2011 Dubai International Motor Show – At long last!

At long last indeed. The Dubai International Motor Show (DIMS) is obviously not a show which is held every week. Whilst that probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone, what might come as a surprise to many is the fact that it’s also not a show which is held every year. It’s only held once every two years. Additionally, those of you who have read the report which I wrote earlier on last year’s Abu Dhabi International Motor Show might remember that half of the automotive industry decided not to attend that show at all. Porsche, Audi, BMW, Dodge, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Aston Martin, Honda and even Volkswagen were just some of the big names which which didn’t show up. Well, the economic climate wasn’t particularly pleasant back then. The cumulative effect of the lustreless Abu Dhabi International Motor Show and the two whole years which had passed since the last DIMS only helped grow my anticipation for this DIMS. As I had expected, this DIMS crushed last year’s Abu Dhabi show, in terms of everything from manufacturer turnout to overall brilliance, and moreover, as I had hoped, it also showed a true return to form for the automotive industry not only within the region but internationally as well with just about every major car manufacturer making an appearance.

All the calculated predictions regarding the 2011 DIMS which I made towards the end of my report on the 2010 Abu Dhabi show came true. So yes, there was the Lamborghini Murcielago’s replacement, the Lamborghini Aventador, on the Lamborghini stand along with the Audi A1 on the Audi stand and the all new twin-turbocharged BMW M5 at the BMW stand. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Let me make one thing very clear from the beginning, I went to the motor show on two different days. Not only because I loved it so much but also because on the first day I managed to completely deplete the battery of my camera even though it was fully charged at the beginning of the day. Hence, I had to go back there on the last day to snap a few more pictures and of course, I was more than happy to do that. Anyways, I’m going to give you all a consolidated report on the DIMS with no distinction between the two days on which I visited the show, so be informed.

Like I mentioned earlier, things have changed from a few years ago and for the better. Whilst numerous companies didn’t bother to turn up for last year’s Abu Dhabi show and even the DIMS a year prior to that, this year some companies went as far as setting up multiple stands. You didn’t even have to enter the halls to start visiting stands as Audi, Nissan and Ford had established outdoor stands in addition to their indoor ones. At the Audi stand was an Audi R8 V10 from the Audi driving experience fleet along with a TT and an S5. Nissan had neatly fenced out a sizeable section of the outdoor real estate for its own demonstration area where a 370Z convertible was drifting in figures of eight at regular intervals. Lastly, the Ford outdoors stand just had two all new Ford Focuses facing one another but completely replete with graffiti. Nothing particularly special outside then, but more than exciting enough to whet my appetite for what lay inside the halls. So, I showed my wrist tag to the gentlemen at the doors to the halls and entered what seemed to be petrolheads wet dream. First up, Daimler Chrysler.

The first thing that caught my eye at the Daimler Chrysler stand was a car in the Jeep section which I was seeing in the metal for the very first time, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8. As with every other new car which has come out from the Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler family since the Fiat takeover, the all new Grand Cherokee SRT-8 is a humongous improvement over its predecessor. Whilst the original Grand Cherokee SRT-8 was, amongst high-performance SUVs, the epitome of American hooliganism with blistering straight line acceleration but terrible handling and even worse fit and finish quality, this all new incarnation of the top banana Cherokee is a genuine BMW X5M rival not only in terms of on road capabilities but also fit and finish, interior design and everything else. Moreover, it’ll beat the X5M in the affordability department. Considering all of the above, I’d say the Grand Cherokee SRT-8 can not only beat the BMW X5M but also the likes of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo. On the neighbouring Chrysler stand you could see the, again all new, Chrysler 300C which is, again, a highly substantial improvement over the old 300C. And on the Dodge stand there was the thoroughly revamped Dodge Charger which was another example of skip-a-whole-generation improvement over its predecessor.

Moving on, I came across the Kia stand which had Peter Schreyer written all over it. Well, not literally but it was clear that the car designer who formerly worked for Audi had completed his extreme makeover project on the Kia lineup. Every Kia from the cheap-as-chips Picanto to the recently launched Rio and the Kia Sportage had the now instantly recognizable tiger-snout grille and with those relatively rock bottom price tags, those Kias were probably grabbing a lot of serious buyers. Next up was the Toyota stand. Toyota had the initial concept version of the FT-86 concept car (which I discussed in detail in my ADIMS article) and, quite frankly, the way Toyota has been costantly teasing the world with different versions of the FT-86 concept for what seems to be centuries now is getting rather annoying. Just give us the real deal already Toyota! Another car of great importance on the Toyota stand was the 2012 Camry. Why the new Camry is so important is obvious, it’s the UAE’s favourite taxi and for the first time ever it does looks marginally cool with a pronounced Toyota family fascia and an optional spoiler which actually looks like an optional spoiler. There was also the all new Yaris (another very important Toyota even if it is undeniably boring) and yet another limited edition Land Cruiser, this time celebrating the upcoming fortieth UAE national day. Also present at the Toyota stand was a new addition to the Extreme series of heavy-duty Toyota SUVs, the Hilux Extreme. As you might know the Toyota Hilux is arguably the most popular commercial pickup in the UAE but regardless of its image as a lowly commercial vehicle there is no denying its off road performance potential as Top Gear demonstrated a few years ago by taking a heavily modified Toyota Hilux all the way to the North pole.

Moving on, we could see the Mitsubishi stand which only had one Lancer Evolution X on display and even that was tucked away in a corner instead of being pushed to the front. What was pushed to the front and ideally placed to grab attention was a car which was probably the biggest joke of the whole show, not considering the Chinese companies of course. This car was, a stock short-wheelbase Mitsubishi Pajero which was trying very hard to look like a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. It had hastily been fitted with Rays wheels and had some very Raptor-ish digital mud graphics along the side. After seeing this insult to the mighty Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, I spent less than another half-minute at the Mitsubishi stand before progressing on to the Peugeot stand which was far more sensible with, not one but, two RCZs right at the front, each with a unique colour combination. The RCZs (I talked in more detail on this model in my earlier ADIMS report) were garnering a lot of attention with their double-bubble glass roofs glistening under the spotlights but another rather exciting Peugeot – the SR1 concept. The SR1 concept might have had a hybrid drivetrain but its looks were anything but as boring as a giant electric battery with the car having clear intentions of influencing the design language of near-future Peugeots. An enterprise which had already begun with the recently released Peugeot 508, which is the new flagship of the French carmaker which is, slowly but steadily, rediscovering its former glory.

Over at the Nissan stand I came across the latest incarnation of the much respected Nissan GT-R. This time around the GT-R had received some much needed sophistication upgrades such as LED daytime-running lights along with some better materials used in the interior. Additionally, the near flawless aerodynamics of the GT-R had also had another going through. Nissan did the smart thing by pushing the GT-R to the front and hiding the Leaf EV (flat opposite of the GT-R) somewhere at the back of the stand. Understandably, nobody really seemed to care about the Leaf, but besides the GT-R, there was another car which was pulling the crowds towards the Nissan stand and that car was the very funky looking Juke crossover. There’s no denying the fact that the Juke is has one of the most intriguing exteriors of any car on sale today. And the same can be said for the interior as well, after all it has a transmission tunnel designed with inspiration from a motorcycle’s petrol tank. Moving on, we had the Mazda stand which had nothing special to look at, but only to the untrained eye. You see, Mazda had the new CX-5 on its stand which looked quite pleasing as far as crossovers go but the real deal was what lay underneath the blue bodywork. Mazda had chosen to use the CX-5 to debut the very first from its new range of SkyActiv engines. The SkyActiv unit in the CX-5 promises to be fifteen percent more fuel efficient as compared to the old MZR motor which it succeeds whilst also being more powerful and rev-happy. This is achieved by employing direct fuel injection, variable valve timing and an extremely high compression rate.

Next up was the Honda stand with an elevated stage built for performances by the star of the stand, which was not a car but a robot. Yes, I’m talking about ASIMO the famously short humanoid robot from Honda which looks a lot like a very short astronaut and has constantly been learning new tricks, such as walking on stairs and shaking hands , over the past several years. ASIMO was performing shows at regular intervals on the Honda stand on every day of the show and the crowds were loving it. Besides walking up and down stairs and shaking hands with his handler, ASIMO would also kick a football towards her and give a short dance performance for his admirers before waving them all goodbye at the end of each show. Regrettably, besides ASIMO, the Honda stand wasn’t particularly exciting as the Honda people hadn’t even bothered to bring along the Civic Type-R for the show. Moving on, there was the extraordinarily small Subaru stand with a race-prepped Impreza WRX STi complete with decals and – crucially – the absence of any license plates. If it had had license plates, it would have probably trumped the aforementioned Pajero in the ridiculousness stakes.

