Category: Automotive

Earlier this week I posted a list of car and bike brands that were acquired by BNK and one of the brands I listed was Vanderhall Motor Works. Vanderhall is an American vehicle manufacturer that produces three-wheeled roadsters and yesterday I took a spin in one around the block.

I’m really not a big fan of three-wheeled cars but was curious to try one, and having tried one now, I’m still not a fan. It’s not a motorbike or a car and there is no way to avoid potholes in a three-wheeler. The roadster is hot looking but would look ten times hotter if it had four wheels! Definitely a toy car.

If you’re interested, they’re going to sell for around 10-14K at the local dealer depending on the model and you can get more info by visiting their instagram account @vanderhallkw

Over the weekend I picked up the brand new Porsche Taycan to review. I’ve been curious to try the Taycan ever since it launched because I think it’s the best looking fully electric car on the market right now by far (sorry Tesla owners). I was hoping the color combo of the test drive car was white exterior with a black interior similar to the launch photos, but the car I picked up was a metallic blue with a beige interior. Not the most exciting color combination and I was actually worried it would be difficult to shoot but the shots eventually came out great.

The Taycan is Porsche’s fully electric car. It’s not a hybrid, meaning, it doesn’t run on a combination of electricity and fuel, this is a 100% electric car similar to how Teslas are. My worry with electric cars always obviously is running out of power and being stuck on the side of the road. The Taycan fully charged has a range of over 400km, but when I picked up the car from the dealer, it only had a 77% charge. Kinda sucked cuz it didn’t help with the anxiety of running out of range. When reviewing cars I tend to put on a lot of mileage on the cars very quickly so I can get a proper experience with it. I had a whole day of errands to run and I wasn’t going to let a partially charged vehicle change that. So I decided I’d not focus too much on the range and just enjoy the car.

The interior felt very familiar right away because it still resembled a normal Porsche although all the buttons had been replaced by a large touch screen and the gauges were fully digital. There was a feeling of familiarity because it felt like a regular car and wasn’t stripped out like a Tesla where all the car controls moved to a tablet-like screen. The interior looked hi-tech with three displays, one in front of me where the analog gauges would usually be, a large screen in the center of the dash, and finally a large screen built into the center console which has all the controls. There is an extra option to add a passenger screen which I think would make the interior even more futuristic but the car I drove didn’t have it. I’m generally not a fan of touch screens for controls, but I wasn’t too bothered by the controls on the Taycan. The screen was large enough to make all the buttons big and easy to touch, plus there was haptic feedback so I could tell if I had pressed a button properly or not.

I started off by heading to Shuwaikh to quickly take some photos of the car in case I didn’t have time later that day but also so I could post some photos on my Instagram story. I then headed to Avenues for some Christmas shopping before heading to Bayan and different parts of Salmiya for some more errands. Anytime someone would message me on Instagram to ask me how the car was I had one response and that it was fast. The model I drove was the Taycan Turbo which does 0 to 100 in 3.2 seconds, that’s faster than my Lotus which is a difficult idea to grasp. It’s also not only fast 0 to 100, the car keeps acceleration effortlessly as long as you have your foot down on the power. One cool Porsche feature is the fake electric sound that you can get on the car. Electric cars don’t make sounds but for an extra KD150, Porsche will fit the car with the Electric Sport Sound option which adds a futuristic humming-like sound that makes the car sound like you’d expect an electric car to sound like in an 80s movie. It sounded super cool and I obviously had the option turned on all the time. I tried capturing the sound but didn’t have any luck but you could check out this video on YouTube if you want to hear it.

I ended up driving quite a bit of distance on the car, even headed over the Kuwait bay bridge to the other side to take some more photos of the car and by the time I had finished with the car and brought it back to the dealer, it still had around 28% battery left (120km range). I loved the car and if I was in the market for an electric car the Taycan would be an easy choice for me over the Tesla because of the looks alone. But, I wouldn’t go for the Turbo model which starts from KD47,300. Nobody needs a 4 door sedan to be that fast. Instead, I’d recommend the 4S model which starts from KD33,900. When I built my own car on the Porsche website with all the options I wanted the car came out to KD42,000 which is still way cheaper than the base Turbo model. So that would be my recommendation, get the Taycan 4S pimped out with all the options you want.

Last year BNK become the dealer for Volvo cars and since then they’ve been busy acquiring the rights to more brands in Kuwait. So far from what I can tell these are the brands they’ve gotten so far:

Aprilia
Moto Guzzi
Polestar
Vanderhall
Vespa
Volvo

I haven’t seen the Vanderhall on the streets yet (pictured above), but I did see a Polestar a couple of times on the road last week. Vespa, on the other hand, existed in Kuwait before and I had one, but the previous dealer closed down and BNK instead has now taken it over. I loved my old yellow Vespa but sold it after I bought my first Datsun 240z.

I don’t remember how I first found out about the Ahmadi Desert Motoring Club (ADMC), or how I came about a picture of their car badge, but when I first saw it I knew I needed to have one. It’s such a great looking badge with the cute desert mouse and beautiful colors, I ended up spending over a year looking for one to purchase and wasn’t able to find a single one for sale, anywhere and for any price! I got in touch with random people whose parents might have been part of the club, I checked small private sllers, large auction sites, I checked with car badge collectors, and nobody either had one or wanted to sell one. Finally, back in September, one went on sale on eBay, and not just any, but one that was in pristine, 10/10 condition. It looked like it had never been installed on a car before and all the enamel was still intact and vibrant. I put a ridiculous maximum bid number since I knew I’d most likely not come across another one ever that was so clean, eventually, I ended up winning the bid for a lot less than I expected, around KD75.

Now that I had the badge I found it very frustrating that I couldn’t dig up any info on the club, there wasn’t anything online except for a single photo from an ADMC Alitalia Darts event dating back to 1964 and that was it. So I got in touch with a friend at KOC and asked him if he could check their archives for any photos or articles on the club and he struck gold.

Turns out KOC had some photos related to the motoring club but they were still negatives which hadn’t been scanned. So they dug them out of their archive and scanned them so I could share them on the blog. These images haven’t been seen by anyone for over 65 years! They also shared some articles relating to the club from the old KOC newsletter called “The Kuwaiti”. The Kuwaