Shaman65 - Cars Around The World

Funeral...Maserati style !

2010-02-15T11:21:00.002+02:00

Let's say you're the kind of people who loves style, you live in your mansion, drive your Bentley Broaklands while wearing your Yves Saint Lauren suit, on your way to buy some silk Italian ties.... and in the stopping lights a bus comes charging and crashes into your car. Despite the stylish doctor at your favorite stylish hospital trying to rescue you, you die at the accident site. Now that you're dead, you can't enjoy another moment of style and that's quite bad... But not anymore, because Maserati is there to help !

Yep, the answer is the new maserati hearse ! it's based on the current Quattroporte, that's a bit (no really, a lot) elongated and has a much taller & wider rear end, providing enough space for your stylish handcrafted wooden cophin.

Electric cars news

2009-06-21T14:14:00.007+03:00

I was browsing the internet when I found "Electric car made in Egypt" so, obviously, I had to open the page to see it. It was made by some students of the faculty of engineering (Arabian Academy) in Alexandria as a graduation project, but they with this approach they aim to solve the transportation & pollution problems. Big claims… here's the car (I'm not kidding, it's really thhe car):

When I finished reading and watching the video, I thought the best to do is to compare it to its nearest competitor: The Indian Reva i (or G-Wiz), and because the Egyptian car doesn't have a name, to keep it simple let's call it the Egyptmobile. So, here's the G-Wiz's picture:

Design: Frankly I don’t care about the G-Wiz design, since it has no beauty, no passion and no features, but I have to admit that it's prettier than the Egyptmobile, which doesn't have any design at all...

Power: The G-Wiz has an electric engine producing 17 horsepower, which, as ridicule as it sounds, is the same power as... no car at all, but it's a Bugatti Veyron compared to the Egyptmobile, which has 7 horsepower... seven. The G-Wiz has a top speed of 80 kph, while the Egyptmobile has 60 kph.

Battery: a very interesting point in electric car business. The G-Wiz loses a lot here, since it's battery only lasts for 80 kilometers, while the Egyptmobile lasts for 120 km. However, that was expected since the Egyptmobile has no body at all, it's just a chassis on wheels.

Practicality: Due to the pathetic battery range, you can't use any electrical thing in the car unless it's strictly necessary, which is tricky when it's dark and it rains, because you can’t turn on the front lights and the screen wipers at the same time, two things strictly necessary for driving. But it’s better than the Egyptmobile, which has no lights or screen wipers.

Price: the G-Wiz costs $13,500, which is a lot compared to the Egyptmobile, which costs $1,500. But this is irrelevant because the Egyptmobile hadn’t been for production yet, maybe never will.

Summary: the Egyptmobile has more battery life than the G-Wiz. On the other hand, it has less power, less speed, less reliability, no body at all, looks like a 1890s cart and will never be made. So, if you want an electric car to save the planet, buy a G-Wiz or earn some money and buy the Hydrogen-powered Honda FSX clarity.
http://indonesiaarab.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/electric-car-made-in-egypt-are-you-ready-for-mass-production-investment/

BMW : another failure succeeded by a success

2009-05-23T19:08:00.006+03:00

Few years ago when BMW launched the X3, the smaller version of the X5, it got peoples' attention because it was a small family off-roader, but things got a bit different when several car programs and magazines tried it, as Top Gear declared that to buy an X3, you have to be the kind of mentally ill person that wakes up in the morning thinking he's an onion... and they had a point, because for the same money, there's the 5-series estate which is faster, more economical, a lot more comfortable and a bit more beautiful. I doesn't go off-road, but neither can the X3, anyway.

Last summer, BMW lauched another off-road car, the X6 (above),which not only drives like a normal car like the X3, but looks like a normal car. It didn't get much attention and didn't do well with Top gear, either. So now, as expected, BMW launched the car which you can buy instead of the X6, it's another 5-series, called the 5-series GT (picture below). It is very similar to the X6 but it's more practical: it has the rear legroom of a 7-series, a headroom of an X5 and the trunk's door opens like the Skoda Superb !

It has the normal variety of engines of the 5-series, costs a bit more and looks a bit better. So, it's the perfect choice for not buying the X6.

four seats...confort...and 612 German horses

2009-04-25T13:30:00.006+03:00

Mercedes Benz just announced the release of the new AMG S-class in the two traditional sizes: S63 and S65. Both have sport stuff like wide wheel arches, LEDs and big exhaust pipes, but the best thing is their engines: the S63 has a 6.3l V8 producing 525 hp, that's more powerful than almost all four four-door cars with the exception of the Bentley Continental Flying Spur (552hp), but no worries because the other sister, the S65 has a 6l V12, which delivers 612 horsepower, which is exactly the same as the Porsche Carrera GT - the most powerful Porsche - and the S-class is a fat saloon, not a supercar.

What makes this car interesting is that it is so powerful while being an S-class; that's the car that stops you from crashing, from sleeping, from getting lost, it's one of the most secure and safe cars ever made if not the safest, and they've given it now these engines, it's like an Ak 47 that can only shoot thieves; absolute power with absolute security, the result is great fun. And unlike the Carrera GT or the Mercedes SLR, you can bring three more friends to enjoy. at an electronically limited speed of 250 kph.

Bad side; while it's a lot cheaper than a Porsche Carrera GT, it's still $200,000, which is a big amount of money for a saloon, when you find out that the Maserati Quattroporte is $80,000 cheaper. Is it worth it? yes, because this is the most powerful and safest four-door car combined in one, and it will hold that title even after the release of the four-door versions of Lamborghini and Porsche. It's a lot cheaper than the Bentley Continental Flying Spur, which is none of those things. So yes, it's worth $200,000. by a great distance.

The truth about fuel consumption

2009-04-09T20:42:00.002+02:00

For decades car manufacturers tried to convince us that a car with less cylinders, less turbochargers (or lack of them) in brief less power, do better fuel consumption, from a basis that more power needs more energy. Nowadays fuel consumption is one of the facts that make a good advert for a new car, you may read something like:” the new Volkswagen Polo with Blue Motion technology, 74 miles to the gallon” and directly head to a VW showroom. Now, while everyone including me agrees that 74 MPG is an excellent range, I don’t take it as a last word for economy. Sure there is also how many miles you can do in your car using one tank of fuel, so the size of the tank matters a lot, but it isn’t the final word either. There is something a lot more important: it’s how the car uses that fuel. Because, in many cars, people got results that even manufacturers couldn’t believe.

Here I’ll refer to some of the tests done by Top Gear to make my view a bit clearer:

- Clarkson organized a 10-lap drive around the Top Gear track driving a BMW M3, which has a 413 hp 4 liter V8 engine versus a Toyota Prius, which has a 1.5 liter V4, at the Prius’ top speed, and the result was that the powerful BMW did 19 MPG, while the low diet Prius did 17 MPG. That was really shocking news.

- Clarkson also drove an Audi A8, which also has a V8, on a 800 mile-trip using a single tank of fuel, and he made it at the end, after driving carefully at more than 40 MPG. That was impossible according to Hammond, James May and Even Audi themselves.

- Recently the producer set a race from Switzerland to Black Pool in Britain, Richard was driving the 74 MPG VW Polo, James was driving an economic Subaru which achieves more than 50 MPG and Jeremy was driving a Jaguar XJ6 which can hardly get to 40 MPG. The race condition was to use a single tank of fuel, so they had to balance speed with economy, and that was exactly what normal people do in their cars. They all arrived at the finishing line starving on fuel, but the Jaguar showed something incredible: although Jeremy drove it at high speed with all the electric stuff on (AC, radio, heated seats,…) it still had enough fuel for more than another 100 miles!! That meant that the XJ6 TDVi has a range of a thousand miles in its tank.

So far anyone would realize that what is written on paper doesn’t matter, what matters is how the data line up. A less powerful engine has to do better fuel economy than a more powerful one, but what if the powerful uses mostly the same power as the less powerful? an example: the Chrysler 300C has a V8 engine, developing more than 300 hp, doesn’t have many MPGs on paper, but there is something really clever about the engine: at low speed only four cylinders work, two more cylinders start when the acceleration pedal is pressed hard and the full eight work at high speed, so that means that as long as you’re in the city, going to work or shopping, you do the same fuel consumption in your relaxing muscle car as does someone in a Golf diesel ( a test done by someone in the US ).

Picking up the race to Black Pole: Richard had an economic Polo and James had an economic Subaru estate, they were both very careful on fuel, well Richard started to speed up in England but Jeremy was speeding and using everything he can during the whole journey, and he had a Jaguar XJ6, which despite not having a V8 still did a poor 35 MPG compared to the Subaru’s 50 MPG or to the VW’s 74 MPG. That Jaguar also won the Top Gear surprise of the year award in 2003, because for the first time ever you can buy a normal car instead of a diesel and you’ll still make good economy, as the XJ6 was lighter than the V8 models it didn’t need much petrol to get it moving. And while Jaguar said it does 35 MPG, Clarkson got more than 40 MPG.

Many people today are trying to do better fuel economy to both save money and save the world from global warming, but not all of them do the right thing. For those who want a good car, here’s an advice: never look at the brochures given by manufacturers, look at websites and read comments from people who actually drove the car, and if you just bought a car, don’t change it, change your driving style, sometimes changing gear at 2000 RPM is much better than doing it at 6000 RPM, it really saves money, and using your brakes consume fuel, so instead of braking for the red lights, reduce the speed by taking your foot off the acceleration pedal before you get to the light and then brake gently to stop. And try to get rid of anything weight you don’t need. There’s also the aerodynamics; driving with the window open increases drag and therefore fuel consumption.

What I and many people are trying to say is that there are ways of saving fuel other than changing your Ford Mondeo to a Toyota Prius. Know them, apply them, you’ll find the difference.

Egypt has now 260 horsepower

2009-02-20T00:24:00.005+02:00

Under this paragraph is the video of a new Egyptian phenomenon. This fat man claims to have 260 horsepower, which is the same power as a Chevy Cobalt SS. not much, but as a man, it equals the power of 30000 healthy men... None looked in the back of his neck in case there is "Camry Gl" printed there, next to a stop light.

Now that's a lot to expect from this person, but not when you hear about his father, which is estimated to "have" 849 horsepower, which is a bit more than what the Keonigsegg CCX gives you. I know nothing about if all this horsepower thing is true, but it's getting very popular in the internet, everyone is speaking about that.

However, no tests were done outside that quite Hollywoodish studio, so the chances that what there's in the video is true are at a maximum of... none.

