CAR Middle East portfolio 2006

MIDDLE EAST EDITION

ON SET WITH 007’S DBS

FERRARI 599

THE FIRST DRIVE: IS THE NEWEST FERRARI ROAD CAR ALSO THE BEST?

UNIMOG TRUCK IT’S NOT FOR GIRLS SUV GROUP TEST JEEP MEETS RIVALS AUDI TT V BMW COUPE

FIGHT!

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Sideways...

Forgett how it looks looks, the gearbox is called F1-SuperFast; so guess how it drives Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Tim Kent and Stuart Collins Dimbleby

599 GTB FIORANO IN MARANELLO

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ne does not take lightly an exclusive invitation to visit the home of Ferrari in Italy, especially when the invite includes the opportunity to drive the all-new Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano on road and track. The same fabled track from whence it takes the final part of its name; the same track on which Schumacher tests his work car; the same track on which I almost spun the new $250,000 Ferrari.

The city of Maranello is soaked in red and yellow, steeped in motoring heritage and history so thick you have to wade through it as you cross the road in front of the Ferrari factory to get to the Ferrari shop, a short distance from the Ferrari Museum, which is half way to the Pista di Fiorano test circuit. And you’d be following in the wake of countless tifosi.

And whilst you’d think that cars with the Prancing Horse on the bonnet would be as common as a Corolla around here; a Ferrari still creates as much of a digi-camera-popping frenzy as the Pope waving from his balcony, as I found when I paused in front of the Galleria Ferrari to let tourists cross and they promptly swamped the car for a closer look at this latest marvel from Maranello.

In the March issue we said the controversial Pininfarina styling, overseen by MINI designer Frank Stephenson, whilst not pretty, was certainly heartstopping. New cars from this passion-fuelled marque often polarise opinion because every petrolhead has a favourite Ferrari that tends to define that individual’s template for the ‘perfect’ Ferrari look.

But designers have eschewed ‘retro’ in favour of cooling and aerodynamics – this shape has a Cd figure

‘IT CAN CRUISE, OF COURSE IT CAN, BUT IT DEMANDS YOU DRIVE IT HARD’

Extremely clever traction control even let’s you play the hooligan

IF YOU VISIT MARANELLO, DON’T MISS...

■ The 599 can be seen,

alongside many other iconic Scuderia specials at the Galleria Ferrari (that’s the Ferrari Museum to you and me).

Opened in 1990 it’s actually owned by the Municipality of Maranello, but run by the Italian marque itself.

Join over 180,000 visitors each year, and you’ll get to

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see a stunning selection of scarlet cars past, present and indeed, future, thanks to the presence of the odd concept or two.

Watch out for occasional themed exhibitions (currently ‘Music and Cars’) but don’t miss the first Ferrari ever made, the 125 S, and the recreation of the great Enzo Ferrari’s first office in Modena.

Wall-to-wall scarlet exotica

599 GTB FIORANO IN MARANELLO

of 0.366 and generates 160kg of downforce at 300kph, 50kg from the flying buttresses.

So while its resemblance to the 612 Scaglietti is clear, this is a stand-alone design that arguably favours function over form. The scarlet cars tend to grow on you though and the Fiorano certainly has an arresting road presence. The multitude of lines and scoops on the flanks and bonnet confuse, but the silhouette is strong, which means that this car looks much better in darker colours that subdue the contrasts.

And if the outside doesn’t do it for you, just ease yourself down into those bespoke bucket seats with carbon fibre backs and individual upper and lower side bolster electric adjustments. Carbon and leather fight for dominance in the cabin and the racing-style sculpted steering wheel complete with gearchange lights, engine starter button and manettino lozenge, which selects from five levels of traction control intervention, really sets the tone.

The digital screen display looks momentarily out of place on the instrument panel, but is quickly overshadowed by the huge red- or yellow-backed rev counter. And with the paddle shifts behind the steering wheel (upshifts on the right, downshifts on the left), you have pretty much all you need at your fingertips. As for the sensational Bose sound-system, drive this thing properly and you’ll be making enough music through the four tailpipes that you won’t need it.

The only gripes in here are the limitless seat adjustments leaving you constantly fiddling for perfection; a sense that interior will get tatty quickly if not nurtured; and the unacceptable wind noise at over 150kph.

Replacing the 575M and arriving in our region in December, the brief for this Gran Turismo Berlinetta required luxury and sophistication ensconced within an air-slicing projectile that would shame the legendary F40 supercar on the road. As if to underline this, journalists were shown a video of a mock race in which the 6.0-litre V12, 620bhp 599, the most powerful Ferrari road car ever after the Enzo, takes on the lighter pseudo-racer.

Returning to its immediate forebear, the new car is bigger, yet the centre of gravity is 20mm lower. Engineers have worked hard to

keep weight down to around 1600kg. How hard? The clutch casing for example, is made of Avional, a lightweight aluminium alloy developed for the aeronautical industry.

Rigidity is also 50 percent up on the 575M and like all Ferraris since the 360 Modena this one benefits from an aluminium space frame chassis and body panels. Much of the body mass is kept between the axles and all of this translates to a perfect poise, which means that the 599 shrink-wraps itself around the driver, feeling way more agile and responsive than a visual summation of the car’s mass would give you any right to believe.

So up in the twisty narrow mountain roads near Parma on the SS 62 between Fornova and Berceto, the level of confidence I was displaying in hurling this hugely expensive and vastly powerful dream machine at ancient long-standing brick walls caught me by surprise. No need to be tentative or cautious on first acquaintance with the 599.

It can cruise, of course it can, but it demands you drive it hard. And it makes it easy.

A number of the technological feats came into play during this run. The chassis’ response to the super sharp steering combined with the remarkable body control served up finely targeted direction changes.

Its supreme composure derives from the SCM Magnetorheological Suspension. Say what?

An electronic-magnetic field actually varies the viscosity of damper fluid in response to road surface inputs – effectively the harder you go the firmer it gets.

It is so responsive at the helm, you’d swear it was reading your mind, and 305/35/ZR20 rear tyres (with 245/40/ZR19 or optional 245/35/ZR20 on the fronts) remain adhered to the tarmac. Optional ceramic brakes with six-pot front callipers (four-pots at the rear) give you a greater panic margin should you arrive too fast at a corner – which is likely.

F1-Trac traction control derived from the F1 race car plays a part here too using predictive software to estimate optimal grip by keeping an eye on the front and rear Pirelli Pzeros. In fact it keeps a blueprint of the perfect dynamic model in its brain and constantly strives to maintain it whatever the conditions. In relation to the manettino selector, F1-Trac is available in SPORT and

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599 GTB FIORANO IN MARANELLO

RACE modes, whilst the ICE and WET modes use a more traditional traction control .

On the road it’s best left in SPORT. Switching to RACE on my second lap of Fiorano I found out the hard way that the F1Trac only aids you to point before it decides that you are either a hooligan or a GP master and withdraws its support. An over-keen deployment of the 620 ponies saw the back almost align itself with the front, but frantic opposite-locking (and praying) managed to get it pointing the right way again. Leaving it in SPORT on a track doesn’t really suffice as frustrating understeer makes itself more evident. As for the final (all-aids-off) setting: driving gods only, need apply.

Stick with the F1-SuperFast paddle shift transmission rather than the optional six-

FERRARI 599 GTB FIORANO

Price: $250,000 (est) Engine: 5999cc 48V V12, 620bhp @ 7600rpm, 448lb ft @ 5600-6600rpm Transmission: Six-speed manual or F1-SuperFast paddleshift, rear-wheel drive Performance: 3.7sec 0-100kph, 330kph, 21.3l/100 On sale in the ME: December

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speed open-gaited manual. Ferrari has been refining this system and get this: the total time taken to change gear in the old 575M is 200 milliseconds, in the Enzo it’s 150, but the 599 does it in just 100. By comparison the F1 racer does it in 50. It does feel instantaneous.

Combined with ‘launch control’ it allows you to execute perfect changes and ‘smoke’ any upstart that challenges your superiority at the lights. It’s a joy to use thanks to its trigger-switch sensitivity. You could leave it full auto, but you should never do that.

It also does a monumental job of usefully channelling the engine’s outrageous grunt.

Mounted just aft of the front axle, the 599’s heart is a detuned version of the Enzo’s 650bhp power plant. The compact V12 has a low centre of gravity and weighs 19kg less

than the 575M engine. It will rev up to 8400.

With 90 percent of its 448lb ft torque available from just 3500rpm, flooring it at 160kph in fourth will snap your neck back and silences any words you were about to utter, if not in shock then simply to savour the awesome sound it makes.

Awesome is a good word to sum up the 599. Forget how it looks, should the aesthetics irk you, and focus instead on how it lifts motoring nirvana to a new plane.

Sophisticated, lavish and never crude this ‘everyday’ Ferrari (in that you could really commute in it) delivers outrageous performance and unbelievably failsafe yet addictive handling in a stupidly easy-to-drive package. Can it beat an F40? Well if you’ve got an F40, lend it to us and we’ll find out! car

July 2006

MIDDLE EAST EDITION

THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER MONTH LIKE THIS. UNTIL NEXT MONTH!

SUPERCAR HEAVEN

FEATURING: MONSTER LAMBO, CORVETTE Z06 &911 GET USED TO THE VIEW TURBO

‘MOVE CAMEL!’

Mansell tears up the Qatar track

PORSCHE GT3 RS

Regular 911 just too tame for you?

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GET YOUR

KICKS

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NEW SUPERCAR

SPECIAL

Not quite the ‘Route 66’ we had hoped for, but at the end of it lay a special treat both for us and GM’s most powerful production car ever Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Richard Parsons

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STANDING AT THE FENCE and looking down at the smooth crisp tarmac that carved a welldefined path down the mountain, tight curves and tortuous switchbacks punctuating its unerring progress, I imagined a sleek yellow projectile thundering from corner to corner, its staccato metallic wail echoing off the rock faces producing a soundtrack I wish I could have canned and cover-mounted on this issue.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, finished off my last bottle of Masafi and decided that the engine must have cooled down sufficiently by now. So I got back in the canary-coloured Corvette Z06, hit the disappointingly discreet starter button, tickled the 505 horses that had suddenly came to life and set off for another run.

Days like these aren’t as common as you might think in the life of a motoring scribe, so I intended to make the most of it.

But we’ve jumped ahead here.

‘Get your kicks on Route 66’ sang Nat King Cole about one of the most famous roads in motoring folklore. Crossing the US from east to west the highway brought prosperity to the towns it cut through and epitomised the romance and freedom that the automobile brought to Americans.

And the Corvette is possibly the highestachieving love-child of that very same relationship. For over 50 years it’s been regarded as ‘America’s best sports car’. A Harvard graduate where most other Yank cars were high-school drop-outs, it boasted the muscle yes, but packaged it in enduring shapes that

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became classics (just think of the Sting Ray), and offered a pretence of passing interest in the European phenomenon known as ‘handling’.

A

FEW YEARS BACK, HOWEVER, THE CORVETTE left the parochial confines of the States and ventured abroad.

Since then, and despite getting into a few bar brawls at Le Mans where it admittedly came out on top (beating Aston Martin again this year in the GT1 Class at the famed 24-hour race – fifth victory in six years), the Vette has picked up a few tricks from its exotic new friends (like trick suspension but we’ll get to that), pumped even more iron and got itself a Doctorate in race engineering at Oxford.

The C6 generation, introduced last year, demands you give it respect, and the Z06 version driven here has the credentials, the tech and the sheer class to earn it. For less than two-thirds the price of the 911 Turbo (p4449), the Z06 offers you the same performance, just as much heritage and way more dramatic looks. But can it do the whole corner thing?

