For sale, forever.

I was meandering through Dubizzle trawling the motors section as I often do when I stumbled across something for sale which will haunt me forever.

I don't even know where to begin with this, I actually need a thesaurus just to find some new vocabulary as I don't possess the words necessary to articulate just how horrendous this is.

Let's start with what it is. It's a car, apparently, manufactured by a New York based mental institution called Zimmer and this fine piece is known as the 'Golden Spirit' which I presume is just lazily named because of the golden bonnet ornament, it's probably a copy of the Rolls Royce 'Spirit of Ecstasy', I can't be bothered to zoom in and check for fear of being sick and I'm not interested enough to research it.

The story of it's inception according to someone on Wikipedia is -

"The idea for this automobile was initially drawn on a napkin at a private dinner between Paul Zimmer, Chairman and President of Zimmer Corporation and Bob Zimmer, Paul Zimmer's son, employee and shareholder of the company."

Basically they're in a meth lab together, totally off their faces when Paul thought it would be cool if someone redesigned a car for Hitler. He transcribed his hallucinogenic trip onto a napkin, most likely in blood and excrement. His son took one look at it, and once he had regained consciousness he responded with "Whoa man, that like, totally, like blows my mind man."

This one I found on Dubizzle was actually produced in 1987, begs the question who would of bought such a thing. I have three possible answers, one of which is that time travel is very real and someone simply went from 1972 to 1987. Or perhaps Zimmer had found someone cryogenically frozen and unfroze them just so they could sell it. Thirdly it could of possibly been a genuine buyer there was a lot of very drunk rich people around in the late 1980s.

Yep, it looks pretty dreadful inside there too. Loving the Recaro seats trimmed in afterbirth purple leather. The dials and wood dashboard look like they came from a 1970s Bentley, how uncouth.

Just what is going on back here. Did someone honestly design this, take a step back and this was acceptable? It looks busier than Dubai Mall parking on a Thursday night. Clearly one spare wheel isn't enough, everyone knows that these days tyre quality is so poor that even on a car that isn't designed to be used every day needs to carry 3 spare wheels.

I just can't imagine how these ever sold, they did apparently have a showroom in Jeddah. I can't imagine you'd get too many "Wallah habibi"s driving that around, I'm willing to bet the Police would take you in for questioning and try and charge you with crimes against humanity. Apparently the showroom still exists in KSA, if anyone finds it please send me a photo.

Is the standard response.

It is for sale by 'Top Gear - Used Car Trading' in Dubai if anyone would like to buy it. It's only done 64,000 I guess miles rather than KM since the advert states it is an American spec vehicle. If you have some sort of disorder and would like the most vulgar car ever designed then please get in touch with them and I'd love to hear from you too, the asking price is 

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DIRHAMS!!!!

I honestly can not fathom where they got that price from (how much must they be new?) and why did they stop at 300,000 AED why didn't they just make it eleventy-nine-hundred-billion it wouldn't of made any difference to the progress of the sale.

I would like to hear from anybody that can generate an valid argument for buying this car for 300,000 AED, sure if it was 3,000 dirhams it would be amusing to buy it drive it around until it got impounded and then just leave it to die.

Oh and if anyone does see this car in Al Awir take a video of the sound of the horn, I'm 99% sure it will have a comedy sounding horn.

I looked at it again...

.

Because French.

I was going to write a big article ranting of why French cars don't sell well here but then I found an image which basically summed it up for me which I shall reveal to you later.

My history with French cars is pretty minimal, I don't think I've ever actually owned one, maybe I have but purely just to sell on again immediately. I've had a number of friends who elected, against my best advice, to purchase a vehicle built (I use the term loosely) in the peoples republic of France, a nation famed for cheese, wine, and surrendering.

I remember one friend years ago bought a new Citroen C4 with a crappy low spec 1600cc engine that had about the same amount of power as a recently deceased bird and was as refined as emptying a bucket of excrement from a balcony into the street below. Needless to say it never did many KM because the car was constantly in the workshop and the owner was always afriad to drive it too far away from home for fear of it dying, I think he sold it finally after 3 years and 15,000km for a tremendous loss and 36 months of absolute crap motoring. Did he save money? Sure he did, a Golf would have cost several thousand pounds sterling more but he would of enjoyed his ownership and after 3 years when he wanted to move it on he would of been able to get more than small change for his car.

