Category: Automotive

The website Rate My Q80 Ride is organizing a show off your car event. It’s going to be held this Thursday the 24th of December at the Hard Rock Cafe parking lot starting from 11:30PM. The event is open to anyone with a car that has been modified.

This is pretty old since the truck was built in the 90s by Seikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan of the UAE but I hadn’t heard about it or seen it until now. The truck is 64 times larger than the original one. 64 times! It’s HUGE. It has a house built into it, and its drivable! [YouTube]

Someone is selling an Eleanor on Q8Car. Eleanor is the codename for the Ford Mustangs seen in both versions of the film “Gone in 60 Seconds”. In the original 1974 version of the movie, Eleanor is a 1973 Mach 1 coupe, while in the 2000 remake, Eleanor is a modified 1967 Shelby GT500. The one on Q8car is a modified 1967 Shelby and he’s asking KD16,000 for it. [Link]

I’ve always wanted a navigation system in the car that uses Google Maps and it seems this is going to happen very soon since the 2011 Audi A8 will be the first production car to include Google Earth. What I would also like to see one day in the future is real time updated maps. Imagine Google Maps with real time updates while you’re stuck in a traffic jam. You could just zoom in to the area in front of you and see what’s causing the traffic or even better you could check the traffic on the roads before you leave the house.

Actually, I just realized, you don’t need real time updated Google Maps, why don’t we have video cameras or still cameras along major roads which people can access and check online? Something like [This] and also the picture above. The technology has been around for some time now and shouldn’t be too difficult to implement here in Kuwait. Can we please get live traffic cams? Pretty please??

Scooby Doo’s mystery machine was spotted in Shuwaikh. I guess they were called in to help out with the GCC Summit security.

Picture by pendolino

Got this from the MOI website (fixed some spelling mistakes but too lazy to fix the grammar). Looks like its going to be one crappy week:

In preparation for the GCC summit some roads will be closed starting from Monday 14/12/2009 from 11:30 AM-1:30 PM

1. King Faisal motorway will be closed from the Airport to Fifth Ring Road.
2. King Faisal main motorway the side coming from Kuwait city after Yarmok area towards the Airport will be closed and diverted to Fifth Ring Road as an alternative road for both sides to Jahra and Salmiya.
3. King Fahad main motorway coming from the city will be closed and diverted to Fifth Ring Road both toward Jahra and Salmiya.
4. King Fahad main motorway coming from Fahaheel will be closed and diverted to Six Ring Road of both sides left side to Jahra and right side to Salmiya.
5. Side road of the Fifth Ring Road going to King Fahad motorway which coming from Salmiya towards Ahmadi will be closed only but towards city is permitted.
6. King Khaled bin Abdulaziz with all intersections will be completely closed starts from Khaitan Club bridge to Mishref bridge of King Fahad motorway.
7. Sabhan road, from Seventh Ring Road to Sabah Airport road will be completely closed for both sides.

For all who want to go to Kuwait International Airport, they either to take airport road towards Six Ring Road on the right side to cargo station or through Ghazali motorway to cargo station then to the airport.

And for all who want to go to Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Airport terminal have to go towards Sabhan Qurain bridge road and King Fahad motorway and take road (208) the military show road.

Alternative roads
All road users in case of close of all previously mentioned closed roads can use the following routs:
– All seven ring roads (First Ring Road-Second Ring Road-Third Ring Road-Fourth Ring Road-Fifth Ring Road-Sixth Ring Road-Seventh Ring Road) of both sides are open towards Jahra and Salmiya.
– Ghazali motorway.
– King Abdulaziz (Fahaheel motorway) both sides.
– Airport road, Farwaniya side.

The Traffic General Department is calling upon road users to cooperate with policemen and follow the issued instructions for the success of the summit events.

[source]

GulfRun is coming up pretty quickly and the video above is the new trailer the guys just released. I personally think this is their best video so far. GulfRun 5 is going to be held from January 28th to the 30th in Bahrain and everyone is invited to come and watch.

This year they’ve got a special treat for spectators with something they’ve called the GulfRun Taxi Ride service. Basically they will have three cars in which spectators will be able to hop into the passenger seat and ride around the track. The three cars are the Lotus 211, a Radical and the Westfield SE, all of which are track machines. I haven’t seen the list of cars that will be participating this year but Marzouq over at zDistrict did and he says its going to be even crazier than last year.

