Category: Automotive

I got into a kinda awkward situation this weekend. I was in Avenues with a friend and after we left I decided I’d show them the new causeway bridge because they hadn’t been on it yet and wanted to see it. I wasn’t gonna drive the whole bridge, just up till the first island, u-turn and come back. I looked at my fuel gauge and it was less than half full but more than enough for the short trip.

Well I nearly got screwed because it turned out the two island exits on the bridge had been closed off. Once you get on the bridge you can now no longer exit and turn back but instead, you now have to drive all the way to the other side (a 20~ minute drive). To make matters worse, once I got to the other side, instead of taking the correct exit that sends me back over the bridge towards Shuwaikh again, I accidentally took the exit towards Bubyan Island which wasted even more fuel.

There are no fuel stations on the other side!

Anyway, luckily I did make it back down without running out of fuel but someone else might not have been as lucky. So in case you’re planning to do the drive over the causeway bridge, make sure you have a full tank of gas.

Got this video forwarded to me yesterday. Looks like it was taken sometime in the 80s on Plajaat street in Salmiya. Wish it was a bit longer.

Generally, when you travel you can rent and drive cars with just your regular Kuwaiti license. But, back when the driving license was just in Arabic, you needed to get an international driving license. Not really sure which country nowadays won’t accept your Kuwaiti license, but in case you need to get an international one you can now do so online.

Price is KD10 for the license and you then have the option to pick it up yourself or have it delivered to you for an additional KD3.

Thanks Fahed

Showroomz is a new app I found about that I actually installed and didn’t delete. The app is like a digital car showroom for local car dealers and is a really convenient way to find out how much different cars cost.

But there are two minor issues I have with the app. Firstly, not all the dealers are listed, for example, BMW, Mercedes and Toyota are not on the app although I’m assuming they will be added eventually. Secondly, the brands aren’t listed aren’t in alphabetical order, so if you’re looking for a specific brand you have to scroll down the list and hope to find it. Other than these two quibbles, its a nice looking app that’s fairly straightforward to use without too many bells and whistles.

If you love cars or maybe if you’re looking to buy a new one then it’s worth downloading the app. Here is the link to the Apple Store.

A few days ago the new Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah Causeway was officially opened and everyone’s been really excited about it because it’s our first overwater bridge. I decided to drive up and down both bridges (yes there are two) this past Friday and I have to say, it’s one super boring drive. Although in theory, the drive across the bridge sounds cool because you’re surrounded by water with a beautiful cityscape on your right, in reality, it’s just a pretty straight long 3-lane highway, you can also barely see the water or cityscape because of the high side rails and because of all the speed cameras, it’s a very monotonous drive. The nicest part of the bridge is pictured above when coming down from the highest point of the bridge.

As I mentioned there are two bridges, a long one that takes you from Shuwaikh Port all the way north towards Subiya, while the second smaller one takes you to Doha. The total drive time is around 18 minutes long on the main long bridge and once you get to the end there really isn’t anything there, just an empty desert. There are plans to build Silk City there (can we rename it to Sin City please?), but right now the road is blocked off and you have a choice of either heading back to Shuwaikh via the bridge, or taking the older and longer inland road back down to the city.

There are a total of 9 speed cameras laid out across the long bridge as well as average speed cameras. So if you were hoping for some spirited driving you’re out of luck. There are also two artificial islands along the way, the Southern Island and Northern island. These are two exit points along the way where you can get off the main bridge to stop and check out the view or to u-turn back. Eventually, there will probably be services on these islands like restaurants or mini markets, but right now they’re not open yet. The first island exit comes up 3 minutes into the bridge drive while the second exit comes up around 10 minutes in.

For some stupid reason, people have been parking along the bridge to take photos and selfies. It’s pretty dangerous since it’s basically a 3-lane highway with a speed limit of 100KM/h. But, when I was driving on the bridge there were police patrols making sure people kept moving and didn’t stop on the side. There’s a guy who posted the hilarious video below of him being the first one to make tea on the bridge, I doubt he was being serious, he’s most likely (I hope at least) poking fun out of the way people have been treating this bridge.