Toyota Sequoia... elegantly giant

2009-02-07T20:33:00.009+02:00

Few days ago I came across the Toyota Sequoia , which is new to Saudi Arabia. It's the biggest suv that Toyota makes - according to the web it's some millimeters wider than the GMC Yukon - and there is a 4x4 model, which isn't available here. Why ? Well, it costs 190,000 SR, and a large Toyota 4x4 would kill the Land Cruiser, which I admit has more off-road technologies, but frankly, not everyone is interrested in going off road in the dunes every week-end...

The design of this car can be described in one word : enormous. I used to think that the front of the Dodge Durango is big. and it is big, but pathetic compared to the Sequoia. The front looks glorious and strong, the doors are huge, the back is big, and it is so well proportioned that seen from a far distance the whole thing doesn't look so big, looks barely larger than a Toyota Fortuner.

The interior is also designed to look big, much like the GMCs: a big dashboard surrounding the driver, then another one beside it in a different colour, giving the driver some feel of independence. The front seats are big with an enormous armrest in between. The back seats and even the third row seats have a good legroom, which is rare in Japanese suvs. And they're a lot of storing spaces in the doors, in the roof, on the dashboard, in the back... It feels more like a family car.

So, it is big, heavy, comfortable and safe. and powerful: it has a 5.7 V8 engine producing 381 horsepowers, that's only 7 less than the Mercedes S500, and that's one of the very comfortable cars on the planet. And that's not the only thing you get as standard; you also get airbags everywhere, cruise control, a CD player, a back electric window and parking sensors, which are quite useful when you can't see where the front of the car is. It's good to keep in mind that the Nissan Armada, which is the same sort of car, doesn't come with sensors as standard, and that explains why I see many of them with a scratched front bumper.

In Saudi Arabia people like big family cars, which always were Land Cruisers in terms of Toyota, so almost everyone turned to the American suvs which offer more space and comfort. Now with the Sequoia, I think things will change a little, because many people like reliability as well as comfort, and the Sequoia does both perfectly; it's very comfortable and it's a Toyota. and for 125,000 SR in Saudi Arabia it's really a bargain, I mean, the Land Cruiser starts at around 150,000 SR.

Eco friendly cars, are they any good ?

2009-02-04T10:17:00.008+02:00

The need for cars " friendly to the environment " is increasing day after day for many updated reasons: first the ozone layer problems, then the pollution, and now the fact that we'll soon run out of oil. Nobody cared about the pollution as some thought it cannot be avoided, a considerable number of people cared about the ozone layer but not that much, but when the fear of running out of oil came along, things really began to look good for Eco cars.

There were some electric cars on the roads but they were built as an experiment, many of them could only be rented by manufacturers for few years. and the ones that can actually be owned by people were, there isn't another way of saying it, trash. They had a very limited amount of power, by which I mean that if it rains at night, you'll have to choose between headlights and wipers, if you turn both on you'll run out of batteries after a couple of miles ( if you're lucky ), usually before you leave your garden.

Millions of dollars are spent every day on researches for making the dream of electric cars possible, all cars factories in the world are working on that, and they're still facing problems: cost of the car, mainly the batteries ( lithium isn't cheap ), time to recharge your car (up to 30 hours ), battery life ( as I said before you'll have to drive without headlights, wipers, radio etc to get home ), recycling plans and that's just the start. And think about it, if making a car friendly to the environment involves searching for materials under the seas and burning more oil, what's the benefit ?

The best example for this stage of hopeless cars is the G-Wiz. it's an Indian electric car. It has an electric engine producing a number of horse powers, has a top speed of 50 mph ( 80 kph ), two small seats, and a number of accessories which you won't use anyway like a radio, a a/c system with a heater, headlights and sreen wipers. and it has a battery that lasts for 80 kilometers of careful driving, if you even turn the turning indicators on the range will be reduced. The whole package of saving the planet costs over $10,000, which is a lot for a two seater ( OK it has two microscopic seats in the back ) that wouldn't carry more than 270 kilograms.

Anyway, in terms of the engine that uses most of its " fuel " to produce energy, the electric engine is the second. The best type of engines is the hybrid. The idea is simple: two engines. An electric engine for careful silent driving across the street, and another petrol engine for acceleration, speed, power and screen wipers. and the best thing about this is that you don't have to charge the batteries for the electric engine: the petrol engine recharges them when in use. The Toyota Prius is the leader of this category, and if you don't like it this combination of engines can be found in almost every kind of cars: small family cars, people carriers, big luxury cars... and good news: Mercedes-Benz just made a S-400 hybrid!

But the problem remains in the cost of the batteries used in hybrids. Batteries are a good solution, but not the best thing we have now, because the petrol engine is used most of the time, and the electric engine is run by batteries which in turn are charged with the petrol engine. Petrol won't last forever. I think the best idea is to come up with an engine which uses another source of energy. Hydrogen for instance.

The new E-class...

2009-02-01T12:11:00.008+02:00

Mercedes has gone mad with designs during the last years, the new A-class, the S-class, the M-class, the V-class, the GL-class and the B-class, all have crazy modern shapes full of angles, but two years ago they reached the top of their madness when they released the new C-class, it's a nice car but it's shiny and very revolting. People won't think you're a nice man if you park this kind of cars on a main street.

However, Mercedes-Benz realized they designed a somehow ugly car, so they decided the best thing to do is to make another one: the new E-class. Now, we have to remember that from all the Mercs we are most likely to be driven in are e-classes: most hotel cars are e-classes, big taxis in some arab countries are e-classes, it's a very popular car in and outside the middle east. This new one has a new design, a new engine... and new performances.

It has a new variety of engines, including the new Mercedes-Benz BlueTech hybrid, the engines have power from 137 to 525 horsepower, not much but none mentioned how much power there'll be in the AMG versions. It has less CO2 emissions than all its rivals and the E 350 BlueTech's emissions are even below the demands of the EU6 program of 2014.

The interior is very nice, they did something between the S-class and the C-class, the result is a really beautiful piece of design. It seems like Mercedes-Benz is back on precision and quality after the crisis in the early 2000s, well, they had to cut their profits by 66.6% to achive that.

In conclusion, the new e-class is a very good choice as a rival for the audi A6 or a Jag, it may have a crampted design but that's the way with modern European cars, especially German cars: ugly when they're released, but always getting better with time. I remember saying that the new S-class is very ugly and worse than the previous one, a year or so after and I considered it one of the best cars ever to be released.

When luxury saloons attack

2009-01-02T19:33:00.011+02:00

The ultimate four door luxury saloon is a car that can carry four to five people in uppermost luxury, that has the latest technologies and that costs over $100,000. There were few choices for this kind of car, precisely five: The Mercedes S-class, the BMW 7 series, the Jaguar S-type, the Audi A8 and the VW Phaeton. Each has a plus side that the others don't have: The Mercedes has technologies, the BMW has prestige, the Jaguar has hand-made stuff, the Audi has control systems and the Pheaton has power & simplicity. Despite that, all are considered perfect choices... or were, before something came along from Italy : the Quattroporte.

Quattroporte means four doors in Italian, so what Maserati is saying is that they made a four door car. Not something new, but it is a Maserati, and Maserati is now own by Ferrari, that means that the priorities are not power or comfort - although it's very comfortable - but it's sport stuff: speed, control, acceleration... the lot, really, when you see that it has a 4.2 liter 400 bhp V8, with rear-wheel drive and a top speed of 167 miles an hour, 12 more than the Mercedes, the Audi and the VW.

Maserati has a plus side: the ride. In the S-class you'll be using the radio-guided cruise control and the massage tool ( or Bangkok-lazy-boy-tronic system as JC likes to name it ), deciding on what movie you'll watch after 22 minutes, as the on-board computer tells you you still have 21 minutes to arrive home. It's all great, but you can never drive fast and sporty, you will always have the feel of very controlled robot car, not a Ferrari. The Maserati on the other hand, is exactly like a Ferrari to drive, and that's quite a rare thing in a four door car.

Mercedes did another trial with releasing the CLS, which is a comfortable four-door car that looks like a coupe, and it was a really good car. Just look at one of those tuned by Brabus in black... A masterpiece ! Nothing of this new category called four-door coupes came along, until this summer, from Volkswagen : the passat CC.

I have to admit I'm not a fan of the Passat, especially when the new one came along, which is just an expensive smugmobile that does look slightly better than the Gee-Wizz, which isn't much. Anyway, VW made this new car and it's really good looking, the side looks just like a CLS. So there we are, two good looking four-door coupes, with a new approach to motoring perfection. Well, there's something else ...

Few years ago, Aston Martin made the Rapide Concept, a four door concept car based on the DB9. It was very long with four full-size seats, wood and leather everywhere, but it was a concept nevertheless. But last Summer, Porsche and Lamborghini made concept four door saloons and said they'll be making them for real and release them in 2009 ! The two cars are the Porsche Panamera and the Lamborghini Estaque.

Nothing can be said about them as nothing is yet known about their engines, so we'll do our best with what we have. So, judging the looks, the Panamera is another Porsche failure after the Cayenne, and it looks like a bugatti sedan which isn't the best looking car, to be honest. The Lamborghini on the other hand looks beautiful, which a very good thing for Lambo. It seems like things could look really good for the Estaque in terms of good looking fast sedan.

So, what's best: luxury sedans like the S-class and 7-series, sport sedans like the Quattroporte, four-door coupes like the CLS or the all-new four-door super cars ? None can tell, but the true fact is that the traditional luxury sedans will attract the biggest crowd, always did and will always do. that said, there are still ideas going on to try to make the best car in the world, the perfect vehicle with the best driving experience.

Another chinese car...

2008-12-12T10:37:00.014+02:00

I can't undestand why do Chinese copy others' designs and fit them to their own cars. It's not like the Chinese don't know how to design: Ssang Yong released many models and all of them look beautiful. So why copying ? and if they do, why do they fit things that don't match together ?

Today I was walking home, back from a lecture, when I spot something with wheels. it was a freezing morning, but i stopped to see it from all angles, I was sure it was a car, but I couldn't figure out what kind of cars it was... Well I concluded it was a rubbish one, and here's the reason:

From the back it doesn't only look like the Honda City, I is a carbon copy of the Honda City: the rear bumper, the lights, the little shiny thing on the trunk door... then, turning around...

The side looks identical to the Toyota Corolla, the doors are amazingly identical to the Corolla's doors: the windows, the door handles, everything line up... then, moving along...