Then there was the section of the motor show filled with the most impetuous companies in the entire industry – the modifiers. You could see all the big names of this sub-industry including Hamann, Brabus and Mansory. Each of them were showcasing their own overtly unique, completely unbalancing takes on what used to be perfectly balanced cars. However, one of them stood out and that was a high-performance modifier known as Invader Technologies. Invader was displaying the Invader N40 which is a heavily modified Nissan Patrol in a similar way as to how the Invader L60 (about which I wrote in more detail in my ADIMS report) in the background was a heavily modified Lexus LX570. I couldn’t get a whole lot of details but from the looks of it the performance chasm between the N40 and the stock Nisan Patrol could safely be estimated to be as distinct as the chasm between the L60 and the stock Lexus LX570.

After visiting the Invader stand, I reached the end of that particular hall. Well, actually there were a few of those Chinese car makers still left but I didn’t even bother looking at their stands, for obvious reasons. Instead, I decided to catch a breather by spending some time at the Hankook stand. Why did I spend some time at the stand of a tyre manufacturer? I hear you ask. Well, I have quite a few reasons. Firstly, Hankook is known for being what is arguably the best high-performance tyre manufacturer in the industry. Just look at the number of car makers participating in DTM races who swear by Hankooks. And besides, I have always believed that tyres are the unsung heroes of the car. Whenever people talk about a certain car, they talk about things such as the engine, the transmission and even the brakes but rarely do they talk about the tyres. When it’s actually only the tyres which keep the car connected to the road. Secondly, the Hankook stand had a Ferrari California on it when even Ferrari itself hadn’t bothered to bring a California to their stand. But, I must confess, the real reason behind why I spent a significant amount of time at the Hankook stand was because I happened to meet an acquaintance of mine from my Wichester (the school I used to attend) days. Ms.Katya Tuganova happened to be modelling for Hankook and I happened to be there because, well, because I’m a petrolhead and I had been waiting for this show for the past two years. Small world, eh? All right, all right, I got a little distracted.

Anyways, getting back to the cars, I then progressed on to the Sheikh Saeed Hall which was where the majority of the big boys had set up shop. First up, Ford. The car which was catching everyone’s attention at the Ford stand was the all new Ford Focus which received its official release at the show. Of course, the Focuses on the stand didn’t have graffiti on them like the ones standing outside but regardless of that, even a blind man could tell that the Focus had finally received the makeover which it had badly needed for quite some time now. The interior of the focus had also received a thorough going over with the dashboard now featuring a piano-black finish instead of materials which seemed to have been made from recycled egg cartons, as was the case with the previous model. Also on the stand was the recently released 2012 Ford Explorer alongside the Ford Taurus which had very recently been declared the official replacement for the (now deceased) Ford Crown Victoria. And yes, of course, there were also a few Mustang 5.0s thrown in there for good measure. Over at the Renault stand, the Renault Duster was on display, which had been revealed by none other than Formula One star Mark Webber on the first day of the show. Also on display were one of Webber’s F1 cars and the stock, hum-drum Megane hatchback. I also found out, from a very good gentleman at the Renault stand, that the record-breaking Megane RS could take a while to reach our region, probably because of the terrible weather which we have here in the Middle East. Somewhat like Nissan, Renault too had a Fluence ZE electric car tucked away towards the back end of their stand but, unsurprisingly, nobody was paying it too much attention.

Over at the Skoda stand, there was a serious effort being put in to make the cars look as exciting as possible with almost every car on the stand being in VRS trim. Full marks for that, Skoda. I always knew that there was a Fabia VRS, but an Octavia VRS? The Czechoslovakian brand truly has benefitted from being a member of the Volkswagen family. Then there was GMC with the Sierra HD concept displayed right at the centre of their stand. The Sierra HD is the concept which GMC hopes could dethrone the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, if it makes it to production. At least it’s a more serious effort than a certain aforementioned Mitsubishi. Working towards the centre of the Sheikh Saeed halls, I came across the Lexus stand which, in my opinion, had gotten its priorities very, very wrong. All attention was being diverted towards the revamped Luxus GS instead of the LFA. Whilst the new GS looks like a very striking car in its own right, it can’t match the LFA which took nine years to develop and can rival a Gallardo. The LFA had its own rotating platform at last years ADIMS, but at this DIMS it stood on the stand forgotten by most. On the brighter side, as I wasn’t one to forget the LFA so easily, I got to get more closer to it than ever before, which was a real pleasure.

Opposite Lexus was Hyundai and, just like sister company Kia, one look at their stand would tell you how far they had come in the matter of just a few years. Taking place of pride on an elevated, rotating pedestal was the Volkswagen Scirocco-baiting Hyundai Veloster which had learnt some lessons regarding door placement from the mistakes of the MINI Clubman. Also present on the Hyundai stand were some range-topping variants of the Genesis Coupe’ and saloon but the Veloster really was the life of that stand, in a lurid shade of orange.

Next in line were the Jaguar and Land Rover stands, each of which possessed a crucial concept car. For Jaguar it was the CX-75 high-performance hybrid. With its twin micro turbines, drop-dead gorgeous looks and cutting-edge technology, the CX-75 clearly represented a bright future for Jaguar. A marginally less exciting but much more realistic car on the Jaguar stand was the XKR-S which is the most powerful road-legal car Jaguar has ever produced.

Over at the Land Rover stand, in addition to the regular lineup, there was the DC100 concept which will, some day, replace the iconic Defender. Even though Defender purists won’t like what a departure the DC100 is from the Defender in the aesthetics department, there’s no denying that Land Rover understands their concern and intends to keep them satisfied. For starters, the DC100 is nowhere near as much a designer handbag as the Range Rover Evoque (also present on the stand) ever was. From what I can tell, all the new technology that is being employed in the DC100 is being done so with utilitarianism in mind, which is a good thing. One example of this would be the presence of sonar generator/receivers on the front and rear bumpers of the car which allow the driver to measure the depth of a stream or river before entering it. Now that’s unquestionably utilitarian and cool! Then there was MG which had decided to add a few new models to its lineup but I couldn’t care less because I’m smart enough to know that no matter how hard they try, MG can’t hide the fact that all their new cars are Chinese and not British. At least not from me. Besides, I was much more interested in the next stand – Porsche.

The two main showstoppers of the Porsche stand were the 918 RSR, which had its own cozy fenced off section towards the rear of the stand, and the all new 911 which was shown in Carrera S  form atop an rotating platform. Whilst we’re accustomed to Porsche crying wolf about an all new 911 every other week when it’s actually just another limited edition or just another optional paint colour, believe me when I say that, this time around, it really is an all new 911 complete with a redesigned fascia, tailights inspired by the 918 Spyder (precursor to the 918 RSR racecar present at the show) and an interior influenced by the Panamera. A very good man at the Porsche stand who I happened to share a brief conversation with also told me a little bit about the Cajun project. He confirmed that the Cajun is going to be, in essential terms, a baby-Cayenne sharing its platform with the one underpinning the Audi Q5 and will mostly likely be powered by a V6 power plant. He also added that whilst the engine will also, most probably, be borrowed from the brand with the four rings, it will hopefully come with a garnishing of Porsche spices in order to remain true to the ethos of ‘Porsche Intelligent Performance’. I thanked the bloke for the insider information, gave him my card and progressed towards the Cadillac stand.

In all honesty, Cadillac didn’t have anything on show  which I hadn’t seen already but nevertheless, it was good to see the CTS-V, the gangster/rapper favourite Escalade, the recently refreshed SRX crossover and the striking-as-ever CTS-V Coupe’, all in one place, in a sparkly black finish and loaded to the brim with chrome plated what-not. Adjacent to the Cadillac stand was the Aston Martin stand with the V12 Zagato right in the middle. For the uninitiated amongst you, the V12 Zagato is essentially a V12 Vantage with a Zagato designed body. Whilst some people felt that the V12 Zagato rivalled the likes of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione in the looks department and other (such as yours truly) preferred the looks of the regular V12 Vantage, there’s no denying that Aston Martin shouldn’t have a hard time finding 150 willing V12 Zagato buyers as only 150 of them will be made as part of a limited production run. Also present on the Aston Martin stand were the four-door Rapide, the recently released Virage Volante and even the tiny little Toyota iQ-based Cygnet which is being built by Aston Martin, in conjunction with Toyota, as a versatile city runabout for people who already have a ‘regular’ Aston Martin and would like something a little more practical for tasks like mid-afternoon grocery runs.