The second smaller bridge starts in Shuwaikh Port and heads west towards Doha. The total drive on this bridge is just 5 minutes which means you could be at Entertainment City in less than 10 minutes from Shuwaikh. Too bad Entertainment City isn’t open though or they would be getting a lot more visitors now. There are 2 speed cameras on this bridge as well as average speed cameras so no spirited driving here as well.

I recorded a video of the full drive across both bridges starting from the first island exit all the way to Subiya, turned around headed back down to Shuwaikh and then up the second smaller bridge to Doha. It’s a pretty long and boring video but here are some timestamps in case you want to skip through it:

0:00 – Southern Island
2:50 – Popular selfie point
7:50 – Northern Island
16:00 – End of the bridge
29:05 – Police car telling a guy parked to keep moving
29:55 – Lots of cars parked on the side
35:20 – Back to Shuwaikh taking bridge to Doha
41:15 – End of bridge to Doha

If you’re interested in cycling on the bridge it’s doable but there isn’t a protected bike path. You’d have to ride on the emergency lane and I didn’t see any “no cycling” signs, but I did see some cyclists. The way I’d do it if it was me is to park on the first island, get my bike off the car and then ride back and forth between the first and second island. But it’s too scary with idiots parking on the side so do so at your own risk.

Update: According to the MOI, since the opening of the bridge they’ve issued over 1,800 fines. It seems anybody who’s been parking on the side of the road, littering or doing anything illegal is being spotted by the hundreds of surveillance cameras located all over the bridge and are being issued tickets.

pic.twitter.com/R70AGY0wAZ

— وزارة الداخلية (@Moi_kuw) May 5, 2019

I’m currently in Dubai courtesy of Ferrari. They’ve put me up in the gorgeous and very lavish Bvlgari Resort, and they’ve given me access to two cars to drive, their new Ferrari Portofino and the Ferrari 812 SuperFast. I actually have a lot of work back in Kuwait and shouldn’t really be here, but how could I say no to this right? When they first got in touch with me about this trip I was excited obviously but in my head I was also thinking, ok so I’ve already test driven these two cars, and I’ve already posted them on the blog, so how can I post about them again? Then it hit me, I could do Jebel Jais!

Jebel Jais is a mountain in the UAE with an elevation of nearly 2,000m. I found out about it from the popular car show Top Gear, (or maybe it was The Grand Tour?) and ever since I’ve wanted to drive it. The mountain has an incredible 3-lane winding road that takes you to the very top and is usually featured in “Top Roads You Need to Drive on Before You Die” style of lists. There isn’t anything on top, the bottom or along the way to the top, it’s just an empty beautiful road to nowhere.

I’ve contemplated shipping my Lotus to Dubai before so I could do the Jebel Jais drive but it was just too costly. I even considered maybe including it as part of a Oman drive where I’d ship my car to Dubai, do the Jebel Jais drive and then drive to Oman and do a drive there before sending my car back to Kuwait. It never materialized so when Ferrari told me I’d have access to the Portofino for a day I thought to myself, that would be a great car to drive up the mountain. So I accepted their invitation and here I am in Dubai.

Ferrari dropped off the Portofino yesterday morning to my hotel at around 10AM. I had two conditions, the first is I needed to have the car back by 5:30PM, the second is I could only do a maximum mileage of 350KM. Both weren’t going to be an issue. Before coming to Dubai I had already figured everything out, the drive from my hotel to the top of Jebel Jais was 160KM and it would take just over 2 hours. So, 160+160 is 320KM and say a 5 hour total journey time, that would still leave me with time to spare. The calculations worked, I was able to take the car to Jebel Jais, come back to the city, grab and lunch and have the car back at my hotel before 5:30 with around 15KM mileage to spare. It was close, but good enough.