Apparently it felt bold enough to infiltrate German territory and show them the way around the fearsome Nurburging Nordschleife, lapping it in a sensational seven minutes and 43 seconds. So yes, it can.

How evocative would it be then, to introduce the latest evolution of America’s finest to the mythical road that indirectly sired it? A great idea instantly and indiscriminately squashed out of existence by that most

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obstinate of obstacles – the depleted editorial budget! But fret not, there’s always Plan B. Turns out we have a Route 66 right here in the UAE. It heads out of Dubai in a more southerly direction rather than dissecting the nation, is considerably younger than the 80 year life of the US highway and is a fraction of the fabled original’s 3750km. Undeterred, the next-best-thing approach was adopted.

But let’s be frank, our E66 is as dull as dual-carriageways can get: heart-achingly straight, tediously uneventful and terminally frustrating with speed cameras lurking at near-regular intervals. The limit? A piffling 120 leaving the Z06’s 7.0-litre classic small block V8 barely above idling.

This, the most powerful production car ever offered by GM, doesn’t like to get out of bed in the morning for less than 160kph, which it does, by the way, at just over 2000rpm in sixth. In fact such is the monumentally unstressed 470lb ft of shoving power this implausibly impressive, yet adorably simple LS7 power unit delivers, that you could pull away in fifth gear from a standstill with barely a shudder.

If you did bang it up through the clunky gearbox, purposefully driving it into each notch as you must, and stabbing with a fair degree of might at the hefty clutch, you’d reach 100kph in just 3.7 seconds, with unrelenting acceleration that would take you, if you had nerves of carbon fibre, to a terminal velocity of 320kph. But if you are not on it from the off, so indignant does it get that it flashes a ‘don’t bother’ 1st-to-4th light at you.

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E

VENTUALLY WE FOUND OURSELVES IN AL AIN, A tourist town made famous in motoring circles for its proximity to Jebel Hafeet, home to the road mentioned at the start of this article; a road fast earning near-legendary status. Rising 1219 metres, this 11.7km of adrenalin-injected driving ecstasy has barely any traffic and 60 corners, each of which I can personally vouch for.

An old C5 would have been a handful here, but the new car is a whole 4.7 inches shorter than its predecessor and feels it. It looks it too but without losing the visual drama and proportion of the previous car. If anything it has even more road presence because the more compact dimensions accentuate the sharpened lines rather than stretch them out.

The standard C6 has terrific road presence, the Z06 admirably, and surprisingly, avoids the temptation to haul on a massive spoiler as an automotive equivalent of Superman’s cape. The changes are obvious to the aficionado: ten-spoke wheels, wider wheel arches, larger air scoops, an extra gash ahead of the rear wheels, and oh-so-discreet but clever ‘gurney’ flaps and spoilers designed to keep the car earthbound.

And then there’s huge sticky boots: Goodyear Eagle F1 run-flats P275/ 53ZR18 on the front and P325/30/ZR19 on the rear. Very noisy though: encounter the wrong kind of road surface and it sounds like you are being serenaded by a quartet of ghostly operatic singers. But they work. Leaving the largely unobtrusive traction control firmly on you can feel the rear

‘11.7KM AND 60 CORNERS, EACH OF WHICH I CAN PERSONALLY VOUCH FOR’

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NEW SUPERCAR

SPECIAL

CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06

‘DESPITE ITS OBVIOUS FLAWS, THE CORVETTE Z06 GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN’

Price: $79,000 Engine: 7011cc 16V V8, 505bhp @ 6300rpm, 470lb ft @ 4800rpm Transmission: Tremec six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Performance: 3.7sec 0-100kph, 320kph, 10.4l/100 On sale: Now

straining between the combined physical forces of aerodynamics, grip, lateral g-forces (which you can monitor on the head-up display), and a clumsy right foot physically connected to more torque than eight Smart cars put together could summon. It will threateningly kick its tail out, but if you’re tentative you’ll know when it’s about to happen. When there is some tyre squeal it comes from the front, accompanied by mild understeer. It feels more likely to break rear traction at low speeds, rather than during hard cornering, but you do need time to develop that level of trust. It might help to know that this car boasts the previous generation of the same amazing Delphi suspension technology, utilising damper fluid viscosity adjusted via an electro-magnetic field, that’s employed to great effect in the new Ferrari 599 driven last month. Corvette, crude? Pah! In fact the Z06 is on more than nodding terms with its C6-R Le Mans race sibling borrowing a chunk of technology including dry sump oiling systems, light weight components and an aluminium body and frame structure bringing the weight down to 1423kg, about the same as a Porsche Cayman. And it certainly feels like a street racer. Which brings me to the nagging thought that preoccupied my head on the long monotonous and tiring drive back up the E66: would I own one?

I could easily live with the astonishingly good economy, but what of the incredibly harsh ride and assortment of various noises that inevitably accompany a racecar tamed for civilian use, but are disconcerting nevertheless? Especially the driveline ‘sizzle’ at low revs, which at first I put down to a thrashed transmission, but is actually a known problem.

The Z06 is very old-school and far removed from the refinement that’s taken for granted in European rivals. The interior too, whilst a vast improvement, still falls short in terms of quality and materials, though the low slung seating position and snug buckets certainly set the scene.

Perhaps the standard coupe is the solution then, only a 100bhp down, nearly $29,000 cheaper and arguably even better looking. But on spec it sounds a very different animal, more of cruiser with a paddle shift auto – it would be like having a diet Cola instead of the Real Thing. And anyway the excellent Bose audio system could drown out most of the clatter and the chunky transmission could form part of your fitness regime. Hmm...

When you start justifying ownership despite a car’s obvious flaws, it’s clearly got under your skin. The Vette’s appeal is irresistibly honest and uncontrived. Now it has the speed and poise to mix it credibly with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari, it potentially represents the more astute choice, and in our market, perhaps even the maverick’s choice. car

9/2 September 2006

October 2005

WE DRIVE THE ALL-NEW MINI

MIDDLE EAST EDITION MORE MUSCLE THAN THE GOVERNATOR, SLY AND THE ROCK PUT TOGETHER

Born in the USA

MUSCLE CARS ROCK! TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME: CHEVROLET CAMARO DODGE CHALLENGER FORD MUSTANG GT500

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BMW X5 ■ BUGATTI VEYRON ■ ASTON RAPIDE

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DRIFTING ■

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FIRST DRIVES

CHRYSLER 300C SRT8

The devil’s daily driver

Trade in your soul for a 425bhp HEMI-powered demon

he press car came in silver. That’s a shame. I’d been promised the SRT8 after having driven the standard but still highly-entertaining 300C some weeks previously. And in anticipation of its arrival I had imagined, for some reason, that the high performance flagship would come in black, ideally matt black but most likely metallic. That, however, actually says more about the Chrysler than my colour preferences.

If Hollywood decided to remake the cult-classic 1977 movie, The Car, in which a demonic and apparently enraged automobile in a shade as dark as death, wreaks havoc on small-town America, a raven SRT8 could turn up for auditions and get signed up on the spot.

The 300C’s fiendish face is a strangely compelling mix of part retro and part dictatorial dignitary. There is an everpresent threat that it would floor you with a knuckle-fisted punch without remorse or pity and barely any hesitation.

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The high waistline and lower roofline contrive to create a narrow elongated glass area that puts in mind the notion that the occupants are not important.

The visual message being that it’s the car you should be worried about, possessing, as it does, a portentous ability to detach itself from its human masters.

Somewhat unfortunately I jumped into the SRT8 straight from a Maybach 62 (which you’ll read about in next month’s issue), and initially the car felt crude and insubstantial, but this time that actually says more about the Maybach than it does about the Chrysler.

A couple of days later my sensory perceptions had readjusted. I soon found I was struggling to come up with any good reasons for not wanting this charismatic

super-saloon. It’s stupendously quick, the throttle is a thrill-merchant, the body is shorter and more manoeuvrable than appearances suggest, a comfy and wellkitted cabin keeps you and the passengers pleased, and with a lighter foot you could probably do even better than the 17-20l/100 I managed. Plus it’ll powerslide on demand with the traction off (although it’s never entirely off, which is somewhat in character, don’t you think?).

Menacing grille, narrow side windows, huge wheels and tons of torque mean this is not a saloon for the faint-hearted

09.06

Interior trim quality lets down the sense of occasion somewhat. But there’s no dismissing the HEMI, and how cool is the spare wheel?

If there was a gripe it could be the disappointingly cheap-feeling bits of interior trim which distract somewhat from the sense of occasion normally pervading the driving experience when it comes to any 300. Then there’s the boot.

When I opened it to load up the shopping I was confronted by the spare wheel. Not a space-saver you understand, but an actual fifth wheel perched high up and angled in presentation poise so that it could be witnessed in all its effulgent glory by passers-by – from two blocks away!

Even with this I have slightly mixed emotions: the horrendous impact on practicality is hard to dismiss, but on the other hand I found myself constantly hitting the remote boot-lid opener and showing it to friends and colleagues accompanied by the phrase: ‘just how cool is that?’.

With my sensible hat on, I would recommend all with fiendish fantasies to

choose the standard 340bhp car over the 425bhp SRT-8, but the flawed-hero appeal of the confident and audacious Merc-based pumped-up Hemi-powered monster is hard to resist, especially if the car’s overt personality traits appeal to you. I found it harder to hand back the keys to this car than the Maybach – and, perhaps rather disturbingly, that says more about me that anything else.

SHAHZAD SHEIKH

CHRYSLER 300C SRT8 Price: From $57,170 Engine: 6.1-litre HEMI V8, 425bhp @ 6200rpm, 420lb @4800rpm Transmission: Five-speed automatic transmission with sequential AutoStick Performance: 5.3 sec 0-100kph; 274kph, 12.9l/100 On sale in the ME: Now

RATING If you like The Car, Christine and The Excorcist, you’ll love the SRT8

SEPTEMBER 2006 car 45

MUSTANG MEETS ARABIAN HORSE

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In 1890 an American mustang beat Arabia’s best horses on home ground.

Time for a rematch Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Richard Parsons

O

The car is comfortable and has aircon; but the horse is more sophisticated

VER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AN AMERICAN mustang took on the finest breeds of Arabian horses in what must have been the toughest endurance race known to man.

Nearly 5000km across unforgiving desert through sand storms that could shred the flesh off your bones, and terrain that would test the sturdiness of your animal and the conviction of your faith. You either won the ‘Ocean of fire’ and became a legend, or died of shame trying.

In the unflinching tradition of Hollywood’s finest frontiersmen, an infamous down and out dispatch rider, completely out of his depth, not only won, but even had time for a spot of derring-do and adventure along the way.

And he did it astride his aging but faithful steed, a small, hardy, free-roaming feral horse of the North American west, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors. A ‘lowly’ mustang in other words.

Apparently the movie Hidalgo is based on a true story (see panel p74). History or myth, there is a contemporary parallel. The American Mustang once again arrived on Arabian shores last year, courtesy of Ford enjoying its Middle East revival (if you’ll allow me the indulgence of

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conveniently forgetting all the previous watered-down generations of the model from 1974’s Mustang II to the 1994-04 SN-95 version, and endorsing only the first two gens and the current car as genuine examples of Ford’s famous ‘pony’ breed). And this time it had some unfair advantages: air conditioning and a warranty, for example.

Oh, and of course it’s now a car.

Not much of a rematch I grant you, especially as Arabian horses are now much-pampered leisure and tourism companions (go ride one at the Dubai Polo Club, which is where we brought these two together again, see p112) and no longer faster, thirstier real world alternative transport to camels (the Toyota Land Cruisers of their day I suppose).