Then there was Lamborghini which thankfully wasn’t sharing stands with Al Hilal bank and hence had its own dedicated stand for the first time in around three consecutive years. There were three cars on the Lamborghini stand and I was having a hard time trying to decide which one I should ogle at more. There was the Gallardo LP570-4 Spyder Performante, the Gallardo LP570-4 Super Trofeo Stradale and the Aventador LP700-4. The last of which was in the region’s favourite colour of white and had me instantly wishing it was in black. But then I noticed something. The three cars were in green, red and white, and were placed in such a way as to replicate the colours of the Italian flag. Full marks, Lamborghini, very Italian indeed. After spending a good amount of time feasting my eyes over the flawless piece of automotive porn that was the Aventador I moved on to the stand which belonged to Lamborghini’s daddy, Volkswagen.

The Volkswagen which I was most interested in was the Scirocco R which we in the Middle East were finally receiving after a huge delay. The reason why I’m looking forward to reading reviews of the Scirocco R is because the regular Scirocco is a brilliant car in its own right and whilst the Scirocco R will have the same superb two litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine as its brother the Golf R, it won’t be sharing its four wheel drive system. Which means that it should be about as powerful as the Golf R but less ‘serious’ and hence, a lot more fun. Also on the Volkswagen stand was the Touareg, in R-Line trim, and the Amarok which is a car Volkswagen hopes could dethrone the Toyota Hilux as the most popular commercial pick-up in the Middle East and several other regions.

Then there was the stand which belonged to the top-shelf brand of the Volkswagen empire, Bugatti. At the Bugatti stand there were three special edition Veyron Grand Sports with none being open to the general public. Obviously, Bugatti doesn’t want us unwashed masses getting our fingerprints all over their convertible masterpieces. What was interesting was the fact that one of the three Veyron Grand Sports on display featured the worlds first production car application of green carbon which, believe me , looks a lot better than it sounds.

Then there was yet another member of the Volkswagen family, Bentley. The Bentley stand had a Mulsanne and a Continental Flying Spur. The latter of which seemed to be begging for a mid-life facelift. A facelift which had recently been applied to its two door comrades. Speaking of which, it was the two door Continental comrades who really stole the show, as far as the Bentley stand is concerned, as the recently released Continental GT and the even-more-recently released Continental GTC convertible stood there in all their splendour. Right next to the Bentley stand was the Mclaren stand. Mclaren had opened up its Dubai showroom on Emaar boulevard, representing the high-performance car maker’s first foray into the Middle East region, just days before the motor show. There were two MP4-12Cs on the Mclaren stand. One was in the brands trademark tangy orange-ish colour but that wasn’t the one on the elevated podium. Oh no, the car on the podium was the other MP4-12C which was in, you guessed it, white. By and large, the MP4-12C was attracting a lot of potential buyers, who undoubtedly wanted to buy something which would help them stand out from the crowd in the sea of Ferraris and Lamborghinis which is more commonly referred to as Dubai.

Moving on, we had the rather small Shelby Supercars (SSC) stand which housed just one car. However, this one car happened to be one of the most significant cars of the show, if not the prettiest, the SSC Tuatara. The Tuatara might have a silly name but with a seven litre V8 engine, 1350bhp, 1508Nm of torque and a top speed of 440kmph it’s a true rival to the record-breaking Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. Sure it might not be particularly easy on the eyes but if you really think about it, neither is any version of the Veyron. Next up were the Ferrari and Maserati stands which, naturally, stood side by side and had the most luscious lovelies of the entire show, excluding Ms.Tuganova of course, as stand attendants. All right then, back to the cars. Ferrari had two cars on their stand and the two had quite an aesthetic contrast between them. On one hand we had the dazzlingly beautiful 458 Spider and on the other, the dazzlingly controversial Ferrari FF. The convertible sister of the 458 Italia was in Ferrari’s trademark Maranello red and had desirability dripping from every body panel whereas the FF, which is Ferrari’s first ever 4WD car and features a shooting-brake design, was a hit with the people with whom it was practically designed to be a hit with – Arab men who wanted a Ferrari which could not only go fast but also seat four people and occasionally do a little bit of ‘soft-roading’.

Over at the Maserati stand, there was a GranCabrio and some GranTurismo based racecar at the back but most interestingly, the Maserati Kubang concept. The Kubang is a concept car, based on a Jeep Grand Cherokee and fitted with a Ferrari-sourced V8 engine, which Maserati hopes will go on to rival the Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Moving on, there was the rather big Chevrolet stand where the golden bowtie had been considerate enough to hold the global premiere, for the all new TrailBlazer, on the first day of the show. The Trailblazer had been in desperate need of a major revamp for quite some time now, and now that it had received it, it looked like very capable off-roader once again. Also present, amongst the numerous Chevrolets on display, was the new Sonic, which was blue despite being another car from Chevrolet and not the hedgehog from SEGA. There was also a black Centennial Edition Corvette celebrating a hundred years of Chevrolet’s existence.

Then there was the Infiniti stand which housed nothing new, with the exclusion of the maddest, baddest Infiniti FX the world has ever seen. Behind the regular Infiniti lineup, which took up most of the stand, in a quiet corner stood the Infiniti FX Sebastian Vettel edition, named after the Formula 1 racer. The design changes of the car over the regular FX were elaborate to say the least even if not the kind of stuff that Mansory could be expected to do. Besides having a pearl white paint finish, the Sebastian Vettel edition FX also had a large spoiler at the back, visibly lowered suspension, new wheels and carbon fibre accents which were scattered all over the bodywork.

Next was the Mercedes-Benz stand, which was so big it seemed to take up half of the Sheikh Saeed Hall, and boy did it have a lot of cars. You could see the (deep breath) new C-Class, C63 AMG, SLK, SLK55 AMG, E-Class, E-Class Cabriolet, CLS-Class, CLS63 AMG, S63 AMG, GL-Class, G55 AMG, new M-Class, SLS AMG, SLS AMG Roadster and even a Viano. And that’s excluding the couple of Mercedes-Benz Pullman modified S-Classes which had to be given their own dedicated Pullman stand next to the main stand, probably because there seemed to be no more space on the primary stand of the brand with the three pointed star. I’m sure they would’ve stuffed a GLK-Class in there too if they could have gotten any more space. Out of the cars mentioned above, the most important ones are of course the SLS AMG and its convertible sister, the SLS AMG Roadster. Though the former has been here for a while now, it still seems as spectacular as ever, especially with its gull-wing doors open. Obviously, those magnificent doors had to be forgone for the Roadster, as doors can’t simply be hinged onto thin air. Whilst I would, personally, prefer to have the SLS AMG as it has some charisma which can’t be found in the Roadster, there’s no denying the fact that the SLS AMG Roadster is a topless beauty in its own right.

Dwarfed my the Mercedes-Benz stand was the Volvo stand which was next. Volvo had the car which Emirates business class travellers swear by, the Volvo V70, along with the ageing XC90 and a few other safety-obsessed cars. Nothing particularly special to look at, so I moved on. Towards the end of the hall, there was the Audi stand which had quite a few noteworthy cars on it. Firstly, they had the R8 GT which is the more hard-core, lightweight version of the R8 V10. Then they had the RS5, the Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class rival that is the A7 and the Porsche Cayman S rival that is the Audi TTRS. Also present on the stand was the Audi Quattro concept which commemorated the 30th anniversary of the original Audi Quattro rally car and the Audi Quattro four wheel drive system which is synonymous with the four-ringed marque. And finally, we had the BMW group with MINI, BMW and Rolls-Royce all standing side by side. MINI had the Countryman on display along with the new Mini Coupe. Also on the MINI stand was the Countryman concept which is basically a two-door Countryman.

Over at the BMW stand, the blue and white roundel had released a UAE themed, limited edition 750Li celebrating the upcoming 40th UAE national day and the coupe variant of the latest 6-series, the second of which was, oddly enough, released after its convertible counterpart. Also on display were the 1-Series M Coupe, with a proper manual gearbox, the new M5, which had ditched its predecessors V10 for a more powerful yet more efficient twin-turbocharged V8 engine, the X range of BMW SUVs and the Vision Connected Drive concept. The last of those is a concept car featuring a lot of exciting technologies which we can hope will trickle down into production BMWs in the near future.

Last but not the least, we had the Rolls-Royce stand which had the long-wheelbase Ghost, and a few Phantom models, one of which was specially commissioned for the DIMS. All in all, the 2011 DIMS was not only, unsurprisingly, worlds better than last year’s show in Abu Dhabi but also probably the best edition of the DIMS so far. Sure enough, Alfa Romeo didn’t show up but just look at the number of people who did and it’s clear that the automotive industry is back on track and accelerating towards a promising future. Am I looking forward to the 2012 ADIMS? Sure I am, but not as much as the 2013 DIMS. Perhaps, at that point in time, we can, at long last, expect to see a production version of the FT-86 from Toyota and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to see Ms.Tuganova again. Yeah, OK, I get distracted.