The drive to Jebel Jais was pretty uneventful and boring, but I had a bunch of podcast episodes of Business Wars lined up and that made the time pass by quickly. There were also a ton of cameras along the way so I just put the cruise-control on the highway limit of 120KM and just cruised to Jebel Jais. Once I got to the bottom of Jebel Jais, I dropped the top down, put my favorite Spotify music playlist on and just blasted my way up the mountain.

There was no one, just me, the mountain and the incredible 3-lane winding road with no speed cameras all the way to the top. I loved the drive and the Portofino was just insane on that road. It’s such a fast car and it sounded amazing and aggressive all the way to the top. The temperature was around 28 degrees so it was perfect to drive with the roof down and I think I got a bit of tan as well. The drive up the mountain is around 16KM long and it took me around 20 minutes give or take. I stopped a bit on the way up just to check out the view, but I stopped a lot more on the way down to take some photos of the car.

Once I was back down the mountain I really wanted to just U-turn and make my way up again, but I knew if I did that I would end up exceeding the allotted mileage given to me by Ferrari, and I didn’t want to do that. So I put the roof back up and headed back to the city.

I finally got this drive off my bucket list and I couldn’t have asked for a better car to do it in. It was a difficult choice choosing between the Portofino and 812 SuperFast for the Jebel Jais drive, but I made the right choice because it doesn’t get better than flying up the mountain in a fast loud red Ferrari convertible. Ferrari are now dropping off the 812 SuperFast in a few minutes so if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, sorry but I’m in a rush!

Remember the phase when cops were towing away illegally parked cars in the city or removing their license plates? Yeah well they’re over it now which makes me wonder why can’t they ever stick to a decision?

Recently I realized another benefit Kuwait Motor Town has brought to Kuwait other than just racing, photography hobbyist now have something new to take photos of. During track events, you’ll find photographers walking about taking photos of all the different cars, and some even get media passes from KMT which grants them access to various corners around the track where they can hang out and capture photos of cars speeding by.

When you’re racing on the track you obviously can’t capture photos of yourself, so all of us drvers are always super grateful to have these photographers taking photos of us. The photographers also don’t ask for anything in return other than credit. Actually, none of the photographers who’ve shared photos with me have ever asked for credit, but of course, the least we could do is credit them when sharing their photos on our social media accounts.

There are a lot of photographers, I haven’t met all of them but here are a few whom I’ve interacted with and who have been showing up to practically every event:

@81gram
@azizbo7amad
@hamed__ashkanani
@lomanphotography
@p24photography
@pedrodasht
@phautographer

There are some really great photos on their accounts so be sure to check them and follow them if you’re into cars.

First photo captured by @hamed__ashkanani, second by @81gram

This past Friday was open track at the Kuwait Motor Town circuit and while the previous open tracks started early morning, this one started in the afternoon because the weather is a lot hotter. This meant that we would be racing in the evening which I had heard from friends was freaky because of the lack of proper lights and after trying it out myself, yeah it’s definitely freaky.

Not only is the track poorly lit, but there were corners and places on the track that barely had any lighting on them! I was driving with my high beams on but obviously that wasn’t enough. My only previous experience with night racing was in Bahrain, but their track is properly lit up at night. Just to compare the difference, the video on top is from this past Friday at the KMT circuit, while the one below is from Bahrain last year.

A huge difference as you can see. But, on the bright side, I did hear they will be adding more lights on the track this summer when it closes down for maintenance. Hopefully they’ll be as bright as the Bahrain circuit ones.

A couple of weeks back a friend of mine had a dead car battery so I went to help her out. When I got to her car I spotted what I thought was an undercover cop talking to her. The guy had an old Mercedes with flashing lights, and he was wearing a yellow reflective vest. After talking to him I found out he was part of a volunteer rescue team called Dar Subhan who are always on the lookout for people needing help.