But, and go with me on this no matter how tenuous things get, there are commonalities.

“Rooted in unmistakable heritage that gave birth to an icon, the 2006 Mustang is a bold, powerful, contemporary version of history’s most celebrated muscle car,” says Hussein Murad, the Ford Middle East sales and marketing director. All that stuff about heritage, icon and history’s most celebrated, could also be about the horse.

‘YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS CONVINCES YOU THIS COULD ONLY BE A MUSTANG’

MUSTANG MEETS ARABIAN HORSE

And what about mass appeal? Arabian bloodlines are found in the ancestry of almost every modern breed of riding horse (ironically even the mustang has Arabian genes).

When the Ford Mustang was introduced in 1964, in its first two years of production 1.5 million cars were produced – a record unequalled. And nearly one out of every two sports cars sold in America in 2005 was a Mustang, whilst it was also the best-selling convertible Stateside.

How about the looks? Our opening picture faithfully exploits the universally accepted image of a majestic Arabian horse in pure white. In fact Arabians are born with black skin and it’s the coat that turns white, grey, chestnut etc.

Similarly the Ford looks like something it isn’t. A perfect contemporary retro design, like the new MINI, the car manages to capture the style and essence of the original 1960’s car, but is, in fact, thoroughly modern. Park it next to a Mark 1 Mustang and you’ll agree that it’s entirely unique, but viewed in isolation the silhouette is exceptionally strong and extremely evocative, so that your creative subconscious convinces you that what you perceive could be nothing other than a Mustang.

SEPTEMBER 2006 car 71

MUSTANG MEETS ARABIAN HORSE

Evocative retro graphics adorn a remarkably honest speedometer

FORD MUSTANG Price: $30,000 Engine: 4.6-litre 24V V8, 330bhp @ 5750rpm, 320lb ft @ 4500rpm Transmission: five-speed manual or five-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive Performance: 5.1sec 0-100kph, 230kph

And it works. It just does. Before we get hold of the key, open the door, or start the engine; just taking it in, parked there under the white light of the desert sun, which normally exposes any design defects, the bold clear visual statement gets you. The shark-like nose aping its granddaddy, the delineative C-scoops in the side and the three-element tail lamps are contrived but redolently effective.

Romance, nostalgia, the appeal of living out all your carchase fantasies, combine to harness an overwhelming desire to own this car. But rather like entertaining the notion of galloping gloriously off into the shimmering desert horizon on a magnificent mount, you’re sold on the concept before trying the reality. Do you really want to end up hot and sore with sand in every crevice?

NONE OF THAT IS A DANGER INSIDE THE CAR of course. The classic design themes are carried through to the three-spoke steering wheel, effusive retro gauge graphics and metal-look (but sadly plasticky) dash trim. The team working on the interior ran out of inspiration below the line of sight though. Unlike the MINI, which continues its style themes throughout the cabin with thoughtful detailing, Ford 156 car JANUARY 2004

‘ENGINEERS FELL FOR THE SPIEL ABOUT BEING TRUE TO THE ORIGINAL’ appears to have slapped in a standard centre console and parts-bin switchgear. This car may look like a million dollars, but from the admittedly comfy driver’s seat, the ‘built down to a price’ philosophy manifests itself through low-rent tacky trim – the auto shifter looks like a leftover prop from the set of Thunderbirds.

There’s no arguing with the on-paper stats: 4.6-litre aluminium V8; 330bhp in standard guise at 5750rpm (50 percent more power than the 1964 Mustang, which was also 400kg lighter than the current model’s 1560kg), with 320lb ft of torque from just 4500rpm. That should see it to 100kph in 5.1 seconds and flat out at 230kph.

The engine sounds like it’s been sampled from your favourite road movie. It has a bassy rumble at low revs (a tad too noise legislation-friendly I surmise) but rises quickly to a reverberating low-pitched metallic thrum of the sort that usually marks the start of a celluloid action sequence.

So with enough horses under the bonnet to out-charge a herd of Arabians, mated to 21st century mechanicals and polished off by a chassis team that has lately delivered great drives in the form of the Puma, Focus ST, and the Ferraribaiting GT(40), the modern Mustang should offer up

dynamics that should match the finesse of the finest racing horses, right? Wrong.

The engineers clearly had too many coffee breaks in the company of the exuberant and impassioned design time, and totally fell for the spiel about being true to the spirit of the original car. Having imbibed a selection of sixties substances to get in the mood, they must have then taken a shopping trolley (which, in their current state, seemed itself to display excellent handling characteristics) around an old warehouse, gathered up bits lying around and threw the mechanicals together on the morning it was probably meant to be presented to the board. Just like in the old days.

How else would you explain a high-mounted engine in a sports car with the ground clearance of an SUV (quashing any notion of a low centre of gravity for better stability), plus an antiquated solid rear axle set up at the back? So the first time you set off in a Mustang it’s like the first time in the saddle – tentative and precarious, half convinced that you’ll topple off at the first hint of the mustang doing something unexpected, which you entirely expect it to do.

There is considerably more lift, dive and lateral body movement compared to contemporary rivals. Naturally it SEPTEMBER 2006 car 73

MUSTANG MEETS ARABIAN HORSE

Imperfect Mustang wins this one-horse race

will accelerate, steer and brake a whole lot better than the original muscle cars which could barely hold a straight line, wobbled about helplessly when confronted with the slightest change in direction and usually held the belief that once they had worked up the effort to ‘haul ass’, they couldn’t really be doing with the tedium of having to stop again.

FAST FORWARD TO 2006 AND THE brakes still aren’t the most reassuring – needing a little time to think it over – but the steering feels meaty to hold and use, and relatively responsive, though preferring to concentrate on the tough task of course alteration than getting chatty with the driver. The ride is unyielding, reacting with protest to road imperfections, of which there are a few in our region.

Throw it into a corner (a test of faith akin to that faced by the aforementioned endurance riders) and the anticipated body roll is accompanied by understeer on tight slow corners, but with grippy close-to-neutral handling on sweepers. Rather like the Arabian, which displays its latent hot-blooded temperament under abuse, but remains willing and obedient when treated with sensitivity, you can adapt your driving style to get the best out of the car. You either charge up to a corner, pull-up in a straight line, before wrenching the reins over into the corner and kicking it (the best way to produce dramatic tail-out action and tyre squeals); or try being progressive with the loud pedal mid-bend and floating through a corner, provoking a more gentle slide.

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But the first way is more fun. And ultimately that is what this car is about. If I owned it I would be tempted to lurch sideways out of every single junction, grinning dementedly.

Sure the light-footed Arabian would run rings around it, but the car would respond by flicking off the traction control and launching into a succession of smokin’ doughnuts.

The automatic initially seems to suit this car but its lack of a sequential mode and its eagerness to change up, leaves a hole in the powerband, which you compensate for by frequently engaging the violent kickdown – miss-time it out of a corner though and you could be bucked off the road. The manual gives you far more satisfying access to the power, but the heavy clutch will pain first time you go posing in traffic, and the clunky change doesn’t suffer snappy changes gladly. In fact poseurs would love an auto rag-top (despite the terrible scuttle shake), but for the rest of us the far more rigid coupe with the stick-shift is the best bet.

Whether the flawed dynamic personality traits have been deliberately dialled in, or exist by merit of building a car true to the classic muscle car layout, or result from lack of time and investment, I don’t know. But they do invest the Mustang with an imperfect but gutsy underdog nature of a kind that will have endeared cinema audiences to the pertinacious stallion, Hidalgo. The Arabians are the perfect breed of horse; the mustang is not. But in the end the Ford’s honest, simple appeal and charisma would win you over despite its obvious foibles. Mustang wins again. car

‘THE MUSTANG HAS AN IMPERFECT, GUTSY UNDERDOG NATURE’

Truth or myth?

Ocean of fire The movie depicts the ‘true’ story of dispatch rider and endurance racer, Frank T Hopkins (www.frankhopkins. com). According to the US Remount Service Journal of 1936, Hopkins competed in and won over 400 longdistance races.

And following an invitation from a Sheikh, these included his toughest and greatest race, the legendary 4800km ‘Ocean of Fire’ enduro across the Arabian desert from Aden to Syria in 1890 on his mustang stallion, ‘Hidalgo’. He is reported to have completed the race in 68 days, 33 hours ahead of the next horse.

In his unpublished autobiography he also recounts wins in places as far flung as Japan, Russia, Germany, India and even Mongolia. Amazing claims that would make him the greatest endurance rider in history.

However despite movie producers claiming that 15 historians have verified his claims, some argue that most of Hopkin’s accounts including the very existence of any such race as the ‘Ocean of Fire’ are ‘tall tales’.

Many contemporary distance riders have proven his feats impossible or miraculous. According to one expert Hopkins’ only known employment records show that he was a foreman digging subway tunnels, a shipyard worker and horse handler for a circus.

And a great story teller to boot!

GET THE The motorsport season is upon us. We had a go at both the simplest form of racing (Autocrossing) and the newest (Drifting) Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Matthew Cliff

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DRIFT T

he D-word is very in right now. This summer’s third blockbuster instalment of the Fast and Furious series simply added accelerant to the craze of Drifting. Originally an underground sport that has its roots on the treacherously twisty mountain roads of Japan, it’s now a legitimate sport that has founded championship series’ in America, Europe, the Far East and, if all goes to plan this winter, right here in the Middle East. The Emirates Motor Sports Federation is about to launch its equivalent of D1 this month.

And why should you be interested? Apart from the fact that it looks spectacular, sounds awesome, and is the coolest form of motor sport around? Well like most other motor racing disciplines it’s certainly harder than it looks, as I discovered, but we’ll come to my skill vacuum later.

However it’s also possibly the least competitive. Truth be told, unless you are intent on taking your behind-the-wheels activities very seriously indeed, drifting can be a really big laugh.

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AMATEUR MOTORSPORTS

1

Despite the scenarios you may have seen in the movie, or indeed read about in the Initial D Manga graphic novels inspired by the sport, you don’t race against a clock or rivals. Remember the quickest way through a corner is the most tidy, direct and controlled route. Ever seen a Formula 1 car deliberately lose grip? Exactly.

Drifting, on the other hand, is all about style, finesse, car control, tyre smoke, and angle. In fact, make that huge plumes of tyre smoke and impossibly lurid amounts of angle!

It’s potentially the most accessible too. Got a reasonably powerful rear-drive car, or even a not so powerful one with skinny tyres? Then you too could aspire to be the next Dori Kin (Japan’s genuine DK – Drift King – and widely acknowledged father of the sport). ‘For most motor sport, the only thing they are concerned about is time. Time is just one factor in drifting; we also look for the intensity of a sumo match and the beauty of figure skating,’ explains DK. ‘Top drifters evaluate the speed and angle of the drift. There should be no weaving during drifting. Also the smoke and intensity are important which must be as thrilling as possible.’

But if like me, you’ve tried it a couple of times in the Global Village car park and produced nothing more entertaining than burnt rubber, tread marks and embarrassing spins, then you need help. Fret not, now even that is at hand.

With impeccable timing the Autodrome Race and Drive School in Dubai (www. dubaiautodrome.com) is about to add ‘Drifting’ to its ever-growing catalogue of activities that is fast-leaving armchair racing enthusiasts fewer and fewer excuses not to get involved. And CAR ME got an exclusive preview of what attendees can expect to experience and possibly learn.

FIRST THOUGH, WE NEEDED A CAR. Now, who would be willing to lend us a motor that would spend the best part of the day on its door handles, engine bouncing off the revcounter on a searing day in July, the rear axle and transmission taking a brutal pounding, with a couple of novices (feature’s ed Jon and myself) at the wheel. The punishment would stop only once the tyre rubber had worn right down to the rims. Which manufacturer would be brave enough to let us put their product through such trauma? Step forward GM and a huge round of applause please as the black Lumina SS saloon rolls purposely into the Autodrome!

So, straight out there, foot to the floor and chucking it about like the unrestrained hooligans that we both are at heart? No such luck. Master wheelman, ex-Lotus engineer, and Race School manager, James Burnett, likes to start with the basics and we went back to class to make sure we were clear on things like seating posture and steering technique. Out went years of British Police-sanctioned push-pull practice and in came a quarter to three hands-on-the-wheel position, with lots of furious crossed-arm twirling.

Next it was slalom time in one of the Autodrome’s tough front-drive Audi A3 models.

James watched from outside giving us a verbal lashing each time we were careless with steering, usually when we thought he wasn’t looking – as we were to learn, very little gets past James.

Pushing us faster and faster until I had managed to knock over every single cone and he was satisfied that we were both beginning to relearn how to steer a car, he finally led us to a giant 50 metre radius cone circle at the side of the Autodrome’s Oval circuit. Too eager we jumped

1. THE BASICS ‘Forget what you’ve been taught before, this is the way you steer from now on’ 2. ALL-SEEING Tutor James observes our steering technique from outside 3. CONFUSED Jon gets all crossarmed and asks:

‘Which way was straight again?’

4. CONE KILLING Slalom cones live in mortal fear of Shahzad who never misses 5. THE OFFICE Performance driving tutor, James Burnett, is excellent at passing on his considerable wheel skills

out and bounded for the Lumina, but were quickly dragged back to the A3. First, it seemed, we were to learn about understeer.

We all know what it is right? Push too hard in a front-driver and the tyres start to wash wide of the turn intent on going off at a tangent. After the point at which the steering goes light, you can pour on as much lock as you like with zero response. Unwind the lock and you get some control back. Same thing happens if you back off. Understood.

Finally we were led to the Lumina and Guru James, for that is how he shall henceforth be known, proceeded to demonstrate the sensational art of controlled oversteer using a

‘DRIFTING IS ALL ABOUT STYLE, FINESSE, CAR CONTROL, TYRE SMOKE AND ANGLE – LOTS OF ANGLE!’

2

3

4

5

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carefully balanced combination of deliberate but apparently effortless steering and throttle inputs.

The Guru completed a lap of the entire circle at angles of 45 degrees and above. Angles from which you imagine a recovery would require a bending of the very laws of physics themselves.

He was even more impressive later in the day when he took me around the short race circuit for some high-speed demo laps that saw us ploughing through corners at near 90 degree angles carrying some colossal momentum – I know not precisely what, as I was too busy holding on to the grab handles and absorbing the potentially terrifying experience whilst feeling quite at ease. Says a lot for the confidence inspired by the Guru, making it look all so easy.

To watch it’s an awesome sight from outside, but from the passenger seat there’s a sense of witnessing violent artistry with the car clearly being made to do more than it was designed to, yet responding in complete obedience. A line from the Tokyo Drift movie appropriately popped into my head: ‘If you ain’t outta control, you ain’t in control.’

THEN IT WAS OUR TURN ON THE circle. All we had to do was get it sliding and catch it back. But the first few laps demonstrated little more than our ability to break traction and end up parked facing the opposite direction – albeit laughing our heads off. But as we piled on the laps, frustration set in. Time for some wise words from the Guru who was sagely observing us from a safe distant: ‘You’re not getting off the throttle quick enough. As soon as the rear breaks away, cut the power or you’ll never catch it. And you’re not steering into the slide fast enough.’ By which he meant counter-steering.

Suitably dressed down for our sheer laziness, we headed back out. He was right of course.

Throw a powerful rear-drive car into a corner sharply, shifting its weight onto the outside front wheel and slamming the throttle should see the back tyres lose grip and swing the tail round.

Cutting power will restore grip, but your direction depends on snatching the steering back round in the few fractions of a second available for you to react.

Eventually I was both opposite locking and lifting off in time, but then losing it anyway. The dismembered voice on the walkie-talkie was quick to admonish me, ‘why were you back on the gas?!’ Right again. At the exact moment I thought I had caught the slide, by reflex my right foot had stabbed the throttle again and I’d lost it. The fact that Jon was guilty of the same error on his run later, left me reassured that it wasn’t just me with this power-hungry affliction.

With furrowed brows we concentrated harder and began to appreciate the technique of catching the car back from a slide. I’d confess neither of us managed to gather it up from an extremely dramatic angle, but if nothing else, both would come away from the day with a real understanding of how a rear drive car can snap away and what to do if it does.

‘Good. Now we’ll try and reintroduce some throttle to see if you can hold the slide.’ Hang on! Didn’t he just tell us off for that? There’s a fine point at which once you’ve caught the slide and mid-way through the correction, but without fully restoring the straight ahead stance, you snap the accelerator back down to break rear traction again and then immediately feather it until you find the right balance of throttle and steering to hold the slide – i.e. ‘drift’.

‘THIS IS ENTRY-LEVEL MOTORSPORT AT ITS FINEST BUT DON’T BE FOOLED INTO THINKING IT’S ALL SMILES’

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CONE HEADS

An amateur sport it may be, but the bottom line is still all about winning

T

here are two different definitions of what an Autocross actually is. The grassroots form of motorsport dates back to the early 1950s in the UK, where up to four cars at a time would charge around a farmer’s fields to be the first to the finish line. The first official series of events took place in 1954, with the first British National Autocross event taking place in 1959.

Then there is Autotesting, which is basically the same thing, in principle, as a timed event, but on hard standing – normally in a car park or deserted airfield. Across the pond, the Americans decided to host Autotesting, again at shopping centre car parks and airfields, but to confuse matters decided to call it AutoX – the ‘X’ cleverly used to stop people getting it mixed up with the word ‘cross’!

The timed events are conducted at fairly low speeds, 100kph maximum, as competitors charge around a course defined by an array of traffic cones. The cones are either positioned to simulate a road course, or positioned more randomly to direct the competitors. Cones are

also put on their side, the narrow end indicating the direction of turns. Similar to Autotesting, AutoX events are limited to one driver at a time, negotiating the avenue of cones against the clock. Each competitor normally achieves three to four runs per event. Normally time penalties of one to two seconds are charged for those who disturb the cones.

The Middle East follows the style defined by both AutoX and Autotesting but names it after the mud-friendly UK series of the Fifties. The Emirates Autocross Championship is staged on tarmac and is open to anyone with a valid UAE driver’s license, and a racing helmet – with a number of classes, from bone stock to modified.

The current roll call of UAE contenders include a number of Imprezas and Mitsubishi EVOs, a BMW M3, Renault Clio Williams and a cult of Minis and Honda S2000s. Some older cars compete too, such as the hardcore line-up of early Civics, which give the far grander, more expensive machinery a jolly good seeing to.

This is entry-level motorsport at its finest, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all smiles and

salmon sandwiches. An amateur sport it may be, but the bottom line is still all about winning.

If you’re keen to have a go yourself, may we suggest you avoid entering with anything highheeled, to save rolling over at the first turn, opting instead for something lean, nimble and low to the ground. Preferably short-wheel-base, front-wheel drive and manual. That said I managed a much better time in the Autodrome’s Race School automatic Audi A3, around the set course, than I did in the manual MINI. My best times in the MINI were successive 50.73 secs – talk about reaching my limitations.

Shahzad then trumped my MINI times, by pulling a 50.10 out of the bag. I was a good sport though and have since found sanctuary in the fact that I gave Guru James Burnett a run for his money, in the automatic Audi A3 – with a time of 47.69, against James’ MINI time of 47.35.

Surely it’s a sign, which means you’ll probably find me in a car park near you very soon, armed with a lightweight racer, circa 1983, shod in slicks, spoiler and a supercharger.

JON SAXON

AMATEUR MOTORSPORTS

Easy in theory, absurdly difficult in reality.

Even when we got to a point where we caught the slide and kept the back out it was only momentary, with the car fishtailing back to straight or spinning us round like a delirious roundabout on Speed.

Getting close to lunch and with the rear rubber wearing precariously, I had one more run. Cue epiphanic music and bullet-time slowmo movie sequence as somehow it all came together exactly as the Guru had prescribed. My

The Chevrolet Lumina SS can deploy 350lb ft of torque through the rear wheels making it a perfect tool for drift work. The agile MINI is excellent for Autocrossing and can even double up as a cone

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field of vision seemed to narrow down to a point just this side of the right A-pillar and I found the hitherto elusive balancing points. For a full half circuit I had the car in a sublime drift, stopping only on instructions from the walkie-talkie.

This was swiftly followed by an unrestrained explosion of jubilation and much punching of the air inside the cabin, primarily from me!

Sadly I wasn’t able to replicate my ‘one-off flukey’ success after lunch, because with new different compound grippy tyres on the rear, and

despite the Guru’s best efforts to scrub them down (highly entertaining for us spectators), the previously lairy Lumina became steadfastly uncooperative and tended instead towards understeer. If you’re going to practice drifting, make sure you have plenty of tyres.

Cost of tyres, and potentially clutches and transmissions aside, drifting is exactly how I imagined it: an exhilarating, challenging and sensational way into a relatively safe and affordable form of motorsport. Get the drift? car

10/2 October 2006

EXCLUSIVE

MIDDLE EAST EDITION

NEW LR2 TESTED IN DUBAI

BIG SPENDERS: THIS MONTH WE DRIVE $2 MILLION WORTH OF CARS

Coup de grace NEW Z4 COUPE – IS IT A CAYMAN KILLER?

An ITP Consumer Publication OCTOBER 2006 AED10 Issue 10-2 BHD 1 KWD 1 OMR 1 SAR 10 QAR 10

9 771817 142009

48 HOURS IN A

MAYBACH!

Z4 COUPE VS CAYMAN

Familiar faces but brand new behinds: in this CAR ME exclusive twin test, we ask which is the charger and which the poseur?

Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Alan Desiderio

T

HOUGH YOU MAY THINK YOU’VE SEEN these cars before, I promise you that you haven’t.

CAR ME is the first Middle East magazine to get its hands on these cars, and we’re the first to bring these two arch rivals together. The Cayman S has been around for nearly a year now, but the car you see on these pages is the new entry-level Cayman, which does without the S’s 3.4-litre engine and opts instead for the new 2.7 flat-six boxer unit (which also replaces the 2.4 previously in the Boxster).

And lining up alongside the sleek and slinky sports car from Stuttgart is the new Bavarian bad boy from BMW, the Z4 Coupe derived from the Z4 roadster, and first seen in concept guise at the Frankfurt motor show a year ago.

The BMW serves up 265bhp from its 3.0-litre straight six in riposte to the Cayman’s 245bhp – an unfair advantage you say? Well the Porsche is 95kg lighter at 1300kg. They’re pretty much the same dimensions, although the BMW is fractionally lower and shorter by exactly 25cm would you believe – doesn’t look it, does it?

And then there’s the prices.

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Combined with virtually guaranteed residuals, a base model price of $47,800 for the Cayman against a Z4 Coupe tag of $53,100, rather surprisingly and immediately skews the showroom battle in favour of the haut monde Porsche.

To most carnoisseurs the BMW would be perceived as the cheaper car, so in this meeting of two apparently evenly matched and highly desirable new German sports cars, the Porsche strikes first in the most unexpected manner. But as we’ll see things aren’t quite as simple as that – neither in financial terms nor behind the wheel.

But first, which of the two wins the beauty contest?

Well that’s easy – again it’s the Porsche Cayman. Its classically evolutionary elegance and perfectly Porsche proportions, with that lovely pinched bottom and alluring rear hips, gives the Cayman a sense of aesthetical purpose rather like that of a Russian ballerina. Perched precisely on her toes, you just know she will give a brilliant performance even before she has made a single graceful move.

The Z4 Coupe on the other hand looks like it was drawn by a cartoonist, which I’m sure isn’t the worst insult to be

Z4 COUPE VS CAYMAN

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hurled at BMW’s Banglesque styling themes. The stubby rear is almost all wheel with some of the bodywork draped around it. The passenger cabin looks like it was affixed as an afterthought to a bonnet which appears to extend right back to the rear wheel and shouts phallic symbolism so loud it leaves the effeminate Cayman blushing. Plus the grille looks like it’s slipped inadvertently down the nose.

So which do I prefer? The Z4 Coupe of course. The conventional styling of the Cayman is spot-on, but it doesn’t wow, surprise or intrigue in the way the butch and bold Z4 does. In the metal and on the road, the BMW has serious head-turning road presence. And whilst the Roadster was always the best interpretation of the overtly radical design language employed of late in all Beemers, the addition of a roof and that sloping, protruding rear hatch lends a certain cohesiveness that completes the Z4.

Details such as the side indicator unit hidden behind the extruded logo, double-bubble roof (so that you can wear a helmet at track days, naturally) and a fascinatingly complex rear fusion of lines, flowing back from the roof, the fenders and kicking up in an chunky rear spoiler, are all spoilt only by a rather tacky antenna. Overall it’s hard to take your eyes off the Z4 Coupe as there is just so much arresting eye candy on show.

And if you like a flawed car you’ll feel perfectly at home in the driver’s seat of the Z4 with your legs seemingly arching off towards the outside front wheel, with the steering pointing towards the bonnet badge. I exaggerate somewhat of course, but there is simply no overstating the abysmal rear visibility through the narrow rear window, robbed mostly of rear vision by that deeply dished roof. It’s so bad that you tend to give up with the interior rear view mirror and use the wing mirrors instead.

Alternatively you ignore what’s behind you, drive flatout everywhere and hope for the best – a common BMWdriver trait actually!

The interior is obviously straight out of a Z4 which is to say it’s acceptable if rather slabby and featureless, but ergonomics are good. You need little more than intuition to operate everything and the flip-up monitor is handy. The trim does look and feel rather budget-level when compared to the Cayman and there isn’t the same well-machined ambience either. But then the Cayman cabin is designed to make you feel rather special and in no way able to forget

that you’re in a Porsche, especially decked out in the optional carbon-fibre trim. Much preferred the Z’s steering wheel though.

SADLY BOTH THESE TEST CARS CAME IN automatic guise, and despite the sequential modes, both suffered for it. Especially the Cayman. On paper its 0100kph acceleration figure increases from 6.1 for the fivespeed or optional six-speed manual, to 7.0 for the Tiptronic S. Incidentally the six-speed manual gives a higher top speed of 260kph versus 258kph for the five-speed and 253kph for the auto.

By contrast the cocky BMW loses only three-tenths of a second in the dash to 100kph in auto guise, getting there in 6.0 seconds dead, although top speed is limited to 250kph.

In the real world the figures translate to a far more urgent and punchy performance from the Z4, with 232lb ft of torque available from just 2500rpm up to 4000rpm.

Meanwhile you have to carry on waiting till 4600rpm to benefit from the Cayman’s 201lb ft which admittedly stays strong right up to 6000rpm. It’s redlined at 7300rpm and clearly the boxer unit needs to be revved, which leaves

Evenly-matched in price and on paper, the Z4 Coupe and Cayman look and drive very differently

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Ignoring, if possible, the vibrant red interior of the Z4 test car, the dashboard remains functional but relativley plain.

Nice steering wheel though

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you cursing the too-clever-for-its-own good Tiptronic transmission even more.

And then there’s the change sensation. The far-toosubtle buttons on the Cayman’s wheel operate in a clinically quick and efficient manner, but the meaty contoured paddles in the Z4 are a more satisfying set of tools to thunk in and out of gear with. There’s even a hint of throttle blip on down changes.

Thus far, it was looking like an easy victory for the BMW, but back at the wheel of the Cayman, with the traction control off as usual (it really doesn’t need it), I arrived at a large roundabout way ahead of the Z4 and the camera car. Indulging in a few circuits to allow the others to catch up I had an epiphany.

Understeer or oversteer on demand. So finely balanced and adjustable is the Porsche chassis, it allows you a level of confidence and proffers the kind of intimacy few others, including the BMW, could ever hope to match. Its controllability, steering accuracy and feel along with throttle adjustability are all extraordinary.

Further reassurance is to be had from the monobloc fixed-calliper four-piston brakes borrowed from the

Cayman S, especially since the bigger discs and clever Dynamic Brake Control in the Z don’t seem to add up to a great deal of actual stopping power.

Both these cars are very stiff which means excellent body control, but that’s no surprise as they’ve followed the reverse of the usual route for manufactures. The Cayman and Z4 Coupe started life designed as roadsters and only later found their true calling as coupes. Whereas it’s usually coupes that end up with their roofs chopped off and their structural integrity unavoidably compromised.

The Porsche’s lower seating position, grippier tyres, and boomy engine relentlessly screaming its distinctive flat-four climatic opera behind your shoulders courtesy of a midengine layout, contrive to give this car very much a roadracer feel. A real pity then, that it doesn’t have a mightier response to throttle inputs. The Cayman is sublime, agile, sophisticated and well, frustratingly underpowered.

It only took a few minutes back in the Z4 to realise that whilst it was softer, less composed on its 3 Series chassis, and essentially rougher around the edges than the credential-laden Cayman, on our roads it was actually the more fun to drive. Straightline speed is what really counts rather than the ability to delicately string together a series of corners. And once you’d remembered to press and hold down the DTC (Dynamic Traction Control) to really, totally turn it off, it transforms into a fully-fledged, grin-inducing, manically irresponsible and marvellously irrepressible hooligan. And as ever the silky smooth straight six belts out an enticing rhythm.

Round a circuit, I’ll wager a professional racing driver will set a quicker time in the Cayman than in the more powerful Z4, but in the BMW he’ll arrive at the finishing line laughing and not really caring. Away from a race track it’s not always about lap times you know.

BUT, I HEAR YOU CRY, THE CAYMAN’S A Porsche and it’s cheaper! Ah yes about that. The Cayman we tried had self dimming mirrors and rain sensor, traction control, Bi Xenon headlamp package, rear wiper, parking assist, telephone with separate sim-card holder, CD changer, wheel cap crests, multi-function steering wheel, sat nav, leather upholstery and the aforementioned carbon package. In fact totting up the entire options list hiked the dotted-line price to an eye-watering $60,800.

‘The BMW Z4 is a marvellously irrepressible hooligan’

car

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Whereas if I’m to believe BMW, the Z4 Coupe 3.0Si comes with most of that plus TV, and M Sports suspension included. Admittedly I remain slightly cynical about the final price on a Z4 Coupe (we’d love to hear your buying experiences), but I would still be surprised if once you’d added essential extras to the Cayman it remained so much cheaper than the BeeEmm equivalent.

Neither car carries a spare wheel furnishing owners with repair kits instead. With front and rear boots combined the Cayman’s 410 litres of luggage capacity is actually better than the Z4 Coupe’s 340 litres, though the latter can carry the requisite two golf bags. The Z4’s standard runflat tyres hand the ride and road noise advantage to the Cayman, but the BMW claws back some points by offering slightly better economy, whereas the pernickety Porsche even insists on the costlier 98 Octane fuel.

You may still argue that apart from the deleted S, unique 17-inch wheels, black brake callipers, oval tailpipe and

titanium-coloured model designation, only the Porsche aficionados will know you’ve saved yourself $7000 by choosing the Cayman. But you’re only cheating yourself.

In this guise, and Tiptronic-equipped, you are hardly able to scratch the surface of the Porsche’s depth of talent. So if you really want to drive a Cayman, instead of just earning yourself some misguided street cred with a set of kudosgaining Porsche keys, then I implore you to fork the extra out for the S – just cut back on a few optional extras.

The Z4 Coupe and the Cayman fought a tight battle, but whilst the Cayman makes a good case for buying its big brother for the extra 50bhp, the Z4 Coupe manages to totally undermine the impressive efforts of the Z4 M Coupe with a startling case. Compared to a manual 3.0, the M is only seven-tenths quicker to 100kph, has the same restricted top speed, but costs 15 percent more. As for our dynamic duo: the Cayman is the safe bet, but if you really want to live a little, go for the Z4 Coupe. car

BMW Z4 COUPE 3.0SI Price: $53,100 Engine: 2996cc 24V six-cylinder, 265bhp @ 6600rpm, 232lb ft @ 2500-4000rpm Transmission: Six-speed sequential, rear-wheel drive Performance: 6.0sec 0-100kph, 250kph (limited), 9l/100 On sale in the ME: Now

PORSCHE CAYMAN Price: $47,800 Engine: 2687cc 24V flat-six, 245bhp @ 6500rpm, 201lb ft @ 4600-6000rpm Transmission: Six-speed Tiptronic, rear-wheel drive Performance: 7.0sec 0-kmph, 253kph, 10.1l/100 On sale in the ME: Now

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LR2 HOT WEATHER TESTING IN DUBAI

HEAT& SAND CAR ME was granted exclusive access to Land Rover’s hot-weather test team, the only Middle East mag to try out the all-new LR2 Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Nicolas Godingen and Nick Dimbleby

F

orget the sponsor-laden, automaton remote pilots that pass for F1 racing drivers these days; the real life, behindthe-wheel heroes are manufacturer test drivers. Let’s face it, would you rather be Kimi Raikkonen or legendary Lamborghini tester, Valentino Balboni? These guys are the faceless and nameless backroom boys and girls that use and abuse new models long before you and I ever get our hands on them.

Admittedly vehicle testing is almost always portrayed as a glamorous activity, but having spent a day with Land Rover’s hot weather testing team putting the all-new LR2 through its

far-from-easy paces, I can tell you that it’s a tough, extremely arduous business not just for cars but also the engineers and testers. For every Walter Rohrl banging out heroically fast laps of the Nurburgring in a Porsche 911, there are another 100 guys steadily and tirelessly motoring across terrain ranging from the most tortuous a vehicle could traverse, to monotonous straight tarmac stretching out over endless horizons.

Whilst you’re lapping up scoop images and gleaning bits of information from media exclusives (mostly in CAR Middle East of course), these guys are out there piling on the kilometres in wildly diverse conditions that

would either leave the Abominable Snowman shivering or a camel parched with thirst.

Dubai-based In-market Testing Manager Tony Orr and his team allowed CAR ME unprecedented access to one of their testing sessions for the new LR2 – an exclusive opportunity to bring you a valuable insight into the mythical world of car testing.

The LR2, which was revealed in our July issue, is set to arrive in our region during Spring 2007, priced to compete in, and dominate, if Land Rover has its way, the compact SUV sector which is currently ruled by the likes of the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V and the old Pathfinder.

OCTOBER 2006 car 75

LR2 HOT WEATHER TESTING IN DUBAI

‘THERE WERE 12,000 TARGETS SET FOR THE NEW LR2, ALL TO BE PROVED IN TESTING’

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Land Rover fully accepts that historically its products have had reliability and build quality problems, but is fighting back with an extreme programme of quality and durability testing. The LR3 set the standard with the most extensive prelaunch assessment yet seen for any Land Rover.

