions as a package deal to Indian carmaker Tata. It is expected that US$ 2 billion will change hands, and the official announcement will be made at the beginning of March during the 2008 Geneva Auto Show.
While dumb shows such as Pimp My Ride become repititive after five episodes, it inspired drink-maker Barbican’s Supe-up Your Ride promotion, which offered regional owners of crappy cars the chance to win a free refurbishment and customisation of their ride. During their 3-month promotion, visitors were asked to upload videos of their old beaters on clipatbarbican.com, and other site visitors voted on which ones should be customised. The winners included this R32-spec Nissan Skyline GTS.
Among car-related topics, there are two things popular with misguided “hip” young today – front-wheel-drive “sport” compacts, and the “sport” of drifting. But as enthusiastic as they are, cheap front-wheel-drive cars cannot drift, and cheap rear-wheel-drive drift cars are not commonly available. Or are they? This video shows that somewhat-driftable vehicles are as common than Coca Cola.
When we last asked for a VW for a test drive, the PR guy mumbled something about the magazines getting priority. It pissed me off enough to ignore them for the next few months. We figured we’d ask them again anyway, and this time they replied with their misguided policies in writing:
While we appreciate your continued interest in test driving Volkswagen vehicles, our test driving policy stipulates that priority is granted to publications in the first degree due to the demand and availability of
the vehicles for such activities. We hope that you can understand our reservations and look forward to continuing on updating you with information from Volkswagen.
The Abu Dhabi numberplate auction held on February 16 has set a new world record for selling the most expensive numberplate ever auctioned. Organised by Emirates Auction in association with Abu Dhabi police, the Code 5 plate numbered “1” fetched Dhs 52.2 million. That’s about US$14.4 million for a numberplate. The plate is expected to adorn a luxury car that only costs a fraction of that amount.