You'll be thinking I moved to a Hyundai Elantra parked nearby, but no; it's the same car: the City Corolla has an Elantra front side. and, just to make things a little bit more confusing, guess what the badge looks like:

Yes, I know, it looks like a BMW badge, although it's cut in half rather than cut in four pieces, and it says BYD instead of BMW. So there you go: a chinese car with different sides and a fake german badge. I'd really like to see the owner of that car, and how interesting going out with him in his car would be. I'm sure it'll get a good score in the Top Gear Cock-0-meter.

2009 Cadillac CTS-V

2008-11-23T20:09:00.008+02:00

Cadillac, which is almost the only prestigious car maker in the United States, got used to change every few years, there was the time of the old big black cars, then the white & pink wide cars with wings on the back, then again big black cars but prettier than the old ones, then there were the old people luxury saloons like the STS, and finally they got to the all-new powerful cars disigned with a ruler, the last representant of which was the CTS-V, a veru powerful car, with very good handling, but being built with cheap materials and odd design didn't get it through.

Happily, they had a second thought about the CTS-V and made a new one for 2009, and all I can say is that I didn't expect it to be so sublime, it's perfect in every way: the looks, the handling the power, the speed, the luxury, the whole feel of the thing is astonishing ! The interior is very well-made, although the dashboard looks a bit cramped it's very organized, and the seats are a nice combination of comfort and sport.

The engine in this is a 6 liter supercharged V8, which produces 550 bhp, that's more than many porsches and ferraris. the 0-100 time is 3.9 seconds, that's faster than a lot of expensive supercars, and, the best thing about it, a Nurbunrgring time of 7:59, in an american four-door saloon !! and with a top speed of 193 miles per hour, which is the same as a Porsche 911 Turbo, it's the second fastest four-door saloon in the world (the first being the Bentley Flying Spur).

In conclusion, the American luxury fantasy maker had finally made a civilized car, in a level that none could have possibly imagined. The CTS-V started as a tuned muscle version of the CTS, had the handling and the power of a German car like Audi or a BMW but now, it has the feel and the soul of a German car, and all that comes without showing off. All these facts and achievements, I'm quite confident of that, are going to make the CTS-V a great rival to the alternative German cars.

Egyptian cars - they do exist

2008-11-17T21:39:00.009+02:00

In general, cars found in Cairo belong to a time where televisions were as big as a couch and had convex screens, when mobile phones were still a fetus. They are so old that it is very hard to see any of them outside this land. By the way, taxis are always reminding me of the cars Jeremy Clarkson drives when he wants to tell the history of a car manifacturer.

Oddly, once in a while when I walk by the street I spot two or three new cars -actually I see a lot more new cars but these two or three are special- with no specific features. They look like ordinary cars, but they're not. Did you ever hear of the Speranza ? It's a four-door luxury saloon with three screens, one in the dashboard and two behind the fron seats' headrests. The engine ? I've been told there is a "tuned" version that develops 107 horsepower.

Obviously, this car is made in China, or that's what you'll be thinking ! The parts of this rubbish piece of plastic are made in China, but as the Chinese can't be bothered with assembling them, they ship them to Egypt, where they're glued together in the shape of a car. This Speranza is actually a Chery A6 - nothing to do with the Audi A6 - and is cheaper than a Honda Civic ! a medium-size saloon with screens in it ! and there are more chinese things which I took pictures of. I don't know their names as they were written in symbols.

That is a chinese Land Cruiser, the taillamps are narrower than the actual Toyota, and the inside looks a bit better than the taxis I previously discussed. But you'll get the feeling that it will be good in a farm, as the V4 diesel engine sounds exactly like a tractor.

And this is a chinese Smart. It looks like a toy, handles like a boat - I've seen one of these in action : the driver was making a U-turn and he had to brake and reverse because he couldn't do a half-circle in it, despite the small size of the car - and is bigger than the German Smart, it's actually the size of a Polo, it even has got back seats !So, it's a good way of showing off in the same way of showing off with a sporty watch with " Roulex : written on it, but as pointless as the others.

Next time, I'll bring bigger news: how to glue chinese parts in the shape of a BMW !

Jaguar XF - the gentleman's car back from the dead

2008-11-15T06:13:00.009+02:00

People who like Jaguar are people of taste, they don't buy Mercedes, Audi or BMW, not because they don't like the technology of the engineering, but because they think a Jaguar is better. While the German cars feel like they were designed to stick to the road, feel planted when you cruise along, have sixteen settings for the gearbox, well, while they have the lot to make you feel in control of the situation in upmost comfort, Jaguars are designed to take you home with a smile on your face.

The problem with Jaguars, however, was that while Mercedes gave you the S-class, Audi gave you the A8 and BMW put the 7-series, which are all subblime cars, Jaguar gave the world the best it can do, which was the S-type. It was fine as a car, but didn't feel better than the others, it didn't make you feel happy when you see a Merc on the street, and if a Jaguar doesn't put a smile on your face, what is it for ?

Things, however, changed in 2007 with the release of the XF, the replacement for the S-type. And at first look, it looks fabulous; they didn't loose the front grille but the headlamps are better styled, the back looks like the back of the superstar designed car of all times: the Aston Martin DB9, the body is big, it doesn't look too showy like a BMW 760, it's luxurious, you like people to see you in it but it can also be as discreet as a Corolla, only a Jaguar fan will spot it in the street. In brief, it's a proper Jaguar.

Engineering: it has a variety of petrol engines from a 3.0 liter V6 to two 4.2 liter V8, the fastest of which will get you from 0-100 km/h in only 5.1 seconds, which is only 0.2 seconds slower than the Bentley Flying Spur, the fastest foor-dour saloon in the world, when you think that the engine delivers only a few horsepower over 300! the top speed is limited to 155 mph, of course.

The interior is well defined, you still get wood and leather, and it's very hi-tech: when you push the start button everything in the dashboard and the central console shines in blue, the ac vents fold and you feel excited. When you press it again to start the engine, the gear change rises up from the central console, and then you're ten years old again ! I bet you can't get that in your 760li...

In conclusion, it's a very good car, it delivers luxury and it doesn't cost you Bentley money, it doesn't even exceed the BMW 7-series price tag. It's well refined, made out of perfect materials, it's descreet and it makes you happy. And it's a Jaguar, meaning it's reliable and , unlike the others, Jaguar customers are always happy with their dealer services.

The legend of Top Gear

2008-11-13T12:48:00.003+02:00

The description you'll find in a dictionnary about Top Gear is that it's a British car program broadcasted on BBC2 (if your dictionnary doesn't have Top Gear in it return it to the bookstore). In the real world, Top Gear is the most fun you can have from television; forget mr. Bean, Frasier, Friends, Tom & Jerry and Charlie Chaplin. Thanks to the great dr Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, it's also the most watched show in BBC2.

Here are four facts about Top Gear, for those who don't know what it is:

- it's estimated to have 385 million viewers worldwide

- it has won an Internationnal Emmy in 2005

- it has won the Most Popular Factual Programme award in 2006, 2007 & 2008.

- it was the most pirated show in the internet in 2007

The producer of the show has also many ambitious ideas which were put to test, like the 5 epic races they did across the continent, the cheap car challenges, testing lorries, minivans and tractors, some of these ideas even became records, in 2007 they did a race to the North Pole and a drive across the South African Desert, both were done for the first time ever.

Top Gear has the Cool Wall, the lap board, the Stig, the reasonably priced car, all of which make you feel some customs to the show. And it would have been nothing without the presenters, which are successful wherever they go; Jeremy Clarkson writes books about engineering, history and cars, he also makes some DVDs and he even earns more from that than what he earns from Top Gear. Richard Hammond is always presenting national big games, he'll be doing Formula One next year and James May is as succesful as the others; he did many documentaries like James May's 20th Century and lastly James May's Big Ideas.

Petrol prices... where are they going ?

2008-10-01T17:42:00.005+02:00

These years petrol prices had gone pretty wild; a liter costs more than $1 in most African countries, more than $2 in Europe especially in the United Kingdom, and prices are not stable in the States either, but here in Saudi Arabia, a liter of petrol costs around $0.25.... Sorry, it used to cost that, they lowered the price to $0.13 months ago.

Making it more than twice cheaper than the cheapest mineral water, actually you get two liters of petrol for the same amount of money that can buy you less than half a liter of water. I was just wondering the other day if there is a liquid cheaper than petrol - except diesel which is a lot cheaper -, and nothing I could think of was, I was considering urine but wasn't a good idea because, in addition to the fact that it's not being commercialized yet, you have to drink water to produce it.

Some say that the rise in petrol prices is caused by the rare amount of petrol left to use - a pointless theory - while many British blogs say that it is a strategy applied to the drivers to convince them to use their cars less, which is not an entirely bad idea after all, they just should have done it properly by telling people the truth.

the good news are, many automobile manifacturers are now turning their big engines to hybrids, Mercedes has just launched the S400, BMW is working on that too and Lexus are working on a second generation of their LS600. so maybe by the end of 2009 we will have many hybrid models to choose from...

Bugatti's 407 km/h beaten again... and this time it's real

2008-10-01T06:01:00.005+02:00

I just found - before writing these lines - that there is a faster car than the Bugatti Veyron, which is not something that happens every day. It's a Porsche 911-based car, the 9ff GT9. It's a 4.0 litre H-6-powered car that produces 987 HP, which is close to the 1001 HP. It looks like a stretched 911 and it is claimed that it will do 254.7 miles per hour ( 410 km/h ). that's 3 km\h faster than the Veyron.

They have made three of the GT9 and fourteen are on the way to be built before the end of this year. I weighs the same as a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera and is twice as powerful. they say that although it's based on a 911 GT3, it shares only 2% of the components, and I somehow have a proof of that is partially true : on their quest to build the engine from metals with particular thermal properties, they built the air intakes from 24-carat gold ! Have you ever seen gold in a Porsche engine ?

Now, as a Bugatti Veyron fan, I was going to humiliate the Porsche by saying that the Veyron looks better than it, or that people will be happy to pay 450,000 pounds more to avoid the 9ff. That was my first thought until I came across some facts which, in addition to be humiliating the 9ff, are technical :

- the Porsche 0-100 km/h time is 4.2 seconds, which is not impressive since the Veyron does the same in 2.5 seconds.