The only French car I'd buy, and I wouldn't buy one here and in any case I don't think you could find one here is the Renault Avantime. A truly pointless car that I can only imagine started out as a joke in a very lazy meeting

Renault Boss - Come on guys, think up something wacky and interesting! Like a big 7 seat people carrier but instead put it with 4 seats, 2 doors, and more glass than the Lourve.

*leaves the room*

Renault design team- Okay, MPV, 4 seats, 2 doors, lots of glass. That work for everybody? Let's take the rest of the day off...

LOL - What have you done?

I think it looks kind of cool, in a quirky kind of way. A bit like the Japanese bullet train, it's pretty ugly but somehow it is quite nice to look at. I'd buy one of these just for the sake of having it, in Europe you can buy these for such small money these days and providing you can keep it from breaking in any irreparable way then I honestly do think it will be a classic in future. Renault are a very old company and won't be going anywhere soon as even though they do make pretty abysmal cars they sell well in other parts of the world. If you get time have a flick through some videos of it on YouTube, the interior is really nice and it does have some very clever little touches and ideas.

I'd take a V6 automatic in the blue above or the bright green, although I can say with an enormous amount of certainty that I was would break mine almost immediately and render it utterly useless as a mode of transport.

If you are wondering what I was talking about at the start of the article, about the image I saw. It's this. The recall sheet for a popular French car in Europe, I don't even know if they import them here, I hope not for the sake of customers.

Wheels may fall off? Joking right?

Engine may fail? That's reassuring.

Rear screen may detach? I bet that's fun for the car behind on the highway.

Fuel may leak and create fire risk? LOL.

Directional control may be compromised? The steering doesn't work.

Can you imagine the fear of trying to drive that any distance, constantly worried about fire or a failing engine. It's amazing how this car even made it to production with these issues. Can you imagine Toyota or BMW releasing a car like this. It just wouldn't happen.

Conclusion?

In future the first 12 months production of any new French car should be sold as 'Beta Version' and once it's actually ironed out all the problems they can sell it as a fully functioning car.....

Bentley SUV

Since I first saw images of the Bentley EXP 9 F concept at the 2012 Geneva motorshow it's been something that has been of intrigue to me. By now we aren't strangers to the concept of luxury SUV or even 'sporty' ones and the Bentley promised to delivery the most luxurious package possible along with ample performance.

But now it seems the concept is absolutely turning into a reality, as pre-production models have been spied testing in different parts of the world. It interests me because of the potential impact on the car market, especially here in the UAE.

Even discounting the NewBentley.com link on the side of the car it's pretty obvious from the front end and headlamps that this is unmistakably Bentley. It doesn't look that big though which is a bit odd, I was expecting a full on monstrously ostentatious behemoth that would make a Range-Rover look like a dustbin.

Obviously they can still change the styling and the back end isn't properly revealed yet either so it isn't possible to make a decision on how it looks but I suspect the proof of the pudding will be getting up close and personal with the Bentley in the flesh so to speak. I'm not able to find any proper photos of the interior but I'm sure it's going to be quite special, Bentley do have a way of doing things that just feel right.

Something which I'm sure will be most great importance will be the engine, I presumed that it would be fitted with the 4.0 V8 BiTurbo as found in the Continental GT. Possibly available with a large turbo diesel unit, probably the V8 TDi as found in the A8, which is pretty much magical, as far as diesel engines at least.

Thanks to the plate number being displayed on this photo I was able to run the number through a system in the UK, where the vehicle is registered, and pull some information. Turns out this test vehicle is actually fitted with a 6.0 engine, presumably the W12 twin turbo. An engine which in it's latest form produces 626bhp and a mighty 820Nm of Earth spinning torque. Which would certainly give this SUV a serious bit of go, I doubt it will make it into production in that level of tune but 550/580bhp seems about right any more and it just seems uncouth and totally unbecoming of a gentlemen driver.