November 25, 2011 | Categories: Articles | 1 Comment

Gulf Bike Week – Big tyres, bulging fuel tanks and more

As could be expected from me, the moment I heard news about the upcoming 2011 Gulf Bike Week on the radio, I conclusively decided that I had to visit it. I remembered the time when I had tried to go there last year but I wasn’t able to because, if I remember correctly, it had fallen right in the middle of a set of mock examinations. This year, thankfully, things were shaping up to be quite different. I was done with my first set of mock examinations for the year, and the second set was still quite a while away. Additionally, the days on which the motorbike festival was going to be held were also ideal. It ran from the tenth of February, which was a Thursday, till the twelfth of February, which was a Saturday. That would be the entire second weekend of February. I resolved to go to the festival on its second day and spent a few minutes wondering why the organizers had named the festival ‘Gulf Bike Week’ and not ‘Gulf Bike Weekend’. Anyways, the weekend in question arrived soon enough and so did the Friday within it and before I knew it, I was on my way to Dubai Festival City to attend the Gulf Bike Week/Weekend.

On Friday, whilst I was walking through Dubai Festival City, towards the Festival Arena where the Gulf Bike Week was being held, I had a few other thoughts going through my mind. I recalled how last year’s Gulf Bike Week had also been known for the spectacular Nickelback performance which it had featured. In recent years, it had come to be expected from the Gulf Bike Week, to feature at least one performance by a well-known artist. And this year, there were three (or at least two-and-a-half) acts which were spread across the first two days of the festival. On the first day of the Gulf Bike Week, Pharrell Williams along with his band, N.E.R.D., and special guest star, Mike Posner, were putting on a live concert and on the second day of the festival the performance was going to be given by Amy Winehouse. But I wasn’t interested in all that. My itinerary involved going to the bike festival, visiting the stunt arena, milling around the bike park, strolling through the bike expo and taking pictures throughout the time that I am at the festival. As soon as I reached the Festival Arena, out of pure excitement, I walked right up to the main entrance of the Gulf Bike Week and nearly bumped into one of the muscular security personnel present there. That’s when I realised that I had forgotten to get my ticket. I quickly went to the ticket counters, payed the courteous attendant forty Dirahams, took the ticket, got myself a pink wristband, thanked him, ran back to the main entrance, showed the aforementioned muscular gentleman my pink wristband and, after he gave the nod of approval, I entered the Gulf Bike Week.

As soon as I went through the gates, the first thing that caught my eye was the madness which was going on in the stunt arena at that point in time. There were about half-a-dozen riders in the stunt arena, all riding motocross bikes (essentially off-road bikes fitted with road-going wheels and tyres) and going around an obstacle course, dancing with their deaths. At times they were nearly touching one another, and at those speeds, the tiniest bit of turbulence can cause the most horrific accidents. Then I reminded myself that the faces underneath those helmets belonged to trained proffessional stuntmen who had probably been doing these stunts for years. All around spectators such as myself were watching in awe as the riders jumped over ramps and executed unbelievably tight corners in bikes which weren’t even designed for these things. I tried to take a few snapshots of the daredevils doing their stuff but I soon gave up as I discovered that although my Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T77 boasted a 10.1 megapixels resolution, it’s shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to catch a snapshot of the stunt riders in mid-air. Further along the barricaded boundry of the stunt arena, I discovered the presence of a GMC Savana ambulance which was on standby, just in case of an accident. The organizers of the event sure seemed to have done the job right. After spending some more time at the stunt arena, I decided it was time to enter the large tents which housed the bike expo.

The moment I entered the chain of big white tents which accomodated the bike expo, I came face-to-face with the stand of a bike manufacturer which I was fairly familiar with – Honda. On the Honda stand there were, not one but, two CBR1000RRs. One in Repsol livery and another in orange and black graphics. Predictably, there was also an example of the Unicorn and the Goldwing. Though I couldn’t find the CBR600RR, the younger brother to the CBR1000RR, I managed to find a pleasant surprise on the Honda stand in the form of the regional debut of the CBR250R, the newest and smallest member of the Fireblade family. As its name suggests, it is powered by a 250cc single-cylinder engine. It might undeniably pale in comparison to its elder Fireblade brothers but stating something as obvious as that as the verdict on this bike would be misssing its entire reason for its existence. With an engine of that size, a low ride height, ABS as an option and a pricetag which is less than half of the one stuck on the CBR600RR, this is the ideal bike for a first-time bike buyer who has just recently got his license. One thing’s for sure, when I go about buying myself my first bike, I’ll be sure to keep the Honda CBR250R at the top of my shortlist.

At this point in time, for the benefit of the more uninitiated amongst my readers, I shall mention that, in addition to cars, BMW also designs and manufactures motorbikes, as further into the chain of tents, I came across the BMW Motorrad stand which showcased the greats of the BMW Motorrad lineup such as the enormous K1600GTL and the immensely powerful S1000RR. But as amazing as those two bikes are, my eye was caught by the K1300R which is the same bike which, unless I’m badly mistaken, was ridden by Milla Jovonich in the movie Resident Evil: Extinction. As I drifted away from the BMW Motorrad stand and continued walking through the tents, I stumbled upon the Ducati stand which was selling Ducati merchandise in addition to displaying its top bikes such as the 1198SP Superbike with the bulbous feul tank. Right next to the Ducati stand was the Harley-Davdison stand where, regrettably, there was not a single Buell in sight. Needless to say, Buell, which was Harley-Davidson’s sportsbike arm, had been one of the casualties of the global economic crisis and had been declared defunct by Harley-Davidson a while ago. Personally, I really did miss the Buell 1125R. On the brighter side, Harley-Davidson was showing off some of its most impressive cruisers and choppers which, unsurprisingly, featured sky-high handlebars and ridiculously large tyres and won themselves many admirers.

As I ventured further through the tents, I chanced upen a relatively small stand at which visitors were being given free magazines. As these seemed to be actual magazines and not just glorified brochures, I walked over to the stand and was promptly given two copies. I was also informed that one of the two magazines was the official guide to the Gulf Bike Week. Content with what I had got, I thanked the stand attendant and continued on my stroll. For the next few minutes, as I kept walking, I half-mindedly flipped through the pages of the magazines and was surprisingly impressed by their contents. They were the first two issues of the recently released BIKE Middle East motorcycle magazine and considering the magazine’s extremely young age and the fact that it is the region’s only dedicated motorcycle magazine, the first efforts seemed to be quite telling. A little while later, I encountered the KTM stand which was arguably the most exciting stand of the expo exhibiting the venerable range of KTM off-road bikes as well as the KTM’s flagship road-going bike – the KTM 1190 RC8-R. Also present on the KTM stand was legendary Dubai-based biking world rally champion, Tim Trenker! Those of you who are familiar with Tim Trenker will know that besides being a well-known rally champion, Tim Trenker is also a corporate executive at KTM-UAE (hence his presence at the KTM stand) and has past experience as a catwalk model. Furthermore, he also speaks French, English, German and Arabic fluently. I had met him before at the KTM stand at the Dubai International Motor Show at the end of 2009. I went up to him, shook hands with him and reminded him that we had met before. He tried to recall, and exceeded my expectations when he said that I did seem very familiar. I took a picture of him beside the KTM 1190 RC8-R, shook hands with him again, received a tap on the back, and said I looked forward to seeing him again.

Tucked away in a quite corner of the expo was the Kawasaki stand displaying the celebrated Kawasaki Ninja range of sportsbikes as well as a few ATVs. Taking place of pride in the centre on top of an elevated podium was the Ninja ZX-10R, which was launched at the expo the day before, in a trademark Kawasaki lurid green paint job which gave onlookers the impression that it might be a glow-in-the-dark variant. Finally, as I approached the end of the range of tents, I found the stands of long-time rivals Yamaha and Suzuki opposite one another. The Suzuki stand had the entire GSX-R series on display along with a heavily modified Hayabusa and the Yamaha stand had the latest incarnations of the R1 and the R6. A little while later, I exited the bike expo and returned to the stunt arena where night had fallen and a couple of bikers on Red Bull sponsored motocross bikes were keeping the flame of craziness going strong. At this point of time the stuntmen were using really big ramps and doing awesome stuff mid-air like mid-air backflips and executing mid-air yoga positions on their bikes. This time around I didn’t even bother trying to take pictures but I did thoroughly enjoy the seeing the riders doing what they do best. As a last stop before I left the festival, I paid a visit to the bike park which is where all the bikers attending the festival had parked their bikes.