With the LR2 up against utterly dependable Japanese rivals, the company is taking no chances and has employed elaborate real world testing procedures designed to mimic and exceed what customers would put their cars through.

There were an incredible 12,000 targets set for the new LR2, all of which had to be proved in testing. The development team want to know the exact force required to break a part, or the life expectancy in kilometres of another, or the temperature at which a system stops functioning – the latter particularly apt for our market.

Many of the components can be pre-tested in virtual space thanks to the power of computeraided design. Cars are crash-tested, stress-tested and even have their ride and handling predicted in cyberspace. But simulations are still no replacement for the real thing, so the work that Tony’s crew do remains an essential part of the testing process. ‘For example one of the things we found in the dunes was that every time the car was left crested with its belly in 1. DEFLATED the sand, the force of the sand on The day’s driving was punctuated the external door trim, which is a with only brief centimetre lower, would pop it stops, this one was to let the off the door,’ revealed Tony, ‘as a tyres down direct result the fixings have now 2. DATA LOG been strengthened’.

This LR2’s ‘In the industry, last year validation role Ford’s PAG became the first to betrayed by exposed wiring introduced “Mixed Noise” and data-logging testing intended to simulate real equipment in the boot world driving,’ he explained. ‘So 3. THERMOMETER whereas previously cars would With most of the be driven only on motorways one testing at this day, then off-road the next, now stage about we drive through a mixture of cooling systems, this elaborate conditions, including traffic, off‘thermometer’ road, in sand, and on motorways recorded sensor readings from each and every day.’ various parts of The first LR2 prototypes were the cabindsd built in 2003 using components designed for the new car but disguised as the old Freelander. From early 2005 Land Rover began to build 100 confirmation prototypes. These had

the correct body shell, running gear and engines but a cheap basic interior trim. Back in July one of these was out in the UAE dunes specifically for sand-calibration testing for the Terrain Response system the LR2 will feature. This car was flown back and broken up and analysed.

Our car was an undisguised pre-production prototype and almost exactly what you might expect to see in Land Rover showrooms next year, but with slight variations in the quality of interior trim and of course final specifications. What won’t change is the straight-six 3.2-litre engine out of the Volvo S80 (modified for off-road duties) that is compact enough to be mounted transversely allowing designers to increase interior space.

Having lived in Dubai previously Tony returned to take up his new role in April. Before that he was a prototype build manager in the UK for seven years having built Jaguar XKs, XJs and indeed the LR2 test models. Along with his crew, expert sand driver Yakub Dino and technician Jude Fernandaz, Tony is currently working on final ‘customer-level’ testing – basically chasing out all the minor flaws and annoyances – for instance the door-mounted grab-handles that you can’t actually ‘grab’ as there’s nowhere to push your fingertips through: ‘That’s one of the first things I reported back to HQ,’ agreed Tony. ‘If you’re off-roading like we are

today, passengers do need something to hold onto.

It’ll stay like this for the first batch of cars though.’

By this time we were already onto the sandy stuff, having stopped only to deflate tyres, somewhere near Nizwa on a once-popular off-road track that has been discarded by tourists for an easier parallel route. Land Rover engineers use it almost exclusively now as it simulates the kind of driving that owners in this region might engage in, and it leads to the awesome Big Red dune.

The test equipment indicated an average of 48 degrees at one point. The sensors themselves are more accurate than the car’s standard temperature display, with a sensor at the front of the car and one on the roof. Much of the testing at this stage is about cooling and air conditioning performances, and the data-recording device on the dashboard and temperature sensor wires 4. WEIGHTY TEST poking into various points of the Final test of the cabin betrayed this LR2’s role. day involved loading up LR2 to At the end of a test day, Tony maximum payload downloads all the data into his and heating it up. laptop and fires it back to Land Scales meant no Rover’s HQ in Gaydon, UK. ‘On cheatingh two the back of this data, they can ask us to make adjustments and try certain tests again,’ he explained. One of the tests he had been asked to repeat was actually a capability test that involves

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LR2 HOT WEATHER TESTING IN DUBAI

‘IN CURRENT TESTING WE’VE ONLY HAD TO REPORT BACK EIGHT ISSUES’

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charging up and down Big Red on full throttle fives times without stopping, then coming to a halt and sticking a blanket around the engine to really starve it of natural cooling.

‘This is way too much fun to be a real job, Tony,’ I shouted on the third run as I bounced around the cabin frantically grabbing hold of the ungrabbable door handles. Grinning, he explained that the combination of the extreme stress on the engine and the high temperature really put the cooling system to the test.

‘Actually the cooling system on the LR2 has passed every test we’ve tried.’ The radiator’s top hose temperature was indicating 122 degrees at the end of the run, but in less 1. LONG DRIVES than five minutes had dropped to Despite the glamorous image 110 allowing both the engine and of test drivers, the air con to cope with the heat. much of their work involves Satisfied, Tony agreed to endless driving on dull roads – so throw the car around for some it’s not all dunepictures. It wasn’t long before a bashing then? front tyre had come off its rim.

‘Happens all the time,’ shouted 2. DUMMIES Retaining water: support vehicle driver and everthese stand-in enthusiastic Saeed, whilst the tanks serve to add weight to quietly efficient Yakub had dug a the test LR2’s well, pumped up the tyre and payload snapped it back before you could 3. RESULTS say ‘what do we do now?’.

At the end of Land Rover has sold 500,000 each day Tony downloads all examples of the Freelander in the the data and nine years since its 1997 launch, sends it back to Land Rover HQ but the new car is clearly better in in the UK every way. It retains the distinct Freelander face, but introduces hints of LR3 and Range Rover Sport for the rest of the car – the rear three quarters being the least inspiring. Inside you still have that classic Land

Rover high seating position, but the dashboard is higher to bring the instruments closer to your line of sight and give the vents a more effective angle.

Performance from the 230bhp engine seemed adequate with the car happily cruising at an indicated 180kph in two-wheel drive (the parttime Haldex 4x4 operates automatically). There was little buffeting. Only the whistling noise from the roof-mounted sensors broke the relative calm.

The ride both on-road and off was stable, smooth and without drama. There’s no low-ratio but Tony claimed that this car is far better off-road than the Freelander although it never quite got as high up Big Red as the LR3 V8.

The car performed faultlessly apart from the traction control switching itself off a few times. ‘A lot of what we pick up on here are thermal issues,’ explained Tony, ‘and it could result in engine calibrations changing and cooling fans upgraded.

Plus there are wear and tear issues consistent with our driving conditions. Even so we’ve only had to report back around eight issues on this car so far.’

The day’s final test was yet to come. The trailer test involves loading up the car to its maximum payload (with water-filled ‘mannequins’ sitting in for full-sized adults), attaching a 2000kg trailer and then whacking the heater up for ten minutes, whilst the driver and passenger stand outside in direct sunlight. With an interior temperature of up to 65 degrees, the testers then set the climate control and simulate stop-start city driving while pulling the trailer. The idea is to gain a subjective assessment of how well the air con copes.

Frankly I didn’t hang around long enough to find out. I’d had my fill of heat and sand for the day and left the ‘heroes’ to carry on. When we do come to test the LR2 for real, I’m expecting the air con at the very least to be brilliant! car

November 2006

MIDDLE EAST EDITION

E R U T N E = ADV E L Y T S I MIN

THREE MINIS + ES+ SEVEN EMIRAT! SEVEN HOURS

THE EMIRATI JOB: OUR MINI ADVENTURE STARTS HERE!

2007 MINI

All-new model tested Issue 11 Volume 2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

100 years since the birth of Issigonis ■

An ITP Consumer publication OCTOBER 2006 Complimentary copy

CAPRICE AND LUMINA SS ■ VW IROC ■ CADILLAC STS-V ■ HUMMER H1 ■

TE EMIRATI JOB Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Andy Tipping and Alan Desiderio

156 car JANUARY 2004

Seven Emirates in seven hours: we send off the MINI with our very own Mini Arabian adventure

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

I

T WAS LIKE A SCENE STRAIGHT OUT OF THE MOVIE, or movies, if you subscribe to the view that 2003’s The Italian Job remake is a worthy successor to the iconic 1969 original starring Michael Caine. Shortly after dawn on a sleepy Ramadan Friday, our convoy of MINIs fired up their engines in unison and peeled away from the back of CAR ME HQ in the Al Garhoud area of Dubai. Darting into line-astern formation with a real sense of purpose, these were MINIs on a mission, a stopwatch had started and a countdown had begun.

Seven Emirates in seven hours.

When I’d blurted out the idea a few months earlier, our very own MINI adventure as a classic goodbye to the phenomenally successful ‘BMW MINI’ (see page 66 for the all-new version), nobody knew if I was talking pie-in-the-sky or a real plan. I certainly didn’t. How about ‘Seven Emirates in seven days?’ someone suggested helpfully.

Some years ago my old mate and Motorsport evangelist Tausif Agha had run a ‘One Lap of the Emirates’ event, but even he wasn’t sure: ‘we never did a continuous run, we stopped and had a series of events or tests in each Emirate’. CAR ME contributor Fraser Martin offered more hope: ‘there’s a couple of new roads that should make this doable.’ Trouble was I wanted to start in Dubai and end in Abu Dhabi following a route straight up through the northern Emirates, down to Fujairah and across to Abu Dhabi. Except that there is no ‘across’ to Abu Dhabi; more of a ‘doubleback then onwards to Abu Dhabi’.

A dry run a few weeks before the attempt, saw me back in Dubai after just under six hours, having visited all but the capital city – and that was at least another two-hour drive away. Oh dear. Thing is though I’d made a mess of the route, getting lost a couple of times, retracing my steps through Ajman and Sharjah, and I never did find those ‘new’ roads. Surely not entirely impossible then? In the office everyone looked at me sceptically and seemed to play along in a ‘let’s just humour the editor for a while’ manner. ‘Hey guys, I’m serious about this.’

‘How many cars are we going to run?’ asked features ed Jon. ‘Three of course, just like in the movies, plus we’ll need a support car.’ Jon is well aware of the logistical nightmare each CAR ME group test entails. I recall his response was to turn away to someone else and make something like a ‘he’s completely lost the plot’ gesture.

FEW BELIEVED THAT BMW COULD PULL IT OFF, particularly in the UK. There was a lot of affection for the classic Mini, and even more public indignation and disgust at the perceived backstabbing death blow Bayerische Motoren Werke AG had delivered to MG Rover, the last bastion of the once-envied British car industry.

Back at the turn of the millennium, when the Germans had figured out that Rover’s days were numbered – about five years before everyone else did – they offloaded it to a group of what were initially hailed as saviours of Her Majesty’s motor industry, but were ultimately unmasked as the money-grabbing corporate raiders they proved to be.

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DUBAI

‘LIKE THE MOVIES THESE WERE MINIS ON A MISSION, A STOPWATCH HAD STARTED AND A COUNTDOWN HAD BEGUN’

SHARJAH

MIGHTY MINI Nawaf Al Ansari’s 2003 modified Cooper S was a real show-stopper

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

GOLD HEIST Ingenious method or transporting gold: melt it down and turn it into rims

TUNNEL We found this tunnel on the E102; now all we need is a Lamborghini Muira and a bulldozer

But BMW had kept the Mini badge and knew it was onto a good thing. Everyone else steadfastly stuck to a more blinkered view of the Mini’s future, ‘it must stay true to the ingenious thinking behind the classic Mini’, but when the Munich mavericks launched the first all-new successor to a car that had remained relatively unchanged since Sir Alec Issigonis’ first ‘Orange Box’ prototype in October 1957, the only homage their car paid to the original was to steal its styling wholesale.