I was meaning to post about them but completely forgot until yesterday while riding my bicycle on the Gulf Road I spotted a rescue team helping a car out. There was a Nissan Patrol that had gotten stuck on the beach trying to pull in his boat and the rescue team were helping him. I thought it was the same rescue team that I had run into a couple weeks ago but this one was called Kuwait Support and Rescue Team (KSRT).

KSRT have been active for around a year now while Dar Subhan have only been around since March. I’m not sure how many other volunteer teams there are but if you ever have any car trouble or are stuck out in the desert, it could be worth giving these guys a call instead of the emergency services. Here are their contacts including links to their instagram account:

Dar Subhan Rescue Team
97732441 / 91111584

Kuwait Support and Rescue Team
97865006 / 94147001 / 67651169

Update: Here is another

Kuwait Rescue Team
66665488 / 98809058

Kuwaiti racecar driver Zaid Ashkanani was on the winning team at the season opener for the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup a few days ago. This was not only Zaid’s first debut with the Dinamic Motorsport team, but the team themselves were also making their first debut at the Blancpain GT.

Dinamic drivers Klaus Bachler, Zaid Ashkanani and Andrea Rizzoli (all pictured below) started 23rd on the grid but managed to end up winning by a 14-second margin in a second-generation Porsche 911 GT3-R. They gave the Porsche brand their first Endurance Cup victory since 2012.

This was the first race of the season so there is still a long way to go but nevertheless, it was an incredible debut. You can stay up to date on Zaid’s activities by following him on Instagram @zaidashkanani

The new 2019 G-Class might look like every G-Class built since the 70s, but the 2019 model is a completely new car with some obvious and not so obvious differences. I borrowed this car from a friend of mine who was traveling and got to spend a few days with it. Just like the previous generation G-Class, the new 2019 model has its quirks, but they’re minor stuff and this is a car I’d really love to own.

The changes on the exterior of the car are not dramatic, they’re minor and most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the previous and current generation models. The new model is slightly curvier which some diehards hate, but I think it works. Where the biggest changes are visible though is on the inside.

The new G-Class has one of the nicest interiors of any car and that mostly has to do with the new digital dash and large infotainment screen. Mercedes have found a way to seamlessly integrate both screens into the interior by laying them down side by side on the dashboard under one sheet of glass. This gives the impression that it’s one long screen stretching from the driver’s door all the way to the end of the center console. I really love it and I think it gives the interior a very futuristic look. The infotainment system software is also nicely designed, I’m not sure how Lexus is fine with their 90s looking infotainment system when their biggest competitor has something so good looking in their cars. Other than the car’s default infotainment system you also have the option to use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. The only issue I have with the infotainment system is that it doesn’t have a touch screen. I’m used to using CarPlay with a touch screen and being forced to use a dial or touchpad to move around CarPlay felt like a bit of a mess. That’s really my biggest quibble with the car.

The interior was also very comfortable, while with the previous generation I struggled to fight a comfortable seating position this time around it was really easy. The interior also felt more spacious and it was generally a great place to be. The ride is comfortable, the soundproofing is extremely good and the car felt very solid and could take abuse.

I like the combination of an old school exterior with a very modern interior and I wish more cars did this. The G-Class comes loaded with modern features like brake assist, active distance assist, surround view cameras and parking assist just to name a few. Active distance assist is probably my favorite feature, it works great in traffic since it accelerates, slows down and stops the car for you without you having to do anything. So you could be on your phone watching a youtube video and the car will keep you moving in traffic without requiring your attention.

There are currently two versions of the new G-Class available, the G500 which has 422hp and the G63 which has 585hp. You do NOT need the G63, nobody needs it! I found the G500 more than capable power-wise for an SUV that’s shaped like a brick, plus the G63 is a lot more expensive. Earlier I mentioned my biggest issue with the car was the lack of touch screen, well I lied. The biggest issue I have with the G-Class is the price. The new 2019 G-Class starts at KD38,000 while the G63, on the other hand, starts at a whopping KD55,000.