In all honesty, never in my life, had I seen so many Honda Goldwings together in the same place. Everywhere I looked within the bike park, I would find at least one example of that two-wheeled equivalent of the Airbus A380. Besides that there were also countless Harley-Davidsons and numerous custom-built choppers. I also found a few examples of some very rare bikes such as the Can-Am Spyder, though it has aways been hard to categorise that Can-Am model as a car or a bike as it doesn’t have two or four wheels, it has three. A large number of the bikes present at the bike park had also been modified, to some degree or the other, by their very passionate owners. Some had just had their stock exhaust systems swapped for more vocal aftermarket items whereas there were other bikes which had been modified so extensively, that they were quite hard to identify! But those bikes sure managed to stand out of the crowd. A little earlier, about halfway through the evening, one of the bikers at the bike park had jumped on to his bike and put on quite a show for the crowd when he executed the most spectacular burnout I have ever witnessed! It went on for at least an entire minute and the noise of the engine coupled with the blinding amounts of wheelspin smoke and the smell of burning rubber in the air really was a treat for the senses. When the burnout did get over, the crowd unanimously burst into applause and it wasn’t until several minutes later that the smoke in the air cleared out. As the evening drew to an end, and the Amy Winehouse concert began, I exited the Festival Arena with a very large grin on my face. In my mind, I recollected the most memorable moments of the day as evocatively as possible and imagined the sound of a V-twin motorcycle engine redlining at 10500rpm – all in order to drown out the horrid, typical Amy Winehouse noises which were booming out of the loudspeakers in the background.

February 18, 2011 | Categories: Articles | 1 Comment

The Emerging Mind – Book Review

What is the self? How does the circuitry of the human brain function? How does the human brain comprehend art? These are just some of the many questions which Dr.Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, attempts to answer in his book – The Emerging Mind. The book shows its readers, through numerous bizarre case studies, how rewiring the circuits within the human brain, using instruments as mundane as mirrors, can rectify peculiar neurological disorders such as phantom limbs. But though that is a theme which can be found in one form or another throughout the book, it is not the only focus of the book. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Ramachandran also attempts to explain to his audience how the human brain perceives and judges art and how we humans might still have to undergo a radical change in our thinking to be able to understand what the self is, after all, the latter is a question which has been bothering philosophers for centuries.

Somewhere about halfway through the book, Ramachandran also puts forward his theories about how language evolved and at another point in the book, he also makes the reader realize how astonishing the brain’s ability to ask questions about itself is. As the reader progresses through the book, he/she also begins to look at the discussed topics from a neuroscientist’s point of view which only adds to the influence which the book has on the reader. If there is a downside of the book, it’s probably just that there are certain parts of the book which are so neurologically intricate, that they need to be read at least twice consecutively to be completely understood despite Ramachandran’s commendable efforts to present his arguments and discoveries in the most accessible way possible. Though, that could just be me. Nevertheless, The Emerging Mind is an outstanding book in its subject field and is a must-read for you if you have even a passing interest in the awe-inspiring workings of the human brain and the smallest spark of neuroscience within you.

February 16, 2011 | Categories: Articles | 2 Comments

Abu Dhabi International Motor Show – Pride of the Capital?

I would love to tell you all that the latest edition of the Abu Dhabi International Motor Show (ADIMS) was the most magnificent motor show that I have ever had the pleasure of attending and that it made the Dubai International Motor Show (of one year earlier) seem like the glorified meeting of a locally-based car club. I can’t. That would be a lie, as although the ADIMS tried its best to usurp its sibling’s position as the most-anticipated biennial motor show in the GCC region, it clearly failed. That said, whilst it wasn’t a phenominal success, it was far from being a disastrous failure and, as can be expected from any modern-day motor show, it managed to showcase numerous models (of both the wheeled and legged varities) from several well-known car manufacturers. However, although a large portion of the global automotive industry showed up for the event, an undeniably substantial number of car manufacturers decided not to come at all and I believe that that is what prevented the ADIMS from shining the way it potentially could have. Anyways, let me tell you all about what all was on display for petrolheads, such as yours truly, to drool over.

The first sight one gets to see after entering the exhibition area of the ADIMS is the sight of a the Hyundai stand, which just goes to show how far the South Koreans have come. Just a few years ago the South Koreans had their lineups consisting entirely of boring, characterless econoboxes which were always front-wheel-drive and were bought by people who didn’t have the slighest passing interest in cars. However, things have changed. The all-new Hyundai Tucson and Sonata, which were both recently given new leases of life and now look worlds better than their respective predecessors, were taking up most of the attention. The ‘corporate people’ on the Hyundai stand also kept going on and on about how they are reassuring us all that they represent a sporty brand by sponsoring as many well-known global sporting events as they can. All marketing, of course. Not far away, was sister company Kia’s stand with the Kia Sportage, Cadenza and Optima taking place of pride in the center and hogging up most of the attention.

Venturing further into the labyrinthine layout of the exhibition halls, I came across a Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-4 Baboni Edition standing at the Al Hilal Bank stand. Lamborghini continues to showcase its cars (or in this case, car) at the Al Hilal Bank stand as it saves Lamborghini the money and energy that goes into setting up a stand and because, apparently, both companies have uncannily similar colour schemes in their respective logos. Frankly, in my opinion, neither of those two excuses are valid. Anyways, who needs a stand when the car which needs to be showcased is a Lamborghini? Over at the Ford stand, there was confirmation galore that Mercury was as dead as a doorknob. For the uninitiated amongst us, Mercury was the third car manufacturer under Ford ownership, after Lincoln and Ford itself, untill recently when Ford declared it defunct as a result of the global economic crisis. But instead of holding a funeral for Mercury, Ford was busy showing off the revised Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, which is essentially the Edge’s costlier sibling from the marque named after Abraham Lincoln.

Just a little beyond the Ford and Lincoln stands, were the Jaguar and Land Rover stands with Jaguar keeping it simple by showcasing an XJ, an XFR and an XKR, all in top-of-the-range trim. On the other hand, Land Rover took the opportunity to display its upcoming Evoque SUV in five-door form, which won itself a lot of anticipators. Not far from the Jaguar and Land Rover stands, were the Ferrari and Maserati stands set up back-to-back. On the Maserati stand, was the recently released GranTurismo Convertible and the most hard-core version of the Quattroporte saloon – the Maserati Quattroporte Sport GTS. Whilst the Maserati stand won itself a lot of admirers, sister Ferrari won itself an even greater number of admirers. Though it was hard to tell why. It had to be either because of the Ferrari California, on display, which always had somebody photographing its quad-exhaust system or the Ferrari 458 Italia, also on display, which always had somebody on Ferrari’s payroll polishing its headlights. Or maybe, the Ferrari stand’s extraordinary attention-grabbing abilities were caused by the presence of the dark-haired luscious lovely on the stand who spent most of her time either leaning on to the 458 Italia or getting her polished fingernails all over the California’s steering wheel.

Moving on, I came across the Peugeot stand and whilst usually I would have given this stand one glance and then moved on, I found myself spending a lot of time admiring the quintessentially French ingenuity of the recently released Peugeot RCZ sports coupe’. The RCZ is the car which, Peugeot hopes, will help it regain its formidable position as a leading developer of cutting-edge motorsport technology. Which it should, since most of the radical design elements which the RCZ possessed at the concept stage have been translated unaltered into the production car, including its unique double-bubble roof which helps improve aerodynamic efficiency. Some distance off from the Peugeot stand and nestled in one quite corner of one exhibition hall was the Invader Technologies stand. Invader Technologies is essentially a Japanese tuning firm which recently turned its attention towards the Lexus LX570 and gave it a thorough makeover. With the help of a specially crafted turbocharger and a carbon-tipped high-performance exhaust system, Invader Technologies was able to increase the power generated by the 5.7 litre V8 engine from the standard 383bhp to a jaw-dropping 600bhp! And so, the Invader L60 was born. Two examples of the Invader L60 were on display, each in a different colour combination.

