Category: Automotive

I’ve seen a ton of this videos but never one where the cops actually show up and chase the drifters. [YouTube]

Thanks Tuan

I was supposed to start off the weekend by riding out with the Desert Bike Club but couldn’t get myself to wake up at 6:30 in the morning for a 7:15 meetup. But I still managed to save the day by heading down to Bnaider. A friend of mine built an RC track at his chalet so I took two cars, my Tamiya FJ CR-01 crawler, and my Xray 808e buggy.

[YouTube]

The video above should give you an idea about how fun these cars can be. Mine is the pink one that starts off strong and then falls behind.

I like this shot since it captures an interesting moment when 3 off us go airborne but each one heading off to a different direction.

These two aren’t RC cars but they’re still cool toys.

What more can I do? I’ve already complained about the issues that take place on the Gulf Road a million times already on the blog and I haven’t seen any improvement. If anything there are less cops on the Gulf Road now then there have ever been.

Note: Yes I took this picture on the Gulf Road

Patrol on two wheels… must be a Qatari. [YouTube]

Ignoring their spelling mistake but what exactly do they mean by surveillance cameras? Are these the regular speed cameras or have they installed something new?

Thanks Karim

A reader sent me the picture above of the Gucci Edition Fiat 500. I actually saw it last week at Salhiya and although I’m a fan of the Fiat 500, I didn’t think the Gucci edition was that cool. Personally I think the Diesel edition looks much better. No idea how much the Gucci edition costs but I’m guessing a bundle.

The Gulf Run karting event is coming up pretty soon. The race is taking place in Kuwait City on the 25th and 26th of November and it’s going to be a non-stop 26 hour endurance event. If it’s anything like their previous Gulf Run events then you know it’s going to kick ass. They still have some open slots so if you’re interested in putting together a team to participate it’s not too late. For more information and details check out my previous post [Here]

Last year I upgraded the FJ’s head unit and this time around I decided to upgrade the speakers. I had to order everything online except for the amp which I luckily found locally. Upgrading the car sound system is a complicated process in Kuwait because of the fact we don’t have any good quality components available locally so your only option is to order everything from the US which means you can’t hear the speakers before buying them and you also have to pay expensive shipping charges.

I went looking for the items locally first but I couldn’t find anything I wanted here. The best brands I found here are Alpine, Rockford Fosgate, Pioneer and Kenwood. X-Cite is the Alpine dealer but they’re currently revamping their entire lineup so I couldn’t find anything except for the Amp which was part of their clearance sale. They’re also the dealers for Rockford but their collection was very limited. Pioneer and Kenwood aren’t really know for having the best sounding car speakers either, their head units are decent but their speakers are just average. The brands I was interested in were MB Quart, JL Audio, Polk Audio and Massive Audio, none of which were available in Kuwait.

After doing a lot of research I ended up going with Polk Audio for the subwoofer since I needed to install the sub into the FJ factory sub enclosure and some guys in an FJ forum managed to fit the Polk 8″ sub without too much modification. Since I was going with Polk for the sub I ended up going with the Polk 6.5″ components for the front as well. I also ordered a pair of 3.5″ Rockford Fosgate speakers for the rear pillars, some Dynamat for the doors (sound deadening material), a StreetWires Amp kit and some RCA cables. Shipping cost me nearly as much as I paid for the items which was depressing. The biggest culprits were the sub, the Dynamat and the Amp Kit. I also ordered some speaker adapters from tacotunes.com which would allow me to fit the front speakers into the existing factory FJ mounts.

For installation I headed to Zaharat Al Naseem again. They’re the best local car system installers and I used them last year to install my head unit. It ended up taking around 4 hours for the installation which was longer than expected since I had a few things that needed modifying and customizing. The most difficult part was getting the sub to fit in the factory box (check picture below) but with the help of a Dremel tool we managed to get it to fit nicely.

My sound system sounds pretty cool right now even though it still needs a bit of tuning. The best part is that everything fit into the factory locations so the car looks unmodified until you turn the sound system on. I’m not sure why we don’t have a high end components available locally, I guess the market is too small or just not interested in quality car sound systems.

Update: They’ve moved, here is their new location [Google Maps]

Because the rail underneath the car isn’t damaged it looks like the car was picked up and just placed over it gently.

Thanks Patrick

I’ve been taking the Gulf Road to work everyday now for 7 years. The only time it’s ever been packed with bumper to bumper traffic has been during the first two days at the start of “some” Ramadans (not all). But for some strange odd reason, today for the third time in two weeks the Gulf Road has been bumper to bumper traffic. A 20 minute ride to work is now out of the blue taking 45 minutes and I have no idea why. No roads have been closed, there aren’t any new diversions and it’s not accidents. It’s just random traffic that shouldn’t be.

[YouTube]

Magic ball magic ball are we going to start seeing these on the Gulf Road?

Some guys from Kuwait took a Rolls Royce Phantom out on the Bahrain Formula 1 track and filmed it for YouTube. Sadly they just took it for a cruise and didn’t speed or anything with it. [YouTube]

Thanks Burhan

Google Maps recently added driving directions to Google Maps in Kuwait meaning you could now tell Google where you are and where you want to go to and it will calculate the route similar to navigation devices. You can try it by visiting Google Maps [Here]

Thanks Ds

The price isn’t mentioned neither is the mileage but it does looks pretty clean (ie. can’t see any blood stains). [Link]

Thanks Mohammad