When you think about cars built in America, an image of a dragstrip with cans and banners of bud light comes to mind. For a long period, that was true. American cars were always built to do incredible speeds in straight lines; they were built with the drag enthusiast in mind. Now, what if we told you a Mustang can take on the likes of Porsches and Lotuses on a track? Ridiculous right? Well, no. Ford is changing the game. We already spoke about their hot-hatch, the RS in our third installment. We even spoke about their new GT500. What we did not mention till now was their trackstar - the GT350. It features a 5.2L V8 with a flat-plane crank which has 526 ponies. It has a six-speed manual transmission. It has magnetorheological dampers. It’s chassis is set up to take on Porsches and BMWs. Ford has also focused on shedding weight in the Mustang to make it more nimble. Ford has built a proper machine for the track. In our books, this is the most exciting Ford Mustang to come out of the factory - ever. That flat-plane crank also makes this machine rev to 8000 rpm and…
For decades, we’ve had sportscars. The 80s and 90s gave us cars with horsepowers exceeding 500 hp (give or take). They called them supercars - the McLaren F1, Lamborghini Diablo and the likes come to mind. This decade, the automobile industry pushed the limits of power technology and they presented us with the Hypercars. We now have cars that break the 1000hp barrier. Cars like the Bugatti Veyron and Chiron. The Pagani Huayra. The best of the Hypercars come in a flavor what is now called the Holy Trinity of motoring. They’re called the McLaren P1, the Porsche 918 and the Ferrari LaFerrari. Let’s start with the McLaren. 903hp from a hybrid powertrain. The thing looks THE most aggressive off the three with menacing tail lights and aggressive aero. This thing can run on electric power only and even when on electric power, it’s got around the same power as a VW Golf GTI. Next-up is the all-wheel drive hypercar - The Porsche 918. It definitely looks more sober than the McLaren. It also looks like the one that one would be most comfortable in. Unlike the McLaren, this one has got all the creature comforts one would expect from…
With 3 days of carsmas to go, you might have been wondering: dude, where's the Porsche? Well, we've had something cooking in the lab, and we'd like to share the recipe: The recipe: One (1) Porsche CaymanBrakes from the 991 GT3Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) from the 991 GT3Torque VectoringFront Axle from the 991 GT3A Fixed Wing3.8L Flat Six from the 991 Carrera S. Place between the axles for flavor.6 speed Manual Gearbox Stir until 380hp and 420 Nm of torque speed out of the pot. This is how Porsche makes mid-engine flagship cars. It’ll do 0-60 in 4.2 seconds. It’ll weight 1,340 kilograms. It’ll top out at 295 kmph. It’ll be called the GT4. Meet the new prince of the mid-engine car world. There was not a lot to complain about the 981 Cayman. It was an excellent car. Porsche took what was perfect and somehow managed to define the word perfect-er(??!). While the GT4 was not meant to take on the bigger brother, the GT3, it is said to do the famed Nurburgring in 7 minutes and 40 seconds - exactly the same big bro clocks. For half the price. In a time when GT3s were ditching the…
HAPPY NEW YEAR! And today’s post needs no particular introduction. Toyota has been the talk of the town. Yes, the folks from Japan that sell your basic commuter cars like the Fortuner, the Corolla, the Prado, the Camry and the Yaris have actually gotten very interesting. They are back to their sportscar-y ways! And the most anticipated of them all? The all new Toyota Supra. The JDM superstar is back. This time with a lot of BMW badging as well. Toyota could not build this by themselves ‘cos it would’ve cost them a whole lot trying to develop a new inline-6 and a chassis. So they approached the current world champion in inline-6 powertrains to help them out. BMW also co-developed the new Z4 along with the Supra. What came out is a beautiful looking (we think it is), front engine, rear wheel driven sports car from Toyota! It makes 335hp (a few dyno charts show it makes way more) mated to an AUTOMATIC ZF gearbox. Now before everyone loses their sh-pfiz-it, let us just say that the ZF gearbox is actually pretty epic for an automatic and it hurls this machine to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. This isn’t…
We hope you're singing along to our favourite carol: the 12 days of carsmas. We must say, it's a bleeding treat. Oops! Mind my French, please! And today, we're in fact Frenching it up with Renault. Renault, for the better part of its life, has been known to make boring little hatchbacks, sedans and some SUVs – and dare we say, the budget kind. They’re not the world’s leading authority in quality and performance. Infact, not even close. But they’re not all that bad. For starters, they do have an F1 team. They’ve had a few fun cars in their portfolio too. They have the Clio RS and the Megane RS and that’s just about it. Back in 1973, Renault bought this small manufacturer called Alpine. Think about Alpine a little like you would about AMG and Mercedes. Alpine used to rework the Renault 4CVs to go racing. They’ve had quite some success with the 4CV and thought they’d start building their own cars based off Renaults. They did. They made a machine in the 1960s called the A110. Powered by engines from a Renault R8, these coupes go on to win the World Rally Championship. Then came the oil…