All the cars are going to be on display next month at 360 Mall and I will post about that event ahead of time so you guys can pass by and check them out. As I mentioned earlier, everyone is invited to GulfRun 5 in Bahrain next month. There is no entrance fee or anything of that sort just get a ticket and fly over to Bahrain. [YouTube]

For more information on GulfRun visit their website [Here]

Someone fucking broke into my Z4 this evening. I went to Avenues for dinner and because it was packed I parked my car across the street from Avenues. I was gone maybe an hour max and when I got back to the car the passenger window had been smashed in. There wasn’t anything in my car except for my house and wrangler keys which I had put behind the hand brake (check picture below). They took my keys and I have no idea what they are planning to do with them. I am going to change my home locks now and will probably need to change my Wrangler locks which is probably going to be expensive. Why would anyone steal my keys? Are they seriously contemplating on robbing me? How would they know where I live? Will they try to steal my Wrangler? Who the fuck steals cars in Kuwait? I’ve never heard about anyone’s car getting stolen…

My theory is someone smashed the windows to see if there was anything they could steal from inside (a phone, glasses, radio etc..). They then saw my keys and took them thinking they were the Z4 keys and maybe they could open the trunk or something. When they realized it had nothing to do with the Z4 I would assume they would throw the keys away. That is why I am going to go back now with a flashlight and look around and see if they threw my keys somewhere. I’m pissed.

Update: Went last night looking for the keys with a flashlight. Searched the whole block around where my car had been broken into but didn’t find anything. Passed by the BMW dealer earlier to have my window fixed. The window will cost only KD50 which is not bad except for the fact they don’t have it in stock. Will take over 2 weeks for them to get the part so I’ve got to search the scrapyard or glass shops in Shuwaikh for a replacement.

The video above is the new teaser trailer for GulfRun 5 thats going to be held at the end of January in Bahrain. The guys promised me I will have another video and more information to post in a few more days so will keep you posted with any updates. [YouTube]

Here is a link to the Gulf Run website [Link]

On Friday morning I went to the junkyards to sell my old beemer wheels. Once I was done I decided to drive around and take pictures since the weather was good and the sky nice and blue. I really love the place, you can find everything there from the old double decker buses to broken down tanks. There was this one place I found which I think was a huge government impound lot that looked really cool. It was surrounded by a barbed wire fence but I managed to sneak inside from a hole in the fence and walk around a bit. The place is amazing, I found a lot of old trucks and cars, it was beautiful. If anyone can help me get in there legally again so I could take pictures that would be great. If not I guess I would have to jump the fence again.

Update: Higher resolution pictures now available [Here]

Two weeks ago one of the Z4’s wheels developed a crack probably from a pothole and I had an option of either repairing it or getting a new wheel. Since the crack was pretty big repairing it wouldn’t have been a good idea and buying a new wheel would have cost me in excess of KD250. My friends suggested that I order a set of four new wheels directly from TireRack.com. Surprisingly it turned out Tire Rack ship wheels and tires to Kuwait and for a very reasonable price.

K.thekuwaiti gave me the email of a sales specialist he had dealt with before called Gavin and I started searching for my wheels on TireRack.com. They had a huge collection that fit my beemer but I was looking for 18×8’s for the front and 18×9’s for the rear and there were only two models that interested me and were under $400 a wheel. Since I had narrowed down my choices to two, I emailed Gavin asking for a quotation and a few questions. He was very helpful and patient answering all my questions, I even changed my mind twice and he didn’t seem to get annoyed or pissed. I finally got a quotation back and the shipping for four wheels to Kuwait via FedEx economy was just $270. That was around KD18 per wheel which was very reasonable since the total weight of four wheels was 50KG.

I paid via money transfer with NBK online and as soon as they received the amount they shipped me my wheels. It took around a week for the wheels to get to Kuwait and I just installed them today at the Pirelli dealer next to AceHardware. If you’re interested in ordering wheels from TireRack.com you can email Gavin at [email protected].

That’s the new Ministry of Interior car, looks neat. It’s a Mazda 6.

Reminds me of Nat’s parking skills. [YouTube]

Took my Tamiya FJ out rock crawling with some friends today in Bnaider. The weather was good and the location was perfect for our cars. I shot some video which I am going to edit and upload later but here are a few pictures for now.

Update: Here is the video.

Tamiya FJ CR-01 in Kuwait

The YouTube version is [Here]

It’s been nearly a month since I got my Tamiya FJ and just a few moments ago I finished building it. It took some time because I had to paint the body and ended up messing up the job, I then had to wait for the motor and electronic speed controller to arrive from the States and finally tonight I just had to source one more small part locally and get some wires soldered onto the motor. I’m now done with it, I tidied up all the wiring and my FJ is finally ready for a crawling session. I missed out on one last Friday because my car wasn’t ready but this Friday I am going and will take some pictures once I do.

Update: Here is a picture I took this morning