38,000 is about what I feel this car is worth when fully optioned out but, the G500 actually peeks out at around 50,000 when all the options are clicked. If I’m paying 50,000 I want to feel special and I don’t think the G-Class feels that special anymore. They’re too common on the roads and that takes away from the special feel. In reality though, what luxury SUV isn’t a common sight in Kuwait? They’re all plentiful.

Do I want a G-Class? Yes, I do. I love the size, I love the interior and I love that it can take my abuse. But with all the options I’d want to fit into this car, I’m going to be wayyy past the 38,000 starting price.

If you’re interested in checking out the new G-Class, here is the instagram account of the dealer @mercedesbenzkuwait

Our roads are finally going to get fixed starting from today. The project of repairing all of Kuwait’s roads (including residential) is expected to take three years but, for the first phase they’re starting off with the main ones.

The first road that will be repaired is the 1st Ring Road, starting from the Gulf Road and extending all the way to the Jahra roundabout. The second to be fixed is Highway 40 starting from the 1st Ring Road down to the Bayan area. Third road to be fixed is the 4th Ring Road from Amman Street all the way to the UN roundabout, then they’re going to fix the 6th Ring Road from near 360 Mall (Zahra) towards the Subiya intersection, and finally the Doha Road starting from near the Entertainment City down to the 6th Ring Road.

Repairs will take place from 6pm to 6am on weekdays, and 12am to 12pm on weekends.

I’m surprised the 5th Ring Road isn’t part of the first phase and I’m disappointed the Gulf Road isn’t also part of the first phase since that’s the road I use 80% of the time. But, I’m just glad they’re finally starting!

Update: 💃 [Link]

Yesterday the second Formula 1 race of the season took place and I’ve been getting questions by people asking me how I’m watching it. The answer is simple, I’m watching the races on F1 TV, the question of how is a bit more complicated.

Early last month BeIN decided not to renew their F1 broadcast rights and instead MBC picked up the rights. You can now watch Formula 1 live for free on MBC Action but there are two main issues, the broadcast is in Arabic and there doesn’t seem to be a way to stream the races for people like me who don’t have satellite TV. That also means you can’t watch the races on your phone.

Last year Formula 1 launched their own channel called F1 TV where for $9.99 a month you can stream the race weekends live as well as watch older races from their archive. Technically F1 TV doesn’t work in Kuwait but since I have a US-based credit card, I was able to subscribe and then watch the races over a VPN. It worked for a short while last year, and then F1 TV got strict and started blocking VPN’s, but my internet connection was also an issue since it wasn’t fast enough to stream properly through VPN. So last year I ended up giving up on F1 TV and had to go back to the BeIN digital service which I didn’t like. Since BeIN was out of the picture this year, I decided to try F1 TV again, and my experience this time around has been much better.

This time around my internet is a lot faster since I signed up to Zain Beam last month (for those wondering, I’m still getting a stable 30Mbps download speed with Beam). I also changed my VPN service from StrongVPN to SmartDNSProxy and so far, F1 TV hasn’t blocked a single stream. The F1 TV service has also been polished up since they first launched and there doesn’t seem to be any weird streaming issues (like their stream crashing at the start of the race). I also discovered a cool trick the other day where if I use my TV as a second monitor, I could use one browser tab to stream the race on my TV and then use the laptop screen with another browser tab open to a live race data stream or a driver cockpit view. And on top of all this, I’ve also been able to stream the race on my mobile phone using the F1 app.

So if you want to watch Formula 1 in Kuwait, your only options (at the time of this post) is MBC Action or F1 TV if you have a foreign credit card.

Highway 60 which is the long bit of highway that flies over Shuwaikh is now open again. The bridge which previously use to drop you at the start of the free trade zone now flies over it landing you at the very far end of it. This bridge will also soon connect to the world’s longest bridge, the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed Causeway which is set to open next month.

I drove on the new bridge extension this past weekend and it reminded me of the old video game Tokyo Highway Challenge. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bridge turns out to be popular with street racers especially considering there is only one speed camera.