- the 0-300 km/h time is bad for the Veyron; while the Porsche does it in 17.6 seconds, the Bugatti does it in 18.1 seconds... and 9ff designers made a enourmous fuss about it ! How pathetic, since the Veyron has more control, better brakes and better power, if they were set to a race with only one single corner, the Bugatti will win because the conrnering abilities will catch up the 0.5 seconds time.

- the 9ff does not have the following : airbags, crumple zone and wing mirrors. But who cares ? It has got 24-carat gold in the engine, that's cool ! If you have an accident in the 9ff (due to its control you'll probably do) at least you'll die in style...

now, the big question : if you have 350,000 pounds and want to buy a very fast supercar, is there an alternative ? Since the Veyron is out for being expensive - 800,000 pounds - we still have a choice from Sweeden, and in my opinion a very good one : the Keonigsegg CCX. Yes it costs 50,000 pounds more and it's 7.5 km/h slower, but it's a very good choice, because you get safety elements like the crumple zone and the airbags, it's very stylish; it has doors that put Lamborghini back and can be turned into a convertible, while the 9ff looks like a racer. And you'll not going to get 402.5 km/h on your way to work anyway, but you'll benifit from the fact that its 0-100 km\h time is under 4 seconds, though...

The most expensive car in the history

2008-09-20T03:37:00.007+02:00

If you're one of those who think that the Bugatti Veyron and the Maybach Exelero are the most expensive cars in the world, you're a bit wrong. Not your fault anyway, because a deal of selling a Ferrari 250 GTO from the 1960s has just happened, for a sum of 28.5 .... million dollars ! That's 19.7 million euros = 15.5 million british pounds = 106.5 million saudi riyals !!! For a car ! That's really expensive ! The buyer is still unkown, and he's very lucky because there are over 30 GTOs still existing, so no gang will suspect his car to be the treasure they ever looked for...

If you have 28.5 million dollars and there are no 250 GTOs left, here are some choices you can do instead :

- all Mercedes-Benz models ( the A, B, C , CL, CLK, CLS, E, G, GL, ML, R, S, SL, SLR and V ) all with AMG tuning packages, in addition to 2 Rolls Royces ( Phantom & Drophead ), a Bentley Broaklands, a Lambo LP640, a Ferrari F430 and a Honda Civic. You'll have some money left to buy a garage for your 21 cars.

- or you can supercars : two Lambos ( LP640 & LP560 ), three Ferraris ( F430, Enzo & 599 ), four Porsches ( 911, Boxter, Cayenne & Carrera GT ), an Aston Martin DBS, a McLaren Merc SLR, an Audi R8, a Keonigsegg CCX and a Bugatti Veyron. You'll also have some money left with that set to buy a garage.

- or you can buy 500 BMW m3s, to be the third most stupid man in the world*.

- finally, you can spend the money on some plastic surgeries to look either like a monkey, the Joker from Batman or Shrek, any of which will make the second most stupid man in the world*.

______________________________________
* the first is the man who bought the Ferrari 250 GTO

a car you'll never have - the Tumbler

2008-09-13T06:28:00.005+02:00

Few days ago, I saw the new Batman movie '' The Dark Knight '', the second in the all-new serie of Batman movies, this time with real actors (forget Jim Carrey's hidious acting and Tommy Lee Jones's surprisingly bad sence of humour), a real story, genuine effects, and they've been serious this time : you don't see for instance the Joker laughing like a monkey, this time with Heath Ledger (from The Patriot) the Joker is funny, amuzing and on the other hand, serious and intelligent. en bref, a must-see movie. But what I want to really talk about here is the new Batmobile.

It's called the Tumbler and is always refered to as the Tumbler, although it's still a Batmobile, but the reason for talking about this particular one is that it's the first Batmobile to be built from scratch, previous one were based on big american cars, this new one, the Tumbler, is based on nothing specific, making it a real Batmobile ! and what's more, it's made in England...

One of the amazing things about this car is the engine : it's a 5.7 liter V8 !! which means it's capable of a number of things, among which jumping from a roof to another. I was really amazed by the Tumbler's performance and I knew somehow that it is capable of what appears in the movie.... indeed, the Tumbler scenes, as revealed to Top Gear & many motoring media, no computer tricks were done, especially in Batman Begins, where Bruce jumps from a roof to another, it was absolutely real, which is still incredible.

and the sad thing is that, although this is a real car, you can't buy one. none knows if it's a road-legal car yet, so hopes about seeing one in the street are still down. Anyway, to make it up for you, I have some secret news about the next Batman Movie, these information have been recorded by some magazines from the directors of both Batman Begins & The Dark Knight : Harvey Two Face will be there somehow, the Riddler is more likely to appreas, and there's a strong rumor about Johnny Depp (Willie Wonka) doing the job. The Joker won't be back because Heath Ledger was so affected by the schizophrenic character of the Joker that he commited suicide after three months of the filming...

A new blog...

2008-09-05T01:22:00.004+02:00

I have an announcement, I have been sent many e-mails about my blog for the last few ... weeks.... I mean, months.... Ok it has been more than a year, e-mails from friends and family saying that they like my blog, they like cars, but they don't speak english...! So I have made a new blog in french, so that my threads will be more understandable.

www.shaman-french.blogspot.com

so, sieh Sie dort, Freunde ! sorry, a bientot, les amis !

Goodbye parking problems !

2008-09-03T23:42:00.014+02:00

If you are one of those who want to buy an expensive supercharged powerful car and the only thing stopping you, is not money but fear of parking problems, like not finding parking spaces or fearing that someone will scratch your seventeen-meters-long car, I have the solution : a minicar, and here I don't mean a Mini Cooper ; I mean a real minicar. Here are some pictures I got by e-mail today :

as you can see you can have a decent BMW m5 without taking a space for two Smarts

you can also have the new m5 for the same size

and for a bit more size and luxury, you can have a BMW 7 series

I was nearly sleeping at the moment I opened the mail but seconds later I was awake , I mean look at this Lamborghini Diablo

or at this, the famous Ferrari Enzo

If you prefer a Porsche, you have the whole range to choose from, and starting with the new Cayman Roadster

The all-times road killer, the 911

The new Carrera GT, you have this as a normal supercar ...

and as a roadster !

and of course, they didn't forget the Cayenne, which I highly don't recomment for off-roading

now with our 2nd to last one and also the second fastest, the Keonigsegg CCX

and finishing up with last and most powerful, fastest one, the Bugatti Veyron

Unfortunately I didn't get any information about their actual engines, and all them have been sold in Dubai, but some websites in the internet say that you can have one of these by order, and by very expensive costs.... but personally, I would prefer spending money for a normal luxury car to drive to work, drive back home, travel in for long distances, and so on, and buying a very small old cheap car to do the misery of shopping in

Lamborghini Reventon - The angel of madness at its top

2008-06-23T20:07:00.009+03:00

Guess who's back ? madness itself ! After the devil (Diablo), the bat (Murcielago) and the elegant (Gallardo), Lamborghini is back with a new fiend called the explosion (Reventon). yes, Lamborghini understood finally what they should make, which is cars with a design from outer space and power that will take you there, and here's the new Reventon.

Unlike previous Lamborghini models, owning a Reventon is a challenge because it costs the same amount of money you pay in a Bugatti Veyron ($1.6 million), in addition that they limited the number of Reventons to 20. A poor number in order to limit the number of Reventons driving though a city - just imagine half a town driving Batmobiles, how would that look ??

The main thing about this car is the style : it has, for the first time in Lamborghini's history, a total crazy style including the led-arrow brake lights, which have more effect on scaring children than old Lambos, with a great interior, especially the '' aircraft mode '' dashboard (in the picture above), now that's something new !

Now, the performance. To be honest, I always care about the engine, the number of horsepower, the top speed, that sort of things when I discover a new car. That was, however, the last question that came to my mind and amazingly, it has specifications I didn't expect at all : a 6.5 liter V12, 650 hp, 0-100km/h in 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 350km/h. I know it's great but not that great : it's only 17 kilometers/h faster than the Murcielago LP640, has only 10 hp more and has the exact engine and 0-100km/h time as the LP640.

In conclusion, Lamborghini had officially gone mad when making this stunning car. It may have a Murcielago under the bonnet and a bit elevated price (!!!), but it's a very good car for this year. Lamborghini hypercars have always been furious, scary and horrid to drive, but if Audi starts a new series of Reventon styling, lamborghini would probably stand at the top of supercars...

The greatest work humanity ever achieved in the world of internal combustion : the Bugatti Veyron 16:4

2008-06-21T22:35:00.018+03:00

Manyb people consider the Bugatti Veyron an existing miracle, something like the eighth wonder of the world (just don't ask me to talk about it) making many other people wonder why... Here are some information about it, explaining why is it concerned with modern miracles rather than cars:

It is completely hand build with strong materials like magnesium and aluminum for extra strength, without overweighting the car.

It is very fast and I don’t only mean speed here, I’m also talking about getting to that speed. In a drag race between it and the McLaren F1, the previous fastest car, you can let the McLaren gets to 200 km/h before you set off and, amazingly, you will get to 320 km/h first!

In addition to the powerful carbon-ceramic brakes, it has an air-brake system in the back wing: it comes out when you step on the brakes thus providing a flat air-resisting surface area on which air crushes, a process only seen in airplanes. Thanks to that, The Veyron slows from 400 km/h to zero in ten seconds, covering half a kilometer.

It is powerful, too. It has a V16 quadro-turbo engine, providing the road with 1001 hp, and because of the huge quantity of heat it produces, it’s fitted with ten radiators (note that your car is more likely to be fitted with one). That engine, without considering the aerodynamic structure of the car, got the car all over to 377 km/h. Over that, you need 8 hp for each extra kilometer/h, so the remaining 30 km/h problem was solved with aerodynamic issues.

When the driver gets to very high speeds in the majority of supercars, he gets a feeling that the body is going to split if he gets any further. In the Veyron, thanks to all its aerodynamic and power features, it’s completely smooth and relaxing, as many people who drove it affirmed, among whom Top Gear presenters: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

Finally, it's the only of its kind. The Lamborghini Murcielago is powerful, but not that powerful, the Aero SCC is faster by 5km/h, but it's much less powerful, the McLaren F1 is fast and powerful, but it's nothing compared to the Veyron.... That's what the Veyron is : a Concorde moment. Nothing of the sort will ever be produced again for several reasons :

-it's expensive to make a car like that : what most people don't know is that the Veyron costs about 10 million dollars to make, while you can buy it at 1.6 million dollars.

- the law won't let anybody make something like that again : it's too bad for global warming.

- it's not allowed worldwide : driving a Veyron is illegal in some countries like Saudi Arabia.