I'm hoping to find out some more details about this new Bentley as time goes on. It is rumored for launch in 2016 which I don't doubt. As for the price, expect it to be a lot. I can't for any reason see why it would be any cheaper than the Mulsanne which comes to about 1.5Million AED. That's not to say that it won't be popular here.

Where else in the world is a 6000cc twin turbo SUV designed and built by one of the most expensive luxury car manufacturers going to sell in any substantial numbers?

In case you are still left wondering where the target market might be for Bentleys new venture into the luxury SUV market. The rumored name for this model?

The Bentley Falcon

Automotom Motoring

Automotive friend or foe?

I figure Dubai being that it is supposed to be a sort of 'halo' city of the World will be one of the first places to gain driver-less cars, at least in any large numbers. Since we always like to have the biggest, the longest, the tallest, the most explosive, the fastest, etc, etc.

I read a bunch of comments on Twitter about driver-less cars and that they're a bad thing, especially for Dubai. One persons mentioned that 'driving standards are bad now, without people in control imagine the chaos'. Okay, so it wasn't worded exactly like that but after a couple of tweets back and forth this was the gist of it.

But surely that's the whole point of these driver-less cars, to remove the driver. The Police are constantly telling us that speed is the main cause of accidents, well actually drivers are the main cause of accidents. If we had better drivers on the roads of UAE there would be less accidents, and not by any small margin, the difference in the number of accidents on the roads would be huge. The road network, for the most part, is pretty damn good and even the sign posts are good too. There really isn't any need for as many accidents as we have here.

So we remove the driver from the cockpit and leave everything up to technology. The closest thing to a driver-less car today is the new Mercedes S-Class, specifically with all the active assistance packages fitted. It has an array of sensors and radars that even the CIA would be jealous of, long range that, thermal sensing this, it's got everything. What this translates into is that the car has access to a lot more information than our feeble senses will ever get to enjoy and because of this, with the right programming, it can make better decisions than us. You activate the systems and the Mercedes will monitor the traffic around you and even behind you to keep your speed where it should be and also keep the distance between you and the car in front at a safe margin. It will "see" the lanes in the highway and keep itself perfectly on track and even take corners for you. If the traffic in front starts to slow down the Mercedes will also slow down, even stopping if required. At the moment the system only works if you have a hand on the steering wheel, as there is no way they could sell it if it was a total hands off system, very few governments would accept this. You can trick it into thinking you've got your hand on the wheel, just tape a small weight to one side of the wheel and the car will think it's your hand. But this just is the beginning on the technology. Here's a video of what it can really do but sadly isn't available to the public just yet, but without any doubt this is the future of motoring.

Apart from being safer there are other benefits to your everyday life. Can't find a parking spot in a busy part of town? No problem, just stop right outside where you want to be, exit the car and tell it to go away and find itself a space to wait. You can send a message from an application on your phone when you want it to pick you up again and it will be able to tell you that it will be with you in a few minutes. Or maybe one day you don't feel like dropping the kids off at school, let the friendly GoogleCar take them.

Driver-less taxis also appeal to me greatly, whilst I appreciate that the RTA Dubai Taxi drivers do the best they can. I am 100% certain that I'd be happier riding to my destination in an autonomous vehicle. It will actually know the way and will take me to the correct destination, not just the one that he happens to know that sounds vaguely like what I asked for. It would also be infinitely safer too, can you imagine the joy you'd feel taking a taxi journey and not being in tremendous peril every minute of the journey.

But what about car people?

I myself am a self confessed 'car guy', I like cars, and I like driving. I don't especially like driving to and from work on the same monotonous journey in traffic everyday through a concrete jungle but I like driving nonetheless. I believe in the future once these driver-less or autonomous cars are generally accepted as an everyday part of life you will still find the automotive fraternity going strong.

Car people will cruise to and from work five days a week in their bland electric self driving boxes and on the weekend they will have their special toy to play with. I can never see proper cars dying out because of the feeling it gives us, the thrill it gives us, the joy it gives us. I for one would be perfectly happy to ride safely to work in a blandbox if it meant having an old 911 to hoon about in and tinker with at the weekend. Insurance would probably be cheaper too as there's less accidents and less risk on the road, and you'd have more money for petrol too since your blandbox runs on hydrogen or electricity.