A large area of one of the exhibition halls was taken up by the Toyota and Lexus stands which, naturally, stood side by side. Toyota successfully managed to spring up the greatest unexpected development of the ADIMS by announcing the surprise release of the Toyota Zelas which turned out to be a rebadged Scion TC. For the uninformed amongst us, Scion is a sub-brand of Toyota which sells cars, which are aimed at young carbuyers and come with lots of customization options, only within North America. As expected the Zelas was a hit with young carbuyers at the show who had just got their licenses. Also on the Toyota stand were a host of Toyota’s much-loved SUVs, including the trusty-rusty Land Cruiser Pick-Up and the 60th anniversary edition Land Cruiser, after being revised by the well-known SUV tuning firm, Arctic Trucks. Last but certainly not the least on the Toyota stand was the FT-86 G-Sports Concept. As its name suggests, the FT-86 is, at the moment, just a concept but it has been given the green light for mass production and should be on the roads of regions, which are fortunate to get it first, by the end of this year. The reason behind the existence of the FT-86 is simple. The top brass of Toyota have, finally, realised the mistake they made by ditching excitement just when everybody else was rediscovering it and hence, thankfully, they want to bring back the excitement that the brand once used to be known for thanks to models such as the MR2, the Supra, the Celica and other past models which have all vanished from the catalogues. As far as technical specifications are concerned, all we know for now is that the car will be rear-wheel-drive and powered by a Subaru developed 4-cylinder, 2.0 litre flat four engine. Futhermore, the name also suggests, quite accurately, that the FT-86 is the spiritual successor to the Corolla AE86 which is credited with kick-starting the underground drifting culture in Tokyo. High stakes, indeed. One thing’s for sure, Toyota desperately needs to get the FT-86 right, in order meet the increasingly high expectations which this car will meet soon enough.

Over at the neighbouring Lexus stand, the Lexus LFA, the first foray from Lexus into true-blue supercar territory, was garnering a lot attention and admirers and had taken place of pride on a rotating platform. Unsurprisingly, it was displayed in the Middle East’s favourite colour of white. What little attention the LFA didn’t hog up was taken up by the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG-baiting Lexus ISF. The F department, responsible for development of both the LFA supercar and the ISF sports saloon, is to Lexus what AMG is to Mercedes-Benz and the M division is to BMW. The F department along with its creations just goes to show how far Lexus has come from copying S-Classes. Tracing my way back towards the entrance/exit of the show, I spent my last quarter hour at the ADIMS at the General Motors stand which seemed a little smaller than usual. The reason behind that is obvious. With Hummer and Pontiac oficially declared defunct and Saab sold off to Spyker, the General Motors family had shrunk considerably. Chevrolet displayed the Camaro covertible which will be released before the end of the year, GMC had a bunch of big, black, chrome-laden SUVs which had apparently never heard of the phrase ‘climate change’ and Corvette chose to use the ADIMS to release the Corvette Grand Sport which neatly slots between the Corvette Z06 and the Corvette ZR1 in the Corvette hierarchy. However the most exciting of the General Motors stands was undoubtedly the Cadillac stand which played host to the XTS Concept and the recently released CTS Coupe’ and its more hardcore variant the CTS-V Coupe’. The CTS-V Coupe’ looked particularly dynamic with its striking body lines and chrome-tipped central exhaust system making it intantly recognizable and immensely desirable. One sight of the CTS-V Coupe’ would be sufficient to assure any onlooker that the US taxpayers’ money has been spent very well indeed.

However, despite all these impressive displays, I must repeat that the ADIMS didn’t shine the way it potentially could have simply due to the number of car manufacturers which didn’t show up. There were no displays from several well-known carmakers such as Porsche, Audi, Bentley, BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce, Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Aston Martin, Infiniti, Honda and even Volkswagen. That said, the ADIMS certainly didn’t make me feel like it was a waste of time and money and managed to inch a little more closer to the position which continues to be held by the Dubai International Motor Show. Speaking of the Dubai International Motor Show, its latest edition, which is going to be held around the end of this year, is building up to be one of the best editions yet. What all can we expect to see? The Lamborghini Murcie’lago replacemant as well as the Audi A1 and the upcoming twin-turbocharged BMW M5 are all possibilities. Here’s looking forward to the upcoming Dubai International Motor Show, at the end of this year, and the next ADIMS, at the end of 2012, by which time we can probably expect to see Toyota FT-86s being produced and perhaps also powersliding across Sheikh Zayed Road!

January 30, 2011 | Categories: Articles | 2 Comments

The Invasion Diaries – Part 4 of 4

As I write this, the fifth of December 2010, the third day after the successful invasion of the UAE, is drawing to an end. Today morning, I was supposed to be back at Heriot Watt University continuing my Masters course in automotive engineering. Instead, I was journeying through the middle of the desert towards Oman on my bike to avoid being captured and/or killed by the troops of the army which had invaded the UAE. In other news, I also had a near-death experience this morning. I was riding my KTM along a long barren road getting closer to the UAE/Oman border with every passing kilometre, when suddenly I heard (or rather, experienced) what could be nothing other than the sonic boom of a fighter jet. Instantly, I slowed down and looked skywards, trying to locate and indentify the bane of cutting-edge military technology. And then I saw it. It was unmistakably a Lockheed Martin F-32 Raptor. It had crawled up behind me, when I was carelessly enjoying the soundtrack of my KTM’s engine, and was now flying overhead. Then, just when I thought the pilot hadn’t noticed me, it suddenly turned around and came back towards me. The lurid orange paint of my KTM didn’t exactly offer great camouflage against the black of the tarmac below its wheels. The pilot deployed the F-32’s gattling-configuration machine guns and released several torrents of bullets in my direction. Thanks to the survival instincts within me, within a fraction of a second, my brain came up with a plan to escape from what seemed like unavoidable death. I deliberately lost control over my bike, fell to the ground along with it and skidded for about a dozen metres to a grinding halt and then – played dead.

I had read enough war comics to know that in a situation like this the pilot would never exhaust an entire one of his precious missiles over a single lonely biker. As I had hoped, the pilot flew a few circles overhead for a while, trying to make sure that I was dead and then made his F-32 dart into the horizon, leaving another sonic boom in his wake. When I was absolutely sure that the F-32 had gone for good, I got up, dusted myself off and assessed the damage which had been done to my bike. I found out that no harm had been done except for a painfully large scrape over the orange paint on one of the side engine covers of my beloved KTM. I hopped onto my bike again and continued on my journey on the road towards Oman, fully aware of the fact that I had just cheated death. It’s nighttime right now and I’ll reach the border tomorrow, assuming everything goes as planned and I don’t get killed and/or captured. I’m still unsure about how I’ll rebuild my life but I’ll do it somehow. Perhaps, if things get really bad, I could temporarily earn a living as a roadside mechanic in Muscat. For now, my priority is to get into Oman in one piece. I close this diary entry hoping against hope that I make it through the border and out of this hellhole which I, once upon a time, used to call home.

December 9, 2010 | Categories: Articles | Leave a comment

The Invasion Diaries – Part 3 of 4

It’s the fourth of December 2010, the second day after the invasion of the UAE. Today, yet again, I found myself to be luckier than the large majority of people around me. Since I was travelling on a bike, I could crawl through the gaps between cars in the never-ending traffic jams which had developed all over Dubai. Surprisingly enough, Dubai was so populous that even today, people were still leaving the city in droves. I had been travelling for a while by today morning. Finally when I did reach a clear patch of road, I went full throttle on my beloved KTM and for the first time in days, I smiled. After all, what sort of moron was going to abide by speed limits at a time like this. Ever since a young age, I had always felt a connection with cars and bikes and hearing the glorious wail of my KTM’s 1148 cc V-twin engine ramming against its 10500 rpm redline was perfectly sufficient to put a grin on my face.

In retrospect though, I can’t help but wonder if I should have smiled, considering all the lives that had been lost or damaged since the beginning of the invasion. Maybe, it’s just the fact that I’m no stranger to pain myself and I might be subconsciously thinking that since I have lived through a lot of hells in the past, I’ll probably live through this hell as well. Or am I just becoming overconfident, regarding the luck that I have had so far. I don’t know what to think right now, I honestly don’t. Sometime in the evening, I stopped over at an abandoned petrol station, got my KTM a full tank of petrol and whilst it was filling up, I did some calculations. I calculated that if I continue my journey at my current pace, I’ll reach the UAE/Oman border by day after tomorrow. It’s night time right now and even though I know that I’m fairly safe in this seemingly abandoned 5-star desert resort, I can’t shrug off the feeling that my heat signature is in the cross-hairs of someone’s rifle’s infra-red viewfinder. I sure hope that isn’t the case and I sure hope I’m able to hear a certain thundrous wail tomorrow again.

December 5, 2010 | Categories: Articles | Leave a comment

The Invasion Diaries – Part 2 of 4

It’s the day after the invasion started. Come to think of it, I do possess one notable advantage for survival which the vast majority of people around me cannot say the same about – I only have myself to take care of. Like I said yesterday, my parents are in India and I don’t have any wives or children to take care of either. Additionally, being 20 years old, I’m also mature enough to make decisions for myself. And speaking of decisions, it was high time I made one today. Should I remain hidden and hope that the invading army never finds me, like I have been doing for the past 24 hours, or should I make a run for it and head towards the nearest safe country, like the majority of my neighbours had already done? I gave this a lot of thought this moring and I came to the conclusion that I should bid my home one last farewell and leave.

