News round-up: Mitsubishi, Honda, BMW, Mini
Mitsubishi’s and Honda’s UAE dealers have opened used car divisions, BMW’s Qatar dealer has restarted their bespoke programme, while Mini is hosting a public event.
Mitsubishi’s and Honda’s UAE dealers have opened used car divisions, BMW’s Qatar dealer has restarted their bespoke programme, while Mini is hosting a public event.
It’s time to close the chapter on our 2000 BMW M Roadster, our first attempt at owning a near-exotic car. We bought it in early 2008, and sold it last month, barely driving it for 7,000 km in more than three years. Here’s a rundown of what you need to know if you plan to buy a premium sports car on a budget.
We’d been asking for a round with the new BMW 5-Series ever since it was launched last year. We weren’t invited to two launch events for the car. We asked for this specific car only five times since we saw it on the cover of the now-defunct CAR Middle East in October 2010, and many other feeble magazines since then. Even a relatively-new website called Crank & Piston got a round with it for a month. We’ve been told before that we “don’t fit the criteria” for interacting with certain European luxury brands, but this is ridiculous. However, now with 30,000 km on the clock,
It was a busy week in the UAE automotive sector, with the launch of a new Peugeot showroom in Abu Dhabi, a Juke Missions campaign by Nissan, the announcement of fake parts raid by Toyota, the start of a new Maserati one-make race season, and a booster-seat giveaway by BMW.
You might be wondering why there have been no updates on our 2000 BMW M Roadster, the ultra-rare sports car of which only a handful exist in the UAE. The truth is we haven’t been driving it much, because it is a race-car for the streets. Race-cars aren’t particularly good on crowded streets.
Not so long ago, we reported about BMW about to offer their xDrive all-wheel-drive system in the 6-series range. The manufacturer has now updated their U.S. website to include the specification of the new variant as a 2012 model.
So how about sitting in the driver’s seat and doing nothing but watching the car drive for you? Well, that is exactly what BMW has been working on for the past few years; a car that drives almost by itself with the least possible driver intervention. BMW has indeed succeeded to a good extent with their autonomous assistance systems in beta stages, which means autonomous cars are not far from reality.
We’ve all seen and drooled over the crazy BMW 1 series M Coupe videos. What then happens when AC Schnitzer decides to improve upon this limited edition pocket rocket?
The 2010 BMW 535i Gran Turismo left us many months ago, after less than three weeks with us. We figured we should do a wrap-up article before closing the book on this car, especially since BMW themselves are considering ending production of this car for obvious reasons.
German carmaker BMW has just expanded their 6-series line-up for 2012 with the introduction of four new variants – the 640d Coupe, 640d Covertible, 650i xDrive Coupe and 650i xDrive Convertible.