Naysayers 

A few decades ago every elevator used to have an operator to get you to your floor safely, I don't think there is anywhere in the world that still does. The car will be similar, right now the technology we've developed outweighs our own capability, so best leave it to the machines to do the operators job.

Tyres living in constant fear as Hellcat is coming to UAE

SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVEN HORSEPOWER.

Just think about that for a moment, and rethink the cars you've driven and the power they had. 

To give an idea of scale, here's something I made earlier.

Once you exceed 900bhp space time as we know it dissolves.

Can you think back to the first time you drove a car that you actually thought 'wow, this is quick'?

I can, it was a 2002 Skoda Octavia vRS, a Czech car based on the VW Golf with the humble 1800cc 20v engine.

Octavia vRS

180bhp turbocharged engine with five speed manual gearbox, I remember hitting full throttle in second and third and genuinely feeling that this was the fastest thing on the planet.

Fast forward to today and I don't get that same feeling I had back in 2002 very often, I had it in an SLS GT whilst on the Yas Marina circuit and remember thinking that an X5M I had a go in was oddly fast. 

Obviously I haven't driven a LaFerrari, P1 or any of the hypercars or even supercars.

That's why I'm so excited about the Hellcat, Surely 707bhp must be able to prompt some kind of emotion from me. The performance figures are in some serious territory.

Performance

Did I mention it has 707bhp? A good measurement of any muscle car is of course the 1/4 mile time, and this factory standard, fully road legal car can do it in 10.8 seconds.

Things that are slower than the Hellcat -

• Ferrari 599 GTO
• McLaren MP4-12C
• Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4
• Mercedes CLK GTR
• Audi R8 V10
• Porsche 918 Spyder
• Jaguar XJ220

Top speed whilst I feel it's sort of irrelevant is estimated to be approaching the 320kph mark, which I don't doubt at all. As for the handling I don't think anyone will care if it handles like a shopping cart missing a wheel, nobody expects it to climb Jebel Hafeet like a BMW M3, if you do want to have fun with it on a twisty road I'm pretty sure you will spend most of your time admiring the view from the side window and being deafened by the awesome sound.

Coming soon to Beach Road.

The best bit

In the States you can buy a brand new Hellcat for less than $60,000 which translates into 220,000 dirhams, I'm sure it will be more than that in reality, because, just because.

But let's say it ends up being 240,000. I am struggling to think of anything else I'd rather buy that would give me that feeling of 'wow, this is quick' that I mentioned earlier, and it's usable, it has space for shopping and space for passengers. You can even have passengers in the rear that actually have lower limbs.

The noise

There are countries that would declare a state of emergency upon hearing the Hellcat.

See what I mean? It's the sound I imagine two planets make when they collide.

Conclusion

I'm really looking forward to this car coming to UAE, and I just love the fact that it even exists. I'm certain regardless of the premium in price over what folks in the States will pay whatever allocation we do get here it will be sold out very quickly and residuals will be excellent.

Oh and it has 707BHP...

Arriving and driving

Having a car in the UAE isn't essential, especially if you're lording it up in a nice hotel in the Marina and work in JLT. But if like myself you're a car guy and life doesn't feel quite right without some wheels, you're going to need to do something about it pretty soon after touching down.

When you first arrive you can't actually own a car as in order to register a car here you need :-

• Residency visa in passport
• UAE driving license, or at least a GCC license
• Emirates ID

So the first option for most people is to rent something, you can rent a Yaris for about 1,600 per month or something larger like a Kia Sonata will run to about 2,600 per month, and a Pajero will be between 4,200 and 5,500 depending on where you go. A lot of people seem to get caught up in an endless rental cycle and it just doesn't make sense financially, many expats have a fear of buying and owning a car in a strange country.

          "I'm scared of being shafted " - British Expat exiting Al Awir.

Renting just doesn't make sense, if you're willing to fork out 5k a month to smoke about in a Pajero why don't you just buy one or better yet use that money to get something you really like. Lets say you rent a Pajero for a year and a half which is extremely common, I've met people who've been renting for 3 years or more.

You pay 5k per month that's 90,000 dirhams over the course of the 18 months. Excessive.