Within an hour, I had picked only the most utilitarian of my belongings and packed them all into one single backpack. I made sure I didn’t forget my Kevlar-corded earphones (just in case I was forced to choke someone) and the two Victorinox swiss knives (just in case I was forced to stab someone) which I owned. After all, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was a crueler-than-usual world out there. Another thing which didn’t take a genius to figure out was the fact that the invading army had probably bombed all the airports in the UAE. The only way out of the country was by road. So I flung my backpack over my shoulders, jumped onto my KTM 1190-RC8 high-performance motorcycle (the only means of transportation which I owned) and headed south-east, towards the Sultanate of Oman. Muscat, to be more precise. Whilst leaving the house which I had lived in for years I shed a tear, something which I had successfully resisted from doing until that point in time. And surprisingly so.

December 5, 2010 | Categories: Articles | Leave a comment

The Invasion Diaries – Part 1 of 4

Today, the second of December 2010, will always be remembered by every UAE citizen and resident, as the day the UAE was successfully invaded. Today was supposed to be a day of joy and celebration as it was the 39th UAE national day, marking thirty-nine years of the country’s existence. But things didn’t pan out the way people expected, or at least not the way most people expected. I was at home, listening to the radio, when the station’s regular timetable was interrupted by an emergency announcement which informed every listener that the Burj Khalifa had been destroyed by bombs dropped by a squad of C-17 Bombers which had never been authorized to enter Emirati airspace. The announcement also stated that casualties were already in the hundreds and a state of emergency had been declared by Sheikh Khalifa. Shortly afterwards, the radio station went completely static, along with every other radio station which I knew, indicating that my suspicions were correct. The invasion had begun.

The rest of the day went by without me getting any news from a conventional news source, since they were all destroyed. I couldn’t contact any of the few friends which I had because all the phone lines were dead as well. Knowing them, I knew that my parents would be desparately trying to contact me from India. I, on the other hand, was too smart to have my knowledgeability clouded by emotion and I knew too well that all attempts to contact them would be in vain. So, I didn’t even try. Instead, I got to work, preparing myself for the next few days and keeping myself as calm as possible all the time. As of now, I have no idea how the next few days are going to pan out. One thing’s for sure though, they will be unpredictable.

December 2, 2010 | Categories: Articles | Leave a comment

Get Clean – My first blog post which has got nothing to do with cars.

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November 21, 2010 | Categories: Articles | 1 Comment

The Making of a Marque

It was back in kindergarten, as a small boy, that I got my first Hot Wheels. It was a cherry red 1992 Porsche 911 Turbo and to this very day, I have vivid, fond memories of playing with it around the kitchen, ‘parking’ it next to my books on my study-table whenever I was studying and even tucking it under my pillow when I went to sleep. Besides being painted in that rich shade of cherry red and despite being diminutive in size, it was also immaculately detailed. Every one of its components from its headlights, to its side-view mirrors, to its duck-tail spoiler, were impeccably elaborated. I credit that toy car for sowing the seeds of automotive passion which have made me the knowledgeable true-blue petrolhead that I am today. Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to experience a modicum of the awe-inspiring heritage behind Porsche, the marque responsible for the existence of my favourite childhood toy and perhaps also my own passion for high-performance cars.

For the uninitiated amongst us, Porsche was founded in the year 1931 by Prof.Ferdinand Porsche and is one of the greatest high-performance carmakers that has ever existed. It is based in Stuttgart, Germany, where there is also a Porsche Museum which houses some of the rarest and most prominent Porsches which the company has ever built. Now, Porsche has a lot of loyal customers in the Middle East, more specifically, in the U.A.E. So, as part of a worldwide promotional campaign, Porsche had decided to ship in some cars from the Porsche Museum to the Porsche Centre in Dubai for hosting a 1-day exhibition. This was an opportunity which I simply could not miss. So I took the Metro to the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall station and left the station for a 14 second walk to the Porsche Centre on Sheikh Zayed Road. As soon as I entered the showroom, I felt like I had been teleported to the Porsche Museum back at the Porsche headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Right in front of my eyes were some of the most outstanding Porsches that ever existed. I made ny way over to the reception to ask the ladies, attending to all sorts of queries, if I would be able to (by any chance, whatsoever) see the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, which is the fastest road-legal car Porsche has ever manufactured and acts as the spiritual successor to the car which my toy car from kindergarten was modeled after. My query was promptly attended to and I was told that, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to see the Porsche 911 GT2 RS as only 500 units of the car were being produced and they were all sold out. I was also requested to fill in a form and after I had done so, I was promptly given a set of Porsche posters as a complimentary giveaway. I thanked the lady at the reception, took the poster set and proceeded to looking at the exhibits and taking pictures.

First, there was the 1971 Porsche 917 KH Coupe’ which exacted its first ever overall win at Le Mans in the year 1970 after it crossed the finish line after completing 343 laps. That debut was followed by 15 further overall victories at the Le Mans. Next was, the Porsche 936 Spyder which is one of the most successful Porsche racing cars of all time and which was also the first turbo engine Porsche to win at Le Mans three times (in 1976, in 1977 and in 1981). There was also an example of the Porsche Type 356, in all its vintage beauty. I noticed that the Type 356 had a Dubai license plate, indicating that it was not from the Porsche Museum and was in fact owned by a resident of Dubai. Whoever the owner was, he/she had done an absolutely sterling job of keeping the Type 356 looking brand new. Then there was the first-ever four-wheel drive 911, the Paris-Dakar Rally winner from 1984 which had been driven to victory by Rene’ Metge and is the father of the modern-day Carrera 4. There was also a 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 with the same engine as the legendary 911 Carrera RS 2.7 which had the famous ducktail spoiler. The 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 was standing right next to a modern-day Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet (in a bright shade of cherry red), presumably to show all the exhibition visitors the range of contrast between the two cars. Last but not the least, there was the famous 1954 Porsche 550 Spyder ‘Carrera Panamericana’, which launched six decades of Porsche motorsport history and gave birth to the famous Carrera marque. It earned its now legendary nickname with a terrific performance in the Carrera Panamericana, the toughest road race in the world at that time.

Unsurprisingly, there was even a presenter from a television station present there to cover the entire exhibition. The hospitality at the exhibition was as impeccable as Porsche’s engineering expertise. There were waiters and waitresses handing out fingerfood and there was even a juice bar. A small part of the exhibition hall was also occupied by Porsche Design which sold Porsche themed accessories. Further into the complex, I discovered that there was a smaller exhibition hall which housed the current Porsche lineup. There were all five cars here, each in their top-of-the-range guise. There was the Porsche Boxster S, the Porsche Cayman S, the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, the Porsche Panamera Turbo and the all-new Porsche Cayenne Turbo. The last of which is, in my opinion, a humungous improvement over its immediate predecessor in terms of aesthetics. I also got to sit inside the driver’s seat of the Porsche Boxster S and play around with its paddle-operated gearbox. Momentarily, I felt like I was back in kindergarten. More than an hour after I had arrived, I left the Porsche Centre, not only with the poster set, but also a huge grin on my face. To me, Porsches always have been, and always will be the cars that telepathically connect with the person in their driver’s seat. In my heart, I know that one day I’ll become an automotive engineer and build a car that breaks the laws of physics, and that car, might just be a Porsche.

November 10, 2010 | Categories: Articles | Leave a comment

Four Door Coupe’s – Another Automotive Fashion Trend

This one was started by Mercedes-Benz in the autumn of 2004, when they launched the CLS-Class. It was a four door saloon which was trying, very hard, to act like it was a coupe’. An oddity then, no doubt. At the time, however, Mercedes-Benz wasn’t aware that it had struck gold with the CLS. They simply thought of it as a pleasant addition to their lineup which would help them acheive their annual sales targets. But the CLS did a lot more than that. The CLS, singlehandedly, sparked an automotive fashion trend which would come to be known as the four door coupe’ trend and would eventually consume the vast majority of the gobal automotive industry. Just like how a forest fire consumes a forest, only faster. Considering the fact that the CLS-Class was engineered with a top speed of 250 kilometres per hour, Mercedes-Benz knew that this would be a commendably fast car. What Mercedes-Benz didn’t know was that the CLS-Class would move even faster out of showrooms. The CLS-Class was such a big seller that Mercedes-Benz had to struggle to keep up with its demand. People simply love the way it seamleccly blended the convenience of a four door saloon with the style and charisma of a sports coupe’. Soon after that, predictably, a range-topping AMG variant (appropriately named the CLS63 AMG) followed suit into production, and that was a sell-out as well. And it was at this point in time that Mercedes-Benz’s rivals, amongst others, decided to sit up and take notice.