Somewhat audaciously BMW had been teasing the public with glimpses of the New MINI well before the launch of the car in 2001.

Critics, including credible commentators such as Dr Alex Moultan, who’d worked on the original Mini’s suspension, immediately stated that whilst it resembled the classic it was ‘an irrelevance in so far as it has no part in the Mini story’. Dr Moultan pointed out that where the original car set the standard for city car packaging with its clever transverseengined front-drive layout, the new car was vast (in relative terms) and brought nothing new to the party. True. New MINI (all-caps is how BMW distinguish it from its illustrious forebear) was two foot longer, a foot wider, twice the weight of the original and yet offered less rear legroom and luggage space.

But he, and the rest of us, missed the point. The ‘Mini story’ as he put it, was about to take a new, and quite legitimate, twist. BMW had embarked on a ‘MINI adventure’ with a sensationally orchestrated 56 car NOVEMBER 2006

marketing campaign that will surely find its place in automotive folklore, second only to the campaign that saw marketeers in the US overcome the VW Beetle dilemma: ‘how do we sell Hitler’s car to Americans?’

BMW infused the little MINI (it may have grown, but ‘little’ is still how we continue to regard it) with personality and charm, a soul even.

The reborn legend cared not for the rantings of outraged engineers and innovators, nor for political correctness – note the embarrassing fuel economy for this ‘city car’ and the defiantly high retail prices. It was more about capturing the essence of Mini; fun-loving, rule-breaking, risktaking. It embodied the Carnaby Street cool of the ‘Swinging Sixties’, a la Austin Powers (a new MINI even appears in Goldmember).

We were all set to hate it. And hate it we did until the first few metres behind the wheel. By second gear the rage had subsided and by third you were in love. Suddenly you adored its cheekily self-indulgent rip-off retro styling, quaint toggle switches and Fisher Price indicator stalks.

You forgave its hopeless rear space and laughable boot, and even the gruff engine only served to heighten the familiarity and likeability of this cunningly contrived cutie. Peter Sellers would have had one and it would have made a Beatles album cover for sure.

We had been wrong. BMW hadn’t just aped the styling, it had injected the very genome of the classic into this car’s essence and then made doubly sure that it was first and foremost a great drive. Now

‘BMW HAD INJECTED THE VERY GENOME OF THE CLASSIC INTO THE NEW CAR, THEN MADE DOUBLY SURE IT WAS A GREAT DRIVE’

AJMAN

UMM AL QAIWAIN

consider the fact that this was essentially BMW’s first attempt at a frontdrive car (even the tiny Isetta ‘bubble car’ of the 1950’s was rear driven) and yet, rather like Lotus with the 1990’s Elan, they jumped in and had it figured better than any of the establish players, right from the off.

INCREDIBLY BMW ACHIEVED THE IMPOSSIBLE. THE guys at the Middle East Regional Office had pulled out all the stops and organised three MINIs plus an X3 as our support/camera car. Along with the press fleet ‘hot orange’ Cabriolet Cooper S, they rustled up a couple of red Coopers, one from Abu Dhabi Motors (ABM) and the other from AGMC in Dubai, on the roof of which they even stuck an UAE flag.

Splendid. The Emirati job was on.

And just like the meticulously planned heists in the movies we weren’t taking any chances. We roped in Routemaster Fraser ‘Minder’ Martin as timekeeper and guide for the Eastern part of our escapade. We needed another driver for the third MINI so Jon ‘Camp Freddy’ Saxon and I hit the phones. Trouble was most of the drivers we knew we could trust were either in jail, on the run or dead. Obviously that last bit’s completely made up, but I’m trying to get into character here!

In fact all-round car nut and Autocross racer Umair Khan foolishly volunteered his over-qualified services for the main event. As we waited for his arrival we heard him before we saw him. The bark of a fruity exhaust interrupted our conversations and shattered the eerie silence of the early hour, as a small grey projectile catapulted towards us from the roundabout at the end of the road.

Umair had brought his friend Nawaf Al Ansari’s 2003 modified Cooper S along and it immediately stole the show. It sounded serious and looked fast, thanks to a Hamann bodykit and interior, Potenza 215/45/R17 tyres and gold Advan wheels. For those interested here’s some of the stuff it had, the rest of us can jump to the next paragraph: ‘GTT header, Megan Racing Cat-Back, ALTA cold air filter kit with air 156 car JANUARY 2004 58 car NOVEMBER 2006

EAT OUR DUST ‘Quick lads! Let’s dive through here’.

What MINI’s do best: tearing down narrow streets always on the run

box top, GRS intercooler, Magnecor spark plug wires, Denso IK22, B&M short shifter, Tein SS coilovers plus EDFC, H-Sport comp sway bars, Helix upper and lower control arms, ALTA end links front and rear, UUC flywheel and clutch kit and front Ferodo brake pads.’

Its arrival had been dramatic, potent and with the slightest hint of menace. The only issue, revealed a panting Umair, was that the air con wasn’t working and he, like me, was fasting. He offered to drive it until the first hint of impending dehydration, then we’d load it with drinking water and Camp Freddy would swap seats. It clearly had to be one of the stars of the show, and the red Cooper with the white bonnet stripes was relegated to back-up status. I would drive the Cabriolet for the duration – happily puttting up with the supercharger whine and the poor rear visibility for the sake of changing cogs manually via the six-speed Getrag gearbox – the other two ‘official’ MINIs were droning CVT autos.

Minder, the point man, took the ABM car, with snapper Alan Desiderio making full use of the large sunroof with his jack-in-the-box impersonations whenever a picture-opportunity presented itself. UKbased photographer Andy ‘Fly’ Tipping and art ed Christine Burrows followed on in the silver X3. The first phase of our Emirati job would now involve not just three, but four MINIs.

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

RAS AL KHAIMAH

TRAFFIC We hit late afternoon Abu Dhabi traffic, with the clock still running

KILLING KM At our average speed we’d be in Fujairah in under 30 minutes

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

IT REALLY HELPS TO KNOW WHERE YOU’RE going. The Dubai Clock Tower was built in 1962, a year before the Al Maktoum Bridge, to which it now feeds a never-ending stream of traffic. We spun around it a few times for pics and then headed towards Sharjah.

In both movies it was all about the gold. An interesting bit of trivia relates to whether the MINIs really could be used to haul all that bullion around. Twenty seven million dollars worth of gold at 2003 prices would weigh over 2000kg, which means each car would be carrying more than half its own weight in gold – double its payload.

Things are even more far-fetched in the older movie: $4 million in gold bars would have weighed about 3200kg back then; that’s about 1070kg per car in addition to the driver and passenger. Since a 1968 Mini only weighs 630kg it would have had to carry over 150 percent of its own weight in gold. The spectacular synchronised leap off the roof of the old Fiat building wasn’t possible. It also concludes the ‘cliff-hanger’ teetering-bus ending – the gold would outweigh the lads, they had no chance.

Fortunately as we pulled up outside Sharjah’s magnificent gold souk, a gross weight penalty was not a concern we had to contend with. Fleetingly the thought did cross our minds that pinching some of the shiny yellow stuff would complete the story, but then I’d be writing, sorry, scrawling this article one-handed on the wall of a prison cell where you’d never get to read it.

What’s that? ‘A blessing’ did you say?

Besides ‘gold souk’ is a misnomer. The eye-catching locomotive-like structure, built in 1979, is actually called the Central Market or ‘Blue Souk’ on account of the distinctive tiles that used to adorn the roof, and only one of the wings sells gold and jewellery whilst the other side sells everything from electrical goods to souvenirs. We’d probably have broken into the wrong section anyway.

Counting driving time alone, we made good progress, blasting through Ajman to reach Umm Al Qaiwain in less than an hour from our Dubai start, and continuing along the E11 till we arrived in Ras Al Khaimah 70 minutes later.

That was five Emirates seen off with almost five hours still to go. But then the Northerm Emirates have been laid out in a very helpful fashion, linked by one straight road and closely packed within a total distance of less than 100km.

Next were the troublesome two. Southeast to Fujairah was about 150km and then another 250 or so back to Abu Dhabi. We’d have to average over 80kph to make it, but first we’d have to get across and back over the mountain ranges that walled off the east coast from the rest of the UAE. Fortunately the new E89 off the E88 would get us to Dibba, north of Fujairah in good time – well almost.

Halfway along this smooth, fast flowing road, the tarmac stopped and the path plunged off down to the right. Apparently this bit wasn’t finished yet and we gingerly picked our way through a gravel-trap trafficconned track behind slow-moving construction vehicles.

A few metres before the end, a hard-hatted worker with a

THRILL FACTOR Nearly a 1000kms behind the wheel over two days and never a dull moment

NOVEMBER 2006 car 61

IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

red flag stopped the traffic and waved us through. The MINIs gunned their engines in anticipation of the 30 degree climb back up to the road.

Even at this time in the morning in the middle of nowhere, the quartet of Coopers could cause a commotion and stop traffic.

AL BIDYAH MOSQUE IN DIBBA IS SAID TO BE THE oldest surviving mosque in the UAE, dating as early as 1446AD. Its unusual architecture and construction (stone and mudbricks) and MINI-esque dimensions were testimony to its half a millennia age, though the air conditioning and electricity sockets somewhat spoilt the aura. Outside a lack of a/c saw Umair bail out of the mean MINI. Fujairah is a popular tourist destination. But we had little time for sightseeing and had to curtail the trigger-happy antics of Fly and Alan.

With about five hours of daylight remaining, we needed to get to Abu Dhabi whilst there was still enough light to take some shots. Besides, the wheelmen were itching to get to the new E102: a 55km stretch of fresh tarmac carving a winding path back through the mountains from Kalba to Shuwaib. This could well be the second best driver’s road in all of the Emirates (Jebel Hafeet taking top spot).

Flying through the innumerable roundabouts to this point, the MINI’s had reminded everyone what made them so special. That fantastically throttle-sensitive and delightfully chatty chassis, and the intuitive responsiveness. Not only is MINI always eager to play, it

positively goads you on. You grab it by the scruff and throw it hard into everything, from the vaguest suggestion of a bend to the tightest hairpin, and it responds with a tenacity and thrill factor that few hatchbacks could hope to emulate. It says something about a car when you’re not sure if you, or it, is having more fun. Five years on, the MINI remains extraordinarily entertaining to drive. Emerging from the other side of the mountains, I couldn’t help but get anxious about the new 2007 car: it looked the same – no bad thing – but would it drive the same?

At Madam Roundabout Minder handed me the stopwatch (it read five hours and ten minutes driving time), wished us good luck and headed home for a cold one, his work done. Umair took over point man duties in the flagship MINI. Turning west we were all set for a heady charge to Abu Dhabi, but this was an unfinished, pot hole-ridden road with sudden and treacherous surface changes. The X3 soaked it up, but the MINIs, especially the grey car, had to be more attentive. The clock was ticking, and ticking fast. As the Abu Dhabi bridge finally came into view, we flashed straight past towards the Emirates Palace Hotel on the Corniche, which would serve as our end point for the timed run. As we pulled into the car park I reached for the stopwatch hanging off the mirror and stopped it for the final time.

The monumental $3 billion hotel looked a fitting lavishly location to be throwing around bars of gold, but having screamed through the gates unannounced and without permission to take any pictures, our cars and

FUJAIRAH MOUNTAIN ROADS Drivers were keen to hit the new stretch of road that cuts through the mountains

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‘HAVING VISITED THE OLDEST MOSQUE IN THE UAE, IT SEEMED THE RIGHT THING TO DO WAS GIVE THANKS AT THE NEWEST AND BIGGEST – EXCEPT IT WASN’T FINISHED YET’

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IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE

‘FLASHING LIGHTS AND A SIREN MARKED THE END OF OUR REVERIE. SO MUCH FOR GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE MOMENT’

ABU DHABI

snappers were already attracting the attention of the palace guards, and considering its proximity to the Presidential pad we decided to scarper.