Okay, let's take a moment to debate this. Does size really matter? Do you agree that bigger is better? If you're a Lionel Messi fan, maybe not, but in the world of cars, in some instances, you can say maybe yes. There are two big shifts that happened in the automobile industry this last decade. One is the electrification of everything. The second is the fact that people want their cars to be bigger. And bigger is what they got in the age of the SUV. These big boys are outselling sedans! Sure, they’re more practical. Sure, they can be almost as efficient as a sedan with improvement in power train technology. But they’re killing sales for sports cars and sedans. Companies like Ford are even going as far as to remove regular sedans from their roster to focus (pun intended) only on SUVs (pssst – the mustang Mach-e). But what’s really surprising is the LUXURY SUV market. Car manufacturer’s that wouldn’t otherwise dream of building an SUV, have built one. Rolls Royce made the Cullinan – basically a phantom in a bigger body with the light off-road capability. They really want you to go off-road in all the comfort…
UAE's Fuel prices have been announced for January 2020, the first month of the new year! The fuel price for January 2020 will remain unchanged from December 2019, as announced by the UAE Fuel Price Committee Here are the details: Super 98 price is at AED 2.24/litreSpecial 95 price is at AED 2.12/litreDiesel price is at AED 2.38/litre https://twitter.com/MikanikiDXB/status/1211567540901728256 The entire team at Mikaniki wishes you a happy new year. We hope to see more of you in 2020, we know you will be seeing more of us. Read the official fuel price tweets from ENOC and ADNOC: https://twitter.com/ENOC/status/1210145601259810818 https://twitter.com/ADNOCdist/status/1211308667242459137 The fuel prices are applicable across all the 7 Emirates. This includes Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain. That concludes UAE's fuel prices for January 2020! Every month, we're committed to keeping you up to date with the UAE's latest fuel prices, so that you don't have to scour the internet and spend endless hours searching for the right information. Watch this space for more information. Want to save fuel? Check out our article here, for some tips. You can also hop on over to our tips and tricks page, for more information on car…
They're small. They're quick. They're easy to drive, easy to live with and a ton of fun. Today, in the fifth installment of Carsmas, is all about HOT hot hatches. The Volkswagen GTI has been the king of hot hatches ever since the first generation was released back in 1976. We're at the seventh generation (the 8th Gen is set to release next year) of the hot hatch and it's still just as incredible as the first. Every other manufacturer has since tried to dethrone the GTI. Until now. We've already spoken about the Hyundai i30N and Veloster N in the second post of Carsmas. Hot hatches that give the GTI a run for its money but not quite there yet, The first blow from the Koreans was good, but not enough to bring down the mighty VW. But Hyundai is not the only one to take a swing this decade. The biggest blow was given by these two - the Ford Focus RS, the Honda Civic Type R. We start with what we cannot have in the UAE (boo). Ford has made a proper hot hatch - the RS and they refuse to sell one here. The RS is…
Okay, so it doesn't quite have the ring as the iconoclastic Star Wars. We get it. But on day four of carsmas, your true love gives to you: the All-American Horsepower Wars! There was a time in the world of automobiles when it was hard to comprehend a commuter car with a 100hp. A time when the average commuter car probably only pushed out 20 or 30 ponies, a 100hp was probably thought to be insane. Fast forward to the 2010s and we have problems with pollution and climate change from attempting to burn all of Barney’s ancestors. Emission regulations are all the talk; everything is going green; everything is going electric. In such a world, high horsepower petrols shouldn’t technically exist. But they do. It's wonderful. In the 2010s, one word brought about a horsepower war between manufacturers - HELLCAT. It’s a silly name but that’s what FCA chose to badge the ludicrous cars. And FCA had three kinds. For those that want retro american muscle car styling in all its glory, the FCA gave us the Dodge Challenger Hellcat. For those that had to haul the rest of the family around the drag strip for the Dodge Charger…
It's electrifying! Now where have we heard that before? Maybe a little movie called Grease? You know, John Travolta and his dancing and wooing. Okay, back on topic. This is the third day of carsmas, and it is, in fact, electrifying! This post is brought to you courtesy of the oil slump of 2013 and Greta Thunberg. The idea of powering cars off motors and batteries is not new. Manufacturers like Toyota and Honda have toyed with the idea in the past but it never made it to fruition thanks to the power of the oil lobby (and those who didn’t think climate change was a thing *cough* trump *cough*). It can also be blamed on the lack of innovation in battery technology. A battery pack does make the car considerably heavier and hence less efficient. Charging the battery was another issue to consider. It only takes 5 minutes to fill up a tank of gas. It would a lot more time to charge big batteries. Remember the early 2000s when it took all night to charge your phone? 2012 changed all of that when Tesla Motors and Elon should-never-tweet Musk brought in the Tesla Model S. It was an…