The first to try and grab a slice of this very delicious pizza which Mercedes-Benz had created (and had started eating all by itself) was Volkswagen. Volkswagen realised that it had completely forgotten about the fact that it still produced the Passat saloon which was, hence, in dire need of some refreshment. So, Volkswagen decided to come up with a four door coupe’ Passat and called it the Passat CC, the CC standing as an abbreviation of Coupe’ Comfort. Volkswagen, being Volkswagen, also priced the Passat CC as a substantially more affordable alternative to the CLS-Class. Volkswagen also recently cut off the ‘Passat’ from the name of the Passat CC, simply leaving it as ‘CC’. That was a smart move, considering the fact that there was always the chance of consumers simply looking at the name ‘Passat CC’ and thinking of it as ‘just another hum-drum, boring Passat’. Combined, the attractive price tag of the CC, along with the name change and the increasingly captivating four door coupe’ body, have made the CC almost as much a success for Volkswagen as the CLS-Class is for Mercedes-Benz. Next up was Audi, with its A5 Sportback. The A5 Sportback combines a little bit of the A4 compact saloon with a little bit of the A5 sports coupe’ to become, yet another four door coupe’. If rumours are to be believed, a high-performance variant of the A5 Sportback is already being developed by Audi’s RS division.

The last on my list of recent examples, but probably not the last to try and get some of that pizza, is a car from BMW. Now you see, BMW realised that it was a little late to the party and that it would have to make a real grand appearance if it was going to get any attention, not to mention, any of whatever little fraction of that pizza which was remaining. So, instead of taking an existing four door saloon from its lineup and using it as a base for a four door coupe’, like everybody else had been doing, BMW decided to go the extra mile. Want to guess what BMW did? BMW took an existing full-size SUV from its lineup and used it as the base for a four door coupe’! By any measure, that shouldn’t be an easy feat to pull off. And it wasn’t, but nevertheless, BMW went away with its plan. BMW took the X5 SUV (the only full-size SUV in its lineup at the time), along with the 6-Series sports coupe’, put them both in a giant kitchen blender and turned the power on. Ultimately, the result was – the BMW X6. The BMW X6 is the car which you see in the picture above and a high-performance version of the same has already been rushed into production by BMW’s M division, appropriately named, the BMW X6M. So it’s confirmed, the four door coupe’ vogue has officially spread throughout all car segments. What’s next? Well, if things continue at the current rate, soon enough, every lowly Toyota Camry which plies its trade as a taxi though the streets of Dubai will possess a four door coupe’ body. I don’t intend to boast but, that is a prediction from an expert. Now, where did that pizza go?

November 2, 2010 | Categories: Articles | 2 Comments

Daytime Running Lights (DRL) – An Automotive Fashion Trend

It all started in early 2007 with the release of Audi’s first ever proper supercar – the R8. As soon as the veils were taken off its body at the motor show, all human jaws within the vicinity collectively hit the ground. And their respective owners commenced with the task of picking them up. The show-goers were obviously flabbergasted at the stupendous metallic beauty of the wondrous object that lay before their eyes. From the subtly contoured bonnet, to the seductively curvaceous rear fenders, to the beautifully finished quad-exhaust system, to the voluptuously unique carbonfibre ‘sideblades’ and the gem of an engine peeking out of the engine bay through its glass lid, it took everybody quite a while to drink in all the aesthetic details that they were presented with. And then there were the headlights, those gorgeous headlights were underlined be the automotive equivalent of cosmetic mascara – daytime running lights.

Of course, DRL technology made its first factory-fitted appearance much earlier, around the year 2002, on the second generation Audi A8. But the Audi A8 wasn’t (and even now, isn’t) anywhere even close to being as visually striking as the R8. It seemed like ‘just another German saloon’, and that’s exactly what it was. It was simply another alternative to the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the BMW 7-Series of the time. Hence that appearance of DRL technology went, more or less, unnoticed. On the other hand, the R8 is an altogether different story. Ever since the R8 flicked on its DRLs in public for the first time, the big and small names of the automotive industry have all jumped on to the DRL bandwagon. The latest incarnations of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the Lamborghini Gallardo, the Volkswagen Touareg, the Porsche Cayenne, the Kia Sportage and the Lexus IS300 as well as newcomers such as the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the Ferrari 458 Italia, the Porsche Panamera, the Aston Martin V12 Vantage and the Bentley Mulsanne (the list goes on) are all culprits. Additionally, there is a surprisingly lucrative market for fake aftermarket DRLs. On the streets of Dubai, not a day passes by without me noticing at least one outdated Toyota Corolla, sporting these evidently fake aftermarket items.

So, why all the hype about these DRLs? Well, studies have shown that DRLs have the potential to, in statistical terms, significantly reduce the chances of a vehicle getting into a road accident, hence they are capable of acting as vehicle safety devices. Furthermore, in comparative terms, they use significantly less fuel than conventional headlamps, hence they help conserve the environment. But the real (and most simple) reason, behind the DRLs stratospheric rise to becoming an automotive fashion trend, is the simple fact that DRLs make a car look ‘cool’. Whether it be day or night, to the vast majority of people, any car that has DRLs looks undeniably ‘cool’. And if you’re thinking that this DRL trend is just temporary and will soon die out, think again. If things keep going at the current rate, soon every humble Toyota Yaris and Nissan Tiida on the roads of Dubai will have DRLs. And to think that for all this, we have a single German supercar to thank. Anyways, one thing’s for sure, the DRL era has just begun. Thanks, Audi R8.

October 17, 2010 | Categories: Articles | 1 Comment

The Living Ghost

On the first day of the year 2003, BMWs takeover of Rolls-Royce was officially completed. Contracts were inked by the top brass from both companies and that was it. Germany had successfully kidnapped the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy from Great Britain and at that point in time the entire model line-up of Rolls-Royce, arguably the greatest car manufacturer that ever existed, was entirely made up of just one car – the Phantom. Then, for seven years, Rolls-Royce didn’t release a single new model. Sure enough they did release the Phantom Drophead Coupe’ in 2007 and the Phantom Coupe’ in 2008 but both of them were just sub-models of the Phantom, the former being a two-door convertible version of the Phantom and the latter being a two-door coupe’ version of the Phantom. Neither of them represented a proper all-new model. Now, after seven long years of nothing but silence, Rolls-Royce has finally released a new car – the Rolls-Royce Ghost.

Powered by a 6592cc 48v twin-turbocharged V12 engine generating 563bhp at 5250rpm, this car will sprint from a standstill to 100kmph in 4.9 seconds. It’s completely real-wheel driven like all past Rolls-Royces, has an eight-speed automatic transmission and has its top speed electronically limited to the gentlemens’ agreement of 250kmph. But enough about the performance figures, the question to be asked is, is this new-kid-on-the-block a real Rolls-Royce? Is it worthy of being adorned by the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy? Let’s take note of a few important points before we jump to any conclusions. The Ghost is built on the same platform as the top-banana long-wheelbase BMW 760Li with which it also shares a total of 20% of its components. Wait! Does this mean that BMW has, accidentally or intentionally, diluted the essence of Rolls-Royce by creating the Ghost? Is the Rolls-Royce Ghost just a BMW 7-Series with Rolls-Royce make-up on it? Then again, the remaining 80% of those components are all unique to the Ghost and those iconic suicide-doors are included in that 80%. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the global financial crisis had a hand in BMWs decision to give the Ghost the green light for production. The Rolls-Royce Phantom can be bought today for 2.1 to 2.5 million Dirhams, depending on which variant of the Phantom you choose, but the Ghost, on the other hand, costs just a little over 1 million Dirhams. Is this an ‘affordable’ Rolls-Royce? That’s less than half the price of a Phantom! Unsurprisingly then, the vast majority of people who have already ordered a Ghost are first-time Rolls-Royce buyers. Undoubtedly, the Ghost will help Rolls-Royce pull through the global financial crisis and the impact it has had on the automotive industry. But at the expense of losing the prestige that has always been associated with Rolls-Royce? Personally, I’d say that Rolls-Royce’s decision to create the Ghost was an important and moreover, necessary decision. For all you and I know, if it weren’t for the Ghost, Rolls-Royce could have turned out to be as ill-fated as Pontiac, Mercury and Hummer, just to name a few. As for whether or not the Ghost is a real Rolls-Royce, well, the car in question has expertly assembled suicide-doors, an undeniably imposing handcrafted grille, is adorned by the Spirit of Ecstasy, has its interior upholstered with the finest leather which comes from male bulls who roam the land freely, and last but not the least, its ride quality will make you feel like you are driving on the softest of clouds. Sounds like a real Rolls-Royce to me.

September 29, 2010 | Categories: Articles | 1 Comment