Behind The Scenes

While I test cars, I unconsciously compare them to my 17-year-old inline-six “baby” Mercedes to see how far cars have progressed (not far enough really). Similarly, I compare tested sports cars with my 20-year-old modded twin-turbo Supra. But I’ve never owned a 4WD before, and I needed one to judge new trucks against. I set a budget, and I started researching for a reliable, tough and true 4WD that could go up against the latest. Oddly enough, the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 you see in the picture fit the bill. A Jeep? Reliable? There’s more to the story.

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Okay, this is getting ridiculous. We just picked up a brand new Toyota FJ Cruiser, and after the Mini, Hummer and Corvette, this is our fourth yellow car in a row. Yellow! Never have we seen so much yellow! Yellow fever aside, the FJ really is the Japanese answer to the Hummer. We found its back-to-basics off-road equipment to be adequate, while its power leaves the seriously-slow H3 in the dust. Both are rated at around 240 hp, but the FJ has more torque and is somewhat lighter, with an extra speed in the auto gearbox.

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We were invited to the Middle East launch today of the 2008 Nissan Altima sedan and coupe at the Dubai Autodrome, and got to do three hot laps around the track.

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It is amazing that the company which brought us the goofy Spark can also create something as world-beating as the Corvette ZO6. The thing has enough power to wipe out most of the German and Italian competition. In fact, you’d have to spend a million dirhams at the Ferrari showroom to overtake this American piece of plastic. Shop at Porsche, and you have to get the Turbo model to take on the ZO6, at a 35% higher price. Think it can’t handle? Well, think again.

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GM came through for us and home-delivered this yellow Corvette ZO6 with a six-speed manual. This should amount to our fastest car yet that we’ve had for review. 505 horsepower is no joke. This is also the first time ever I blurted out “cool car” to the dude who handed me the keys.

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We’ve just been invited to the Dubai launch of the all-new Nissan Altima. We don’t know if it will be advertised as a 2008 or 2009 model, but yes, the new coupe is also coming here alongside the sedan.

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To our regular visitors, it might seem obvious that I haven’t put up a new car review in almost two weeks now. The truth is I’ve been swamped with–what else–life, since this website is nothing more than charity work on my part (given I make almost no money from it). I’ll be busy this week as I have to attend three new car launches at least. But I’ve also been a bit frustrated over stuff involving this website too.

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General Motors home-delivered this blingtastic Hummer H3 to our doorstep. It is a very eye-catching vehicle, like no other midsize 4WD on the road today. It has a uniqueness similar to the Jeep Wrangler and the Land Rover Defender, but it is designed to be accessorized. In fact, our tester itself had some extra-cost options installed, and it looked great (and expensive) from the outside. But the interior is a different story.

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It’s been a few days now since we got the Mini Cooper S. And we are still playing with it. It took us a while to get used to its firm steering/clutch/shifter setup before we could enjoy it (which, thankfully, we could due to BMW’s long four-day test policy). But what surprised us most is that we actually matched the company-quoted 0-100 kph time of 7.1 seconds. And that too with the a/c on in the middle of the summer. Our previous BMW X5 tester took more than a second longer than what BMW said it would take,

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Hot on the heels of our X5 tester, this weekend, we just got a brand new Mini Cooper S for four whole days, complete with a manual transmission and a panoramic sunroof.

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