But even as we piled out through the gates the catchy theme from the first movie, Getta Bloomin’ MoveOn, better known as Self Preservation Society (quintessentially Cockney, but written by American Quincy Jones), was stuck in my head and I couldn’t help feeling like we were sneaking off with the Emir’s own stash. It wasn’t long before the music ended as if someone had abruptly snatched the needle from our vinyl. Flashing lights and a siren marked the end of our reverie. So much for getting caught up in the moment.

The X3 had been nabbed. Fly had been flitting in and out of it at the traffic lights to take pictures – apparently that was causing an obstruction of traffic and we were hit with a fine. The officer seemed determined to give us a hard time and having heard that the capital wasn’t particularly tolerant of modified cars, I got Camp Freddy to hide the mighty MINI around the corner.

64 car NOVEMBER 2006

Having visited the earliest and possibly smallest mosque in the UAE, it seemed the right thing to do was to give thanks at the newest and biggest – the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Except it’s not finished yet despite ten years in the making already.

Spread over 39,000 sqm it will accomodate 32,000 worshippers and is due to open next year – a bit too late for today’s iftar anyway.

The Emirati Job had proved our most challenging drive story to date, but Sod’s Law hadn’t finished with us just yet. When we set off again the next morning for some more pictures, the charger belt gave way on the grey car and the fourth MINI had to be called back into action.

But did we do it? Had we beaten our target? ’Course we did. The halted stopwatch read 6:26:45. We’d done it, with half an hour still to spare. Bloomin’ marvellous! car

December 2006

MIDDLE EAST EDITION

SOFTROADER SUPERTEST

ALFA 8C DRIVEN CORVETTE Z06 Vs XKR

THE ROAD ENDS HERE: AFTER YOU THEN...

Let’s off-road!

Issue 12 Volume 2

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An ITP Consumer Publication DECEMBER 2006 AED10 Issue 12-2 BHD 1 KWD 1 OMR 1 SAR 10 QAR 10

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KOENIGSEGG CCX ■ LAMBORGHINI LP640 ■ 911 GT3 RS ■ DODGE DAYTONA ■

DODGE CHARGER R/T DAYTONA

Top Banana Loud, bad and very, very yellow, the mad Dodge Daytona is an all-action American hero, with a safety harness and a lesson in NASCAR history Story Shahzad Sheikh Photography Andy Tipping

ECOND DAY IN, I STOPPED REFERRING TO THIS CAR AS A DODGE Charger R/T, or even a Daytona. And that’s despite the fact that on several occasions after parking it, I got out to an audience of the car-curious pointing and mouthing the word ‘Daytona’ as emblazoned on the rear flanks. Nonetheless, the yellow yobster became known simply as ‘Top Banana’.

My six-year old still asks when I’m going to bring the ‘Top Banana’ back and there’s no point trying to convince him that the car is ‘gone’. A few weekends ago he jumped up and down in his grandstand seat at the Dubai Autodrome when he recognised the safety car at the FIA GT race. Wearing a fresh Hemi suit of arms on its matt-black bonnet decal, the Daytona was serving time at its spiritual birthplace – the track. And my lad couldn’t contain himself when none other than ‘our’ Daytona came out onto the circuit to slow the racers between laps three and eight.

So what did he like so much about the car? The colour? The styling? The performance? The DVD player in the back? Well yes all of that, but most of all he liked it ‘because it’s loud!’ That, it is son, that it is. And praise the Lord for Hemi

DODGE CHARGER R/T DAYTONA

engines. It’s not just me saying that. Listen carefully and you’ll hear all the petrol companies chorusing those words in unison. They love this car, because it loves them.

That’s a relationship that a potential owner could do without, but here I’m merely getting the downside of Daytona driving out of the way early on so we can talk more about the good, and there’s plenty to get through.

Let’s start with crowd-pleasing. If you’re not an extrovert, or rather you don’t want to be one, get yourself a black R/T with tinted windows. The fact that this thing attracts more attention than a camel would if it sauntered down the road in ’70s disco gear complete with Elton John Rocket Man shades (who dreams up those stuffed toys anyway?), initially left me feeling disturbed, embarrassed and even a mite apologetic.

Trouble is the car’s pseudo-celebrity status starts to have an even more alarming effect on its keeper, and soon you pull up expecting a hoopla as you get out, ready to smile at the cameras, wave at the open-mouthed bystanders and sign a few autographs – or were those speeding tickets?

But is the temporary fame as hollow and superficial as Tinsel Town itself? Is the Top Banana all show and no go, or are we talking real star quality and depth of talent here?

Scratch the surface… heck no! Don’t you dare do that. Just lift the bonnet and you’ll find an all-American Hemi V8, even if it is embedded in a mass of metal heavily made of bits leftover from the old Mercedes E-Class production line.

So it’s a dressed-up Charger R/T? Yeah, but one that’s got a personal trainer. It’s gained 10bhp over the standard 5.7-litre

unit, and this engine remains bespoke to the limited edition Daytona range, taking output up to 350bhp transmitted to the earth via a stiffened suspension.

And the make-up department should win an Oscar.

Working with just a few bright hues and a set of body stickers, they’ve propelled the R/T well beyond the petty debate about whether a real Charger should have two or four doors and into the realm of true scene-stealers. By subtly accentuating its contours, suddenly what might be a cynical modern exercise in plundering a famous nameplate, becomes eye-wateringly evocative and heart-breakingly desirable.

THESE CARS ARE RARE – THERE’S ONLY THREE other Daytonas in the UAE and a total of 20 in the whole region. They’re all US spec (so ‘mph’ and Fahrenheit readings are ineluctable), available as private imports only at a cost of around $41,000, about $10k more than a standard R/T, and colours are limited to ‘Top Banana’ yellow, ‘GoMango’ orange (my personal favourite), ‘TorRed’ and for next year, ‘Sublime Green’ and ‘Plum Crazy Purple’. Not that any of this should be a limitation to fun Charger ownership – you can actually buy all the matching decals from Mopar accessory range. But the Daytona is a genuine special edition with a solid heritage and comes with an all-important dash plaque declaring, in the case of our particular car, it to be number 3197 out of 4000.

During the era of the legendary 1969 Charger (‘the most recognised car in the world’ in the guise of the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard), the Charger went NASCAR

STICKERS Clever use of stick-ons lifts the Charger onto a new level of desirability, and harks back to 1969 Daytona

racing. Rules stipulated that 500 units of any car raced in their series had to be available for sale, but the Charger 500 was not fast enough. Dodge went back into the wind tunnel and created one of the most outrageous and most sought-after Chargers ever conceived, the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona.

Never heard of it? But you know the Plymouth Superbird, right? Most recently seen (albeit in animated form) starring as ‘The King’ in Cars – the character voiced by real-life NASCAR legend Richard Lee Petty? The Daytona is pretty much the same car and actually preceded its sister Plymouth.

In order to reach a top speed of 320kph, Dodge managed to endow it with a remarkably low drag coefficient of just 0.28cd. This was largely thanks to the astonishing pointed nose piece that added 46cm to the front of the car, and gave the ’69 Daytona the downforce that the engineers were looking for. But the rear end still tended to lift at speed leaving the back boots without traction, and that gave birth to the most extraordinary spoiler ever seen on a production road car.

The amazing rear wing was over half a metre tall, enabling the trunk to be opened without hitting the bottom of the wing.

Only 503 were built with either 440 Magnum or 426 Hemi power. All wore red, black or white stripes that bore the name ‘Daytona’ in the middle. The rear wings were painted the same colour as the stripes. In fact, the ‘Wing Cars’ proved so fast that NASCAR effectively outlawed them for the 1971 season with a new stipulation that all ‘aero’ cars could only have a maximum engine displacement of 5.0-litres (305 cubic inches), down from the previous 7.0-litres (429 cubic inches).

‘YOU WAVE AT OPEN-MOUTHED BYSTANDERS AND SMILE FOR PHOTOGRAPHS’

YELLOW TRIM Trimming the interior in bodycoloured plastic lifts the cabin ambience and glosses over the cheap materials

DODGE CHARGER R/T DAYTONA

5.7 HEMI V8 Engine gets an extra 10bhp for Daytona versions with power at 350bhp, but with torque remaining at 390lb ft

REAR WING Not quite as dramatic as in 1969, but it matches stickers

THE CURRENT DAYTONA WAS INTRODUCED IN February almost exactly a year after Dodge launched the 21st century reincarnation of the fabled Charger. Inside it’s no spartan-spec race car, but a reasonably well-equipped and generously accommodating saloon (as long as taller rear passengers aren’t claustrophobic).

Yellow stitching on the half-leather presents a genuinely inviting cabin, although the seats could be more supportive.

But most impressive is how the simple act of using bodycolour plastic trim for the centre console can lift an otherwise rather mundane and clearly built-down-to-a-price cheaplytrimmed interior. That and the numbered plaque ensures your mates know they’re in something a bit special.

And if there remains any doubt, just press the pedal on the right. An eruption of NASCAR-noise should settle any debates and all further concerns can be banished by slipping the Merc-like transmission into D, flipping it sideways to manually select first and flooring it. The idle burbling transforms into an enraged deep-throated staccato cacophony, chunks of metal banging out a fearsome force of torque (390lb ft in fact), churned out by the huge sticky rear boots to launch to 100kph in under six seconds, leaving behind the spinetingling exhaust rasp. It’s an awesome sound – thunderous, blunt and soul-stirring. At standstill revs are limited to 4000rpm, so the full orchestra experience only comes from blasting down the road at every opportunity, notwithstanding the depleting fossil fuel and the attentions of the constabulary.

Like all US muscle cars, the Daytona is mostly about going in a straight line. At a 120kph you barely feel like you’re moving, at 150kph the wind noise starts to vaguely draw your attention, and 160kph is a comfortable cruising speed with the engine barely over 3000rpm, as long as you don’t mind the tyre roar over some surfaces.

Should you desire you can wind the speedometer all the way round to 230kph when things get a bit louder but the Charger remains flat and firm having run into an aerodynamic wall that curtails acceleration. Admittedly that’s fast, but as a top speed for something so overt, it’s a tad disappointing – surely 250 should be attainable?

But speed is relative and the biggest inhibitor to wickedly unrestrained fun in the brazen beast is the draconian traction control. As is the way with DaimlerChrysler products, you are supplied with vast amounts of power and torque, but never fully entrusted with the command to deploy them completely unhindered. What you think is ‘off’ mode is actually only a slightly less intrusive mode, which lets you spin the wheels and powerslide out of T-junctions.

Yet such restraint just isn’t in keeping with the Top Banana ethos, and DC must consider giving owners a proper ‘off’ button on its more overtly sporting metal. It’s doubly a shame, because aside from the surprisingly ‘firm’ ride, whilst admirably controlled, there’s a little too much suspension travel, spoiling the otherwise neutral and grippy handling. As such the Charger is ably mannered if slightly numb on twisty roads – but how many of those do you find around here?

Where it scores above rivals like the Chevy Lumina SS is in the magnitude and scope of its personality and pedigree. It’s easy to dismiss the foibles because you want to like this car.

Go on admit it. car

‘THE IDLE BURBLING TRANSFORMS INTO AN ENRAGED DEEPTHROATED STACCATO CACOPHONY’ 84 car DECEMBER 2006

DECEMBER 2006 car 85