Financing

UAE Central Bank stipulates a minimum 20% down payment when financing a vehicle, and whilst there are a couple of ways to avoid this I don't advise doing so as it generally keeps you out of negative equity so you can always get out of the car quickly if you find yourself in a 'shit just got real' situation and want to exit quickly.

At the moment you can pick up a 6 months old Pajero GLS 5Dr with less than 10,000km for about 110,000 AED or even a little less if you're willing to settle for the 3.5 engine, but don't as it's under powered especially if you want to take it onto the sand.

So down payment will be 22,000 and the  payment works out to about 2,000 a month (based on a 2.5% bank rate) run the car for 18 months and you will owe circa 57,000 and the vehicle is approximately worth 80,000. The residual value does depend heavily on how you've treated it and how many times a moron in an ancient Camry has tried to reshape it for you. 

Combining 18 monthly payments and the initial down payment it has cost you 58,000 and you've got 22,000 worth of equity too. Which in this example is the same as your initial deposit, so no reason why you can't sell the car and go out and replace it with another 6 month old one and your monthly payment wouldn't change but you keep yourself in a new car all the time.

Maintenance

Keeping a car on the road here is relatively low cost compared to Western countries, quality of service is rather hit and miss though, some are good and some are pretty shabby. Japanese cars for some reason apparently require servicing every 5,000km which is frankly ridiculous but best to do what they say. American cars are generally every 10,000km, the Germans are usually every 15,000km or 20,000km, and the others? Well if you've got an Italian or French car just take it to a workshop every week to play it safe.

Most main dealer workshops are actually pretty good these days, the front of house i.e the reception and service advisers are often poor but what you don't see behind the scenes is usually very good. There are many excellent independent workshops here that will do a fantastic job for less money. Just make sure they use genuine parts.

A basic oil change on a Prado will be about 800 dirhams, a full service on a Camaro will be about 1,600 and a major service on a Mercedes C200 is about 2,500. That's dealer prices you can find cheaper by going elsewhere. 

The small workshop areas at petrol stations have their uses too, good for checking your oil, washer fluid, or reattaching the vehicle under tray as you inevitably smash it off after daring to go over an enormous speed bump at any speed greater than glacial.

Buying/Selling

The easiest way to find cars for sale is Dubizzle.com or visit the numerous showrooms dotted around the place, or slow cruise through Al Awir obviously you can't stop moving for fear of being accosted by sales guys. Buying a car on finance is a lot easier if you do it through a dealer, it can be done through a private seller but as I found out from my personal experience it is additional headache and does help if the seller is patient, hence you will find many adverts on Dubizzle asking for cash only buyers.

The same goes for selling. Selling to a dealer is the easiest but you do pay for the convenience, selling privately can be well worthwhile as you will get more sometimes significantly more than going direct to a dealer. Selling a car with finance outstanding is a hassle, it is much better if you can clear the finance yourself and then find a buyer as you will have to wait for the bank to let RTA know that the car is no longer any interest to them. Although I was lucky recently and sold a car that I had financed through Emirates Islamic Bank and managed to convince the man in their head office to print me out a letter for RTA there and then.

Fines

Yep, you'll get them.

Driving in UAE

Carmageddon. 80% of the time it's just a free for all with seemingly the only rule being that there are no rules. On a typical 60 minute commute on a weekday morning I can expect to be treated to three totally avoidable smashes each of which the traffic must become stationary to allow everyone to have a good look as the population it seems, has never seen a cop car before or an accident. Seeing a car shiny side down next to an arrow straight 5 lane super highway no longer surprises me.

Karama on a Thursday afternoon

Then other times it does seem to work, I drove back from Abu Dhabi a few days ago at 5pm and it's just a stream of cars driving at 160kph, slowing to 140kph for the cameras and then back to to 160kph. All adhering to lane discipline and indicating correctly. I couldn't believe how quickly I got back to Dubai, once I got as far as Jebel Ali that all changed, as an ancient Camry wobbled and dithered its way from the slip road to the fourth lane without reason or indication at about 90kph causing all manner of rage.

The best advice for driving here is just to pay attention and treat everyone like they've come from a village in the 19th century, and don't let the red mist set in too much.