However, this car will be forever, the best, the most powerful, the most focused on machine humanity had ever achieved. Owning it may be a dream, but who knows, maybe one day, one of us will have the honor to drive it and even be one of the very little people in the world who took it to the top speed . . . Anyway, here're some of these lucky people :

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who took the Veyron in a race against an airplane piloted by James May, from northern Italy all over the European continent to London, a challenge he won.

Top Gear presenter James May, who took it to its top speed in the Volkswagen top secret provate track, during season 9.

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond, who raced it against the Euro Fighter, and, of course, failed in that race, during season 10.

2008 Audi R8 - the best sport car ever

2008-05-17T16:08:00.008+03:00

By the begining of this new year, many manufacturers showed up with new ideas. While Lamborghini appeared with the Reventon as Mercedes-Benz showed its new C-class, others thought about redesigning actual models as Toyota & Honda did to the Land Cruiser and the Accord.

However, Audi did something new and different : releasing a car which which belongs to both the classic cars club and the supercars club, something that you can race Porsches with and still go to business meetings in.

Sometime last year Audi showed a concept car named LeMans, and as they have a habit of turning their concept spaceships to normal cars, they turned it to something called . . . an R8. It's a mid-engine two-seater coupe, with a stunning design (a bit similar to the RSQ), a completely flat wheelbase and It costs around $109,000 , $20,000 more expensive than a Porsche Carrera GT. The last detail is not bothering, considering that it's a perfect car for all purposes. More than that, many people, among whom Jeremy Clarkson, think it's the best car.

It has a 4.2 liter quattro V8 engine which produces about 414 hp, and it's not some kind of monster insane engines, it's actually the same engine of the Audi RS4. It's also worth noting that, as Audi now owns Lamborghini, 15% of the R8 is shared with the Lamborghini Gallardo, including the transmission and chassis. It does 0-100km/h in 4.4 seconds and has a top speed of 301 km/h.

All of the previous give us a plain idea of what the R8 is about: it has Lamborghini's chassis and transmission, meaning it handles like a supercar, in the other hand it has a sedan engine, meaning it doesn't do 1.5 kilometer to the liter, it's way more economical than that. It's also has a design which classify it among the normal german cars, and doesn't lose it up if compared to a Gallardo or a Porsche. That's why, I think, it's probably the best car of this year.

Did anyone see that ??

2008-05-09T03:30:00.004+03:00

The thing you're looking at in the picture is a chinese vehicle which has almost everything car have : doors, wheels, a trunk, a steering wheel inside and headlamps outside.... Only, it doesn't have style. The reason for me to put it here is that I see a lot of it in Cairo, I never saw it anywhere else, not in Morocco, not in Saudi Arabia, not even in chinese movies ! I hardly found this picture on the internet. I just want to find out if there are models like that anywhere else, so if you have one in your city, please write it in a comment.

Some perspectives about traffic in Cairo

2008-05-07T16:04:00.011+03:00

Nowadays, Cairo is known for a set of things like the Pyramids, the Nile, famous hotels around Central Cairo....and the traffic jam. For years Cairo has been a nightmare for drivers, roads are always closed with hundreds of both engine-powered vehicles and other vehicles with no engines at all. Every day people get on their nerves from the minute they get out to work till they come back at night. Drivers, passengers, police officers, pedestrians.... All of them start the day with a dark look at the street.

So, what are the reasons for this disturbing daily phenomenon ? Here are some possible reasons for that. Now I have to tell you that not all these reasons are from an international research on the matter, many of them are part of my personal opinions about this subject. That's how I see the problem's reasons :

First, all important sites in Cairo are located in a relative small portion of the city

Central Cairo ( circled in blue ) has among its sites Tahreer Complex, which is a huge building containing the main ministries of Egypt, Cairo University, the Faculty of Medicine, the Opera, Cairo Museum, more than half the international hotels of Cairo, many embassies.... So you may expect that more than 70% of Cairo's vehicles are located in central Cairo between 8 am and 4 pm. Of course, that causes a lot of traffic jam, especially at 12 pm, when it gets so crowded that finding an available taxi gets impossible.

Of course that kind of traffic is normal in such circumstances, but I still think it could be better. First, that Tahreer Center which is attracting the most people in Cairo to everyday, why not dividing it to smaller units ? Some studies found that 3 to 7 million human beings who are circulating in Cairo every day are from outside Cairo, because they can't get any official papers (ID cards, birth certificates, staying certificates for foreigners, etc...) from outside Cairo, or more precisely from outside this building. This, among other issues, is contributing to Cairo's traffic jam.

Second, they have too much old cars

Many studies have shown that traffic jam can be caused by lack of acceleration, which explained why some European cities have less traffic problems than others. In Cairo, more than 65% of the vehicles are more than ten years old, and if we think about it : almost all the cars in central Cairo are old ( because Maserati, Lamborghini & Bentley owners won't come to central Cairo in their expensive cars ) thus causing an enormous jam by a simple physical rule : not accelerating in time. Drivers get crazy about traffic, so when they get an opportunity to stretch all their toes on the accelerator pedal they do it, in vain.

This second possibility is not usually considered a major cause of traffic jam until the percentage of old cars exceeds some limits, which Cairo reached millions of years ago...

Third, a good percentage of drivers have cement in the brain ( C-drivers )

The main species belonging to this group are taxi & buses drivers, the most random-thinking people in the African continent (if we also count the vegetables seller in the picture above) . You may be going in your car, heading to work you become cursed by driving behind a bus, because if anyone waves to him to stop, he will stop and pick that guy, even if that means blocking the whole road. Many times when I'm on my way home I see 300 meters of the road completely deserted, and the first thought I get in such conditions is :'' there must be a bus somewhere '' and I'm always right about it : soon I see a bus picking an old lady and, behind it, fifteen thousand drivers going crazy on their horns, shouting insults so fast that you can't count them. I'm not saying that that bus driver shouldn’t pick up the old lady, but it may be nice if he park on the side of the road instead of stopping in the middle of the road.

More than that, even if they don't frequently stop, their presence in the streets is a bad sign. Now, imagine that you are quietly driving to a restaurant, and suddenly someone passes you at a hostile way of driving, you'll be thinking '' maybe he's late for a wedding or a occasion '' and you'll carry on. The problem in Cairo is that everyone wants to get to the place he's heading to first, without any obvious reason, just for the fun of it. When the road is partially free, the lack of conscience make C-drivers act like cavemen going after a cow. They do a very complex math in their head like: '' I get first to the stop light = I'm the first to move, but if B gets before me = B will move before me when the light comes on, so I have to get before B to the light ''. I just have a question: what will happen if B, C & D arrive before you ??? Is it worth competing? Of course such acts result in a very funny result, like the one in the picture below: two insane bus drivers shut off the whole road because one of them made it first.

This subject, being huge, is to be continued later….

Along comes a rival for our dear Veyron...

2008-05-06T19:27:00.007+03:00

It has been a new era for the Bugatti Veyron since Shelby Supercars released their all new SCC Aero, a new mid-engine rear drive supercar, powered by a twin-turbo V8 engine, generating 1183 bhp. The main feature in this car is that it's the fastest car in the world.

The company worked on this car during seven years, released two models in 2006 & 2007, which reached more that 437 km/h ... in theory. Then, in 2008, they released the final product, the SCC Aero. Last September, the Aero marked the fastest production car in the word, with an average of 412 km/h. Altought it has a twin-turbocharged V8, but it's generating 182 bhp more than the Veyron, and it's a lot lighter. These I think are the two main reasons which made this powerful supercar sit on the top of all other cars. So, will you buy it instead of a Veyron ?

No, I won't if they offer it for free. Well, I'd maybe take it then wait for another one, sell the two and buy a Veyron, but that would be the only reason for me to take an Aero. Yes it is faster than the veyron, but what else does it have ? In terms of style, the Veyron is the best on that, and it has been the best styled car since its release. In terms of aerodynamics, The Bugatti is far ahead. It's true that it's 6 km/h slower, but it's a lor heavier, which means that it's the aerodynamic structure that made this car fast.

If we talk about power, there is a lot to be said about that. First, The Aero has a twin-turbocharged V8, while the Veyron has a quad-turbocharged V16, which means it's twice more powerful. And we can determine its power from the fuel consumption. But the biggest question is : why didn't the Bugatti use light materials to beat its speed ? The answer is simply so people don't have to change it after three years or so. The Veyron is entirely made of materials that can survive the heat of a hot african summer as well as a freezing Canadian winter. The Veyron can do what it is supposed to do for ten, fifteen or even twenty years. And it can get to phenomenal speeds and you don't even notice, it feels so safe and so powerful. I personally don't think anyone can get these sensations fron the Aero.

A perfect way to start your day : getting on a minibus

2008-03-06T16:12:00.011+02:00

Cairo is called Al-Qaherah in arabic, which means "The Triumphant"... A fact which makes sence, since all efforts to make it civilized had turned off, the city defeats everything, even traffic, as I mentioned before, never got better than some decades ago... Everyday, you see something new about Cairo.

So, you wake up in the morning, have your breakfast, get dressed and get out of your house. Then, as your daily routine, you get on the minibus by the side of the road, pay the fee which, depending on your route, varies from 0.25 to 2 pounds (4 to 35 cents) to the man sitting by the door. During this trip, you may kill the time by just looking around; you may be sitting next to a student, a plumber late for work, a women selling beans or even a professor on his way to the university, you'll see the man you paid the fee to still standing by the door, which was left open since take off.

The problem with microbuses is that they are cheap. How ? Due to these untra-cheap fees, you always find difficulties getting on a minibus, they are always a huge crowd waiting for the next minibus, which becomes filled to the half with jumping people before the driver could perform a full stop, so if you don't hurry up and jump as well, you'll find yourself sitting in a taxi.

Note that the way that people get on the minibus is usually when it slows down, but getting off the minibus takes the same way as jumping from a plane; when you arrive you just jump to the street and run away from it before another minibus smatchs you. One day I was walking home, suddenly a man landed in front of me as he jumped from the minibus - it was more like someone threw him out of the minibus - and just walked along the street, smiling. I don't know how but sometimes it comes to me that the minibuses don't have doors.

There are more people in the city than the roads can carry. The solution to that was to create a subway, and indeed, there is now a rapid subway which has many stations around Cairo. It's fast, civilized, a bit crowded but less crowded than minibuses, and it costs a pound to get from anywhere to anywhere else. So, it's affordable, fast and found almost everywhere, but is it the solution to the traffic problem ?

No. The subway (or Metro) is a suitable solution, which helped the city very well, but there are now more people in the city than the roads with the subway can carry. Cairo's population grew from 6.8 million to more than 17 million only during the last ten years, and not evAlso because living in good standardsen 10% of them have a good life, the other day I was taking a look at the general range of some salaries in Egypt in a local newspaper and I was surprised, it was dramatically low. Also because everything is getting more expensive, spending a pound per day in the subway doesn't seem wise while you can spend a quarter of that in minibuses.

For more about this topic, here's this article published by Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-busdriver15feb15,1,6228569.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

2008 - The Bad & The Ugly

2008-02-03T21:51:00.000+02:00

It is a pleasure to review all the best automobile innovations of the year and discover what the new year brings of them, although it's not enough. Here I've put some subjects which will make good jokes for the new year.

1. The new Toyota Landcruiser.

During the last nine months, Toyota turned the Camry, the Avalon & the Corolla into smiling innovating cars, after creating the head of this club, the Fortuner. The annoying thing is that the "smile" is more a Nicholson/Joker style than Princess Fiona style. They don't look good, the previous models were great, and now they added the great Land Cruiser to the pack. They didn't stop when they made the front look uglier than a Hilux's, but they put square bricks with red lights on the back. They removed the old inside look, but they didn't replace it with a new one; they just fixed the Sienna's interior inside. They literally shot the 50 years old legend in the heart and made it smile at it.A typical example of the new year's jokes.

2. The new Honda Accord.

When I saw last year's Accord, which differed from the previous one in triagular, but silly, rear stop lights, I thought it was a time mistake, the kind of silence before sunshine. I realized that it was the silence before the storm when I saw the new one in the street; it has a new look, new angles, a smaller size, stupid door handles, rubbish doors, and lights coming from planet Zard. The older model has a more aerodynamic structure, which made it capable of a fast acceleration and high speeds, and it was pleasant to look at it. The new model lost the Accord identity, and got lost between the Lancer, the Avalon and The Passat...

3. The new Skoda Superb

I was disppointed with this joke, altough I didn't get much disappointed with the new Fabia; Skoda's legendary ship got ugly this year. I liked this car as I did with the Octavia, I always saw that the Superb is a large & luxurious version of the Skoda, now I'd feel ashamed if people see me inside one of these. The front look like an ugly korean car, the back feels like a Renault Megane, and I just wonder how Volkswagen thinks that such a combination fits together : a Kia Rio on the front with a large Renault's back behind. The doors looked good when I got the front and the back out of the picture. However, the inside was well designed and looked perfect, which made me think again about how Volkswagen comtemplate this combination.

The latest anger management therapy : Cairo Traffic

2007-12-05T18:07:00.000+02:00

First of all, Here's an announcement : some of my future posts may be attached with Cairo, where I'm now studying medicine at Cairo University. Cairo is a beautiful city, you have to spend at least 20 days here to consider yourself knowing every special thing about it - you'll be wrong anyway. starting from trips to the pyramids to spending nights in the various & uncountables restaurants along the Nile lake, you'll always have plans to do and you'll love your staying here.... as long as you're a tourist. There is a little difference between living in cairo and stayind in a hotel in cairo

There is a reason of my presence here after 102 days of absence : I was walking home, in a normal day, listening to the 5th symphony using my insulating earphones which keep me alive -thanks to Creative audio systems for that- and I stopped for a moment (so did Beethoven) and I began watching the street with its traffic, a scene which I avoid every day on the way home. It's not a pleasant scene, but you still can admire it, especially if you're listening to Beethoven's 9th symphony.

If you have been in Arab countries before, especially the Gulf countries, you've maybe heard people refering to Cairo when they get stuck in traffic, and I can't blame them for that. Cairo's everyday traffic is really that bad, everything is incredibly random: you can see a taxi driving on the left crossing three lines to the right to catch up the woman which waved her hand, which will make you wonder about the kind of telescope he used to see her from that far, and that behavior goes for all the buses, the minibuses and the micro-buses, which i was ignoring the existance of.

None ever leaves a space between his car and the car in front, too worried that someone would cross the street in front of him, making him 0.13 seconds late. and CNIIs ( Crossing Non-Identified Individuals ) which are not always human, don't seem to be worried when they cross the street, knowing that if they look to their watches to see the time they will be smatched with a bus, that's because they're always facing a continuous line of cars driving, making crossing the street hard even when the cars are stopped.

Another thing to mention : there are always policemen in the street directing the cars, and don't go far with your imagination; traffic lights exist in Cairo, but are hopeless in controlling the traffic, there must be a policeman waving his hand ( sometimes both ), and in central Cairo he must stand in the middle of the street to make the driver step on the brake pedal. The only persons which are driving in a civilized way are the political or diplomatic persons (the police get the road empty for them), and people who have a new Mercedes or BMW, with advanced technology which makes the car slow down on its own if getting 10 meters closer to the cars in front.

If you want to test yourself with scary games, go to a far place in a taxi; they drive so wildly and with so rashness that the car stands one step from splitting in two parts. If you drive their cars - which were usually produced before your father's birth - you'll feel everything flexing, as if it was made out of fruit, but some taxi drivers drive so fast that they break these physical powers disappear, I'll explain what I mean by these powers : if you're driving one of these antiques and you make a tight turn to the right, a once the turn is over the car will go a little to the left, as a strong physical reaction, but not strong enough facing taxi drivers !

However, even these racers can't deal with traffic. That's why you have a big chance to find them a little nervous, the reason is that they do everything possible to get out of the traffic and they still don't succeed. Here's what a taxi driver said to me one day at 8 o'clock :" i just came from the stadium - which is only several kilometres away - and i remember getting there at 4 o'clock. The road was entirely closed*, I read my newspaper, had two cups of tea, five cigarettes and i was about to buy a sandwitch from the restaurant which i was next to for more than an hour and a half..."

*see what is written about the civilized drivers in the 5th paragraph

Maybach Laptop - They finally made it !!!

2007-07-26T23:41:00.000+03:00

HP showed up with their latest notebook product, and amazingly they created the thing i wished to appear soon : a laptop with Maybach's label on !! And it was a stunning surprise that the #1 computer corporation in the world came up with such a product, and it's actually the first laptop of its kind !

And as you can see it has leather on the back - I think it's crocodile leather - and on the dashboard as well ( we'll talk about it like that ). Infortunately they didn't decorated it with wood and I think that it would be really great if they could do so, but I don't take it as a fatal error. The silver colour look is still for a HP laptop, but with the leather and the word "Maybach" on it, it acquired all the German charm.

I couldn't find more information about the engin... I mean the performance of this laptop, but I found something about the pricing : $4000 . So I'll start saving up while they have second thought about the wood detail...

Lincoln for luxury : wins the election !

2007-07-21T18:25:00.000+03:00

Lincoln is the luxury automobile division of the Ford Motor Company - named in honor of United States President Abraham Lincoln - and was the best-selling luxury brand in the US .... Until 1998, when they lost to their main competitor, Cadillac. Nowadays Cadillac is the first luxury american label, and as you can see only very VIPs use Cadillac limos, as well as the presidents of the US.

What you see here is the 1995 Lincoln Towncar interior. Almost everything is made out of plastic in this car, It's a nightmare to park it and it has a huge back. But not a few snob people still buy this kind of Lincolns, and even THIS model, if they're not interrested in a previous one ! What makes the towncar so good is the design of comfort - I don't even know if that kind of desogn exists - of Lincoln, and they took the idea simply : what makes the driver comfortable in a car is luxurious, so the Towncar had huge seats, and I don't know how to discribe them but they are so comfortable, a woode... plastic pannel painted in wood colour, and even a basic board-computer since the 1980's !

Performance was excellent. I have my own experience with the 1990 model, and it was astonishing. You don't have parktronic sensors or AMG-built-in brakes, it was responding well to the commands and moves, and I don't have to mention travelling in this car because the feeling when travelling is like you're not driving at all ! It stills so flat in the straight line that you feel almost controlling it with the feet out of the pedals - in cruise control mode of course -. And that's also written of every catalogue website of Lincoln : Travel Well !

Of course the Lincolns are an exception for my considering of american cars, and I don't tell you that Lincoln makes the best cars in the world, but they are the best cars made by the americans for travel. I still like the S-class as a luxurious car !

Mercedes-Benz SLR Mclaren

2007-07-17T03:13:00.000+03:00

In this room they put their best three cars, it has a high amound of security and it was not allowed for anyone to enter this section, but actually I didn't fail to get inside ! And here we come to the most expensive car in the show, the mighty Mercedes-Benz SLR Mclaren. The car's base price is $452,000, but the one here costs a stunning $613,259 !! It's of course know as the baby of Mr. McLaren and Mrs. Mercedes-Benz , with it's big V12 engine.

Jeep Cherookee

2007-07-17T03:09:00.000+03:00

OK to be straight, I've put this picture only to be honest in showing you all the cars we saw there, because I failed to find any single thing which might have a good looking side !! But it still one of the USA's most powerful suvs and the premium rated by the government army, but still...

Chrysler 300C

2007-07-17T03:04:00.000+03:00

And here we are finally, with the E-class wearing an american coat ! Yes, I maybe didn't mention that before but it is the truth : The 300C has a Mercedes-Benz E-class inside. I just think it's the best looking american luxurious car ever.

BMW X5

2007-07-17T02:59:00.000+03:00

We also saw this famous 4x4 of BMW, the X5. It was also noticable there that this model here is the full-option one, means the most expensive four-wheel-drive vehicle which you can get from BMW !

Cadillac XLR

2007-07-14T01:40:00.001+03:00

Then the most expensive american supercar, the Cadillac XLR, which has a good-looking design for a supercar, without loosing the Cadillac identity ! It's price is somewhere above the $100,00, which makes GM's most expensive car.

Mercedes-Benz CL 63 amg

2007-07-14T01:27:00.001+03:00

And here's the MB's turn, with their dreams' supercar, the CL 63 amg. The Cl-class itself is great because it represents the coupe version of the S-class, now powered with the AMG technology....You get luxury and speed as a result ! Prices are around $200,000 .

Chevrolet Corvette

2007-07-14T01:20:00.001+03:00

Then we come to the V8 Corvette, and here we see the Z06 version, which costs around $80,000. It's also good to mention that it's one of the very few good-quality built supercars in the United States.

Citroen C8

2007-07-14T01:15:00.000+03:00

We saw then this non-luxurious C8, which I think had lost the way home, because it has really nothing to do or to be compared with the other cars in the showroom !

Modacar limousine

2007-07-14T01:11:00.001+03:00

in the next section we saw this Cadillac Escalade which had the Modacar label on the front, they arranged the inside to become a luxury limousine.

Lamborghini - Murcielago LP 640 & Gallardo Spyder

2007-07-14T00:47:00.001+03:00

This is the first car I saw in the show, it's the 640 bhp V12 Murcielago, which costs around $300,000, but the one shown in the picture costs $479,942. Not a friendly price !

Then we have the 520 Bhp V10 Gallardo, they actually had two, the regular (in the picture) and the Spyder, which has exactly the same engine specifications. It costs $175,000, but the one here costs $239,971 .

Luxury Cars Show in Rochan Mall - Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

2007-07-14T00:12:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, I went to the Luxury Cars Show - as it was called - in a one of the uncountable big malls in Jeddah, where I was spending some days. They has a stunning choice of cars there, althought they had only fourteen cars but they were really the top. You can find here pictures about all the cars shown there.

Bentley Continental Flying Spur - Volkswagen has gone wild again !

2007-07-08T13:39:00.000+03:00

Here Bentley shows us the best and smartest way to blend a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes S-class. Here's the result, the sporty classic Bentley Continental Flying Spur. It has Bentley's eyes in the front, big and beautiful rear stop lights, huge doors, an elegant grille and everything is made in an amazing sporty/classic way !! There is no more words available to discribe the design of this car....

The interior is also a stunning piece of design. The whole dashboard is covered with leather and wood - real wood - and it's still has some luxurious classic details like the air vents and some buttons. But they really made the best design for this type of cars. You can also see Vokswagen speedometers' design in this Bentley, which is a special detail !

Performance : in this car we find a 6 liter twin turbocharged V12 engine which makes the Continental the world's most powerful four-door, a fact confirmed by a wooping 552 Bhp and a top speed of 312 km/h, and that's not the end, this car gets to 100 km/h in only 4.9 seconds !!

Pricing : $169,990 , only $29,890 more expensive than the MB S 500. It's really a masterpiece of performance and design, but I'll prefer the 388 Bhp MB sedan to that.... No comment !

WOOD - the detail ....

2007-07-07T23:29:00.000+03:00

Nowadays, it doesn't matter what car you're in, you have always a 80% of chances to find wood on your side door. But did you ask yourself about the name you're giving to that "wood" ? Because in most cases, it is not real wood, it is plastic painted in a wooden colour. The question is : is wood an important detail ?

My answer for that is YES, if you have a car with wood in it. If it doesn't contain wood like a SLR Mclaren, then don't read the following lines ! But if your car contains wood, you'll have to check out this little detail. In some cars, they put decorative wood colour like in the Toyota Avalon, just light wood in small quantities, nothing to much to stare at. But in other cars, they put their colored plastic everywhere in the car, and in huge quantities, like in the Acura RL or the Lexus LS 430 & 460 ! Not to mention the new Lincolns.....

For myself, cars which value more than $60,000 in which there is wood colour, it has to be real wood to worth it. the feeling of disappointement starts when you're in a Lexus, because there is no difference between its price and the S-class's except fot the technologies, and the materials used in it. SO, Lexus sell you a very expensive car and doesn't even give good building quality for a consolation for the lack of MB's technologies....

Most German cars nowadays use real wood for decorating their models like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Bentley, Rolls Royce and some Volkswagens. For example the wood which can be found in the S-class comes from Amazonian coconut wood. That means tha they care a lot about details in the car to the little decorative details which are ignored by most Japaneze and American manuacturers.

Recently I went to Ford Motors and went into the new Navigator. at first sight, you see leather seats, a nickel & steel pannel with wood on it. When you touch the pannel, you'll fell the steel a little hot to be real steel....In brief, the wood, nickel & plastic will sound the same if you hit them with a pen, and the fact is that they are all made out of plastic.

Volkswagen Phaeton - the classic & elegant wagen

2007-07-07T19:24:00.000+03:00

We come here at the top of Volkswagen brand : the Phaeton, which has mainly the style of the old Passat - not the previous one, the one behind ! - but in a more elegant way. It is a good marriage between classic and modern style, I really liked that car from the first sight because of its styling. When I saw it from the outside I was surprised, because I was told that it's the top Volkswagen, and I suddenly thought :" This car has something special inside " and then I saw the inside and I understood what Volkswagen made - and what they made is very difficult -.

At this car I believe Vokswagen made a bridge to their other brand : Bentley. They give four choices of real wood in this car, which are Eucalyptus, Chestnut, Myrtle and Burr Walnut, and the The 18-way adjustable leather seats look back the the early Lincoln models' seats, which are a very good reference for relaxation. And they have put control buttons everywhere, they care mostly about how practical they are, and not about how do they look. You can see the wood trim everywhere on the pannels, doors' sides and gearbox. This car is a special luxurious adventure.

For those who are familiar with laptops, this example will make them understand Volkswagen luxury point about the Phaeton : If we compare a Sony Vaio with an IBM, the Vaio loos good in its plastic, it has good performance, it is compact, slim, not very heavy and not well price. The IBM has better performance, is not slim, not very compact, somehow heavy and not well priced either. But computer programmers and other advanced people will buy an IBM, because it's more practical and more performant. People who made the IBM didn't think of the style of keyboard for example, just to look good, they made the most practical and easy to use laptops. I spent 20 minutes to find that the mouse is the red button in the keyboard !!

Performance : They have v6, v8 and w12 engines available for the Phaeton. There is the 3.2 liters v6 engine, which has the top speed of 239 k/h, taking 9.7 seconds for the 0-100km/h acceleration. Not bad for a 177 Kw engine. And then there is the 4.2 liter V8 engine, which develops 335 Bhp and which gets to 100km/h in just 6.9 seconds, for a top speed of 250 km/h. Finally, there is the 6 liter w12 engine which develops a stunning 450 Bhp, with the 0-100km/h acceleration at 6.1 seconds, for the same top speed as the v8 engine.

Prices start at approximately $76,000, which is still a big imposing price for a VW, but I think it's worth it. If you look at what Lexus and Acure give for the same price, you'll certainely turn your back to fake leather and plastic wood, facing the same performance as VW give. The Phaeton is, for sure, a stunning experienxe of luxury, which can be given by few today's cars.....

The supercars which have Intel micro-processors instead of V12 engines

2007-06-29T07:29:00.000+03:00

Recently, some famous computer companies like Acer and Asus made special notebook series with carbon fiber body, very good performances, good prices and.... Supercars' labels on them ! Examples : Ferrari serie by Acer and Lamborghini serie by Asus. These two series have almost the best stuff for any roadsters' fan, and they don't lack of power or storage in any ways.

They did work on these series, but not too much. For example, why don't they put a software which shows the actual memory used and power used in a speedometer style or even put a speedometer on the front side of the laptop, instead of the basic Windows Task Manager ?? It's not too much and if it's hard to make, they have to do something that seperates normal notebooks from automobiles' ones, rather than just put a label on it...

I also saw other special series by these two companies which have wood and leather on the body, and it looked very good. I will maybe buy one if they put Maybach's or Rolls Royce's label on it !

Keonigsegg CCX - a scary adventure

2007-06-29T07:03:00.000+03:00

It looks like a Ferrari Enzo, It has Lamborghini's doors (almost), It has front trunk and rear engine. This is the third brother in the CC models, the Keonigsegg CCX. Previousely, the CC has an picture in Guiness's Book of records as the most powerful car in the world, beating the McLaren F1. You may think like me that Volkswagen wasn't sleeping ! The Bugatti Veyron launched after few years and took the first place. But that's half the story right here….

The CCX's engine is a twin-turbocharged 4.7 liter V8 engine which develops 806 breakhorsepower. This car, however, gets to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds. The most interresting thing here is the top speed of this monster : 250 miles per hour. The Veyron's is 253 miles per hour ! In kilometers, The CCX is 402.3 km/h.

There is only one detail in this story, it's the huge difference between the two engines ! The Bugatti has a V16 engine, with 4-turbochargers and 1001 bhp, the CCX has a V8 engine, with only two turbochargers and 806 bhp. The difference is really that big, but the fact that the CCX is 4.7 seconds slower than the Veyron is due to the body of the CCX : it's very flat, it has a very slanted aerodynamic design and the weight is very insured, it's very light because the whole car is made from carbon fiber.

However, the big challenge between the Veyron and the CCX would be fuel consomation, and I think that the Sweedish CCX engine wouldn't be as hungry as the Veyron's. And more, it costs almost half the Veyron's price : $830,870. It's not a car which you would buy for comfort, because it's as comfortable as a F1 car and you can't think of a DVD Navigation or a sterio system, because you'll not be able to hear any kind of music with the engine's noisy music !! Well, it's a good car though…

An Exelero at sight...

2007-06-20T16:05:00.000+03:00

Here's a picture of the most expensive coupe on this little planet : the Maybach Exelero. We can see that some people don't seem to have a problem with spending an amount of $12.000.000 in a vehicle.... I can't stop thinking of what stupid I would look if someone see me someday behind the steering wheel of this monster, Even if it isn't my own car !! Because the idea of buying one is bad. But there are two things which are making me happy : first, they are not many people in the world who can buy one, and I mean here that this man is one of them , second, this man right here is not Bill Gates !

Toyota Avalon - Good choice of luxury as best quality/pricing sedan

2007-06-20T15:49:00.000+03:00

Toyota's previous Avalon (1990's) were not as they expected to be : the look was very similar to the Camry, and the Crown was even better than the Avalon.Then by 1999 Toyota rebuilt the Avalon, and the result was a large luxurious car, with a A8-shape doors, a good interior with a big plane's gear ! But since 2005, the Avalon is yet, what it was expected to be.

Look at the style, it has aerodynamic body, a luxury front grille, a magnific doors and a stonning interior, you feel like you're in a Lexus ! It has great technologies llike with voice-activated DVD navigation system, Dynamic Laser Cruise Control, memory-adjustable & heated front seats, wooden pannel ( it's only the color that is wood !) and elegant leather-wrapped seats. You can open the doors by fingers prints and start the engine by pushing a button , and these two features are standard !

The Avalon comes with a 3.5-liter DOHC Dual VVT-i V6 engine, which generates 268 horsepower at 6200 rpm. The Avalon is the most luxurious model in Toyota's brand and it's also the bridge between Toyota and Lexus. It starts at $26,775 to $33,965 for the Avalon Limited. I mentioned that you feel like you're you're driving a Lexus with this, but both of Lexus and Toyota are far away from quality built and refined vehicles like our beloved Mercedes-Benz !! But you can still enjoy it, especially if you don't want to spend a fortune in cars to provide high Mercedes-benz's prices...

General opinions

2007-06-19T13:55:00.000+03:00

Many cars nowadays have standard equipments which were high luxury in the past like ABS, airbags and electronic windows. Today, we see various types of cars - which I think that some are not cars - but who really have the real and true luxury ? It's a very good question because everybody claims that he has luxury, while only few people have it. It's all about who knows the real or best definition for luxury, is it fake leather and wood colour which makes good sensations, or is it something more complicated ? That's what I'll try to explain in this section.

today, we live in a world in which the best isn't the most refined in quality, it's the best lokking and brighting and the most selled. We can see that in TV and I'll notice cartoons ( as an example) we see every day new japaneze stuff that they call good cartoons (like Dragon Ball, Carsh Gear, etc.) the only one I liked was Detective Konan, and it's really the only one ! But if you take a look at MGM's cartoons like the great Tom & Jerry, it began in 19XX and it's still the best hilarious cartoon ever made. And I'll give my point for this : Tom & Jerry people were smart, they didn't have today's cartoon technologies or Hollywood's big scary explosions, but they made simple but very smart things, they thought about every minute of the show before producting it, and they've won more than won seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).

The same thing is true for cars. They are great manufacturers who think about every nanometer of equipment they're putting into a car, and who are always looking forward for new technologies like Mercedes-Benz and some Volkswagen's Group branches, and they're another two types of manufacturers : fast-food ones, and great-high-in-the-sky ones.

As you may imagine, fast-food ones are japaneze ones, and it's not because they're lacking of power or prestiges, it's just because they make too much cars only to sell them, they are the kind of people who work in this style of life " make cars and put 'em out " more than this one " does this color of plastic match the sedan style ?' . Look at the Toyota Corolla for example, it's the most selled car in the world and I liked the previous models, the new ones are just plastic and paper models which look good, bright well and drive silently. The Toyota Cressida stopped in 1996, and the Camry took it's place. Everybody has the same opinion about the Camry : it looks good, drive silently, it's luxurious (standard luxury) and it's a bit fast...BUT the Cressida was better.

And we come to the great-high-in-the-sky ones : AMERICAN cars. Just listen to these names : Navigator, TownCar, Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, Expedition, Yukon..... They are not too bad but they don't match their names even slightly, The Grand Marquis is a bottler, the Crown Victoria makes a good victory in terms of engine's lacks and the Navigator, the Yukon and even the Hummer H2 can't reach the top of a mountain while a Range Rover can. Don't put it personal, I really like some American cars like the Lincoln TownCar (earlier models) but their problem is that the newer they get , the worse they become. That's all for today, I'll

finish this deal later !

Bugatti Veyron - The Concorde-supercar ever made

2007-06-13T20:06:00.001+03:00

We heard about new Lambos, which get to 333 km/h easiely, the Enzo with its incredible speed and others....But this car (in the picture) has more than just speed, it has power, which is a need for speed ! Let's put it this way : taking a car to 200 km/h or even 250 km/h needs just 235 horsepower, a v6/v8 engine and a bit of torque. To get to the Murcielago's 333 km/h, we need 766 horsepower plus a v8-v12 engine. But to get to even higher, we need the 766 horsepower + the basic 235 horsepower !! Complicated matter, but it looks just like that in a simply way.

So, what you end up with, is the Bugatti Veyron : a V16 engine, 1001 horsepower and a top speed of 407 km/h, and it's not fiction : actually Top Gear's U James May did it in Volkswagen's private maximum security test-track in Germany. I actually saw that episode, and I can tell you that the Veyron is just the Batmobile coming true ! It is a huge supercar, with huge headroom & legroom, and it has almost every single detail found on F1 cars, except that F1 cars don't reach the 407 km/h !

So far, I found prices for that incredible machine between $1.7 million and $2.0 million, the price on Top Gear is 850.000 pounds ($1,676,707). It is really expensive, but for me, here's my opinion : althought I don't have these 1.7 millions right now to buy a bugatti, let's say that if someday I won a supercar, let's say for example a Lamborghini, a Porshe, a Ferrari or even a Maybach Exelero, I'll have fun with it for few weeks and then I'll sell it and buy an S-class and a house (!) but if this supercar is a Bugatti Veyron, I'll never sell it, it too much to sell ! The Veyron gives - for money - sensations that you cannot buy...

So, the big question is : can we really do a 400-kilometer trip in one hour by driving the Veyron ? And the sad answer is NO . I'll explain : as you read this topic you feel that Bugatti has made a car which stands at the limit of what's physically possible. Above that level, only Isa'ac Newton's laws work. In fact, at the speed of 400 km/h, the fuel runs out in 12 minutes ! And even if we put a fuel tank on the car – like the tanks used in NASA rockets – the tyres don't last for more than 50 minutes. For today, we can't do such a trip at high speed. But maybe we'll be able to do it if Volkswagen made a Veyron in the Audi RSQ's style (i'robot - will smith) !

Maybach Exelero - the king of luxury in his new outfit !

2007-05-02T17:28:00.000+03:00

Maybach...The name which sounds luxe, comfort and performance. The name of high quality silver, wood and leather...The manufacturer of the limousines ( S62 for instance ) made...a sport car ! Yes, after the 1930's SW 38, they made another roads legend, the Exelero.

At first sight, you realise that it's a sport car, but the black color and the huge dimmensions - 5.80 meters long - make you think it must be luxurious...Bingo ! In terms of luxe, you cannot find better than the exelero. with the elegant twin-leather seats, the red decorating color, the well-designed pannel...They DID work hard for it.

The engine is the winning card of the Exelero. It's a 5.9 liters V12, with aspiration twin turbochargers 752 units of torque, developing 700 horsepower at 5000 rpm....Just think of the quiet 700 horsepower engine running ! This car can reach the 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds, and has a top speed of 351 km/h ...!

I'm not sure of the pricing, but just compare the SLR, CL and S62 prices, mix them together ( put the pourcentage of the S62 with the pourcentage of the CL.... ) in brief: you'll do a lot of calculatings and if you get a too high price, never think you may did a mistake in calculating, with the Exelero you have to expect a very very high price !!

Ssand Yong Rodius - a huge luxurious mpv with Mercedes-Benz charm

2007-04-17T21:15:00.000+02:00

I'm not used to this kind of cars (mpv's) but I don't hesitate to show the best ones ( my favorites ) like the Sienna and the Odyssey. This time I'm showing you a car which I liked at first sight, a must-to-know car, the Ssang Yong Rodius. Yeah, it's a korean car, but coming from the luxury Ssang yong brand (see the Chairman ?) and including powerful Mercedes-Benz engines and T-TRONIC systems, it's got something, the Rodius !

The front looks a bit back to a Mercedes, the rear looks back to a spaceship I saw in a movie (!!), it's huge (there is an SE model which includes four rows of seats, fitting 11 persons in ultimate luxury), it's luxurious including MB's luxury stuff like the automatic T-TRONIC gearbox, rear parking sensors and auto-folding side mirrors.

The interior is very well designed, you feel you're driving an out-of-this-planet vehicle, it's got three rows of seats, both legroom & headroom are perfect, the electronic AC is standard across the range and it's got front seats heated. Head up for performance ! As far as I know, the MB diesel V6 engine provided for the Rodius developps 173 horsepower, including the ABS, BAS, ESP and front/side airbags as standard, the maximum speed is (aouch !) 220 km/h, but it's enough for a MPV of such a big size.

Pricing : starting at $23.000, to $27.000 , I think it's cheap, and I'll explain that: the label. Everyone like to be driving a Odyssey or a R-class because they are japanese or geman, for those ( note that they are a lot of them arround you !!) a korean MPV is not a good choice, but for the people who search good for a suitable car (for them, not for others), and who don't care about the label, the Rodius is just the perfect car for them, it's made by a luxury brand, and both engine & transmission are provided by Mercedes-Benz. It's a good choice, but - unfortunately - not available everywhere.

2007 Mercedes-Benz S-CLASS - the ultimate starship legendary vehicle which controls roads...

2007-04-11T15:52:00.000+02:00

We all know about that king of big expensive cars which has been the most luxurious traiblaiser in the last thirty years, the s-class...This all-new model has latest technologies from night view assist with the latest infra-red technology to the new COMAND system, and from anticipatory PRE-SAFE® occupant protection to the Active Body Control suspension system. Well, the new S-Class - by introducing these technical innovations - will make the flagship Mercedes model an example for others to follow. One of the further technologies is a comfortable/sport swich system, which you can find it as a "S/C/M" key in the centre console which enables the driver to alter the characteristics of the saloon from "comfortable" to "sporty", and to adjust the suspension, vehicle level and transmission mode individually. From 120 km/h and in the Sport mode, the suspension is automatically lowered by up to 20 millimetres to further improve the handling, aerodynamics and fuel consumption.
The look is sporty, you can compare it to A8 Audi, but the last model was more classic, which is more conveniable to this type of cars. If the look of a car can be described as a sentence which the car says, then the last S-class's model is "move please, let me go !", and the new model is "Get out of the road, now !!".

In terms of size, there is a choice of two body lengths - 5076 or 5206 millimetres – which is 33 and 43 millimetres more, respectively, than the previous S-Class. The wheelbase has increased by 70/80 millimetres to 3035/3165 millimetres. In addition, the body is now 16 mm wider and 29 mm higher than previously. These new dimensions create the basis for an interior space concept which offers all the passengers first-class comfort.

About the luxe, the driver can now drive comfortably because the gear changed it's place to a bit behind the steering wheel, personally, I think that new models have to be all automatic because manual gear will be too funny in that way ! and in terms of comfortable seats, Mercedes customers in the new S-Class are able to adapt the seats to their personal comfort requirements, as electrically adjustable 12-way front seats with lumbar supports are standard equipment. High-comfort heated seats with active ventilation, multicontour seats (front and rear) and dynamic multicontour seats (front) are also available as optional equipment.

The new S-class come now with powerful V6-V12 engines, you get from 272 to 517 horsepower, and you can accelerate from the range of zero to 100 km/h in 7.3 seconds (S 350) to the range of zero to 100 km/h in 5.4 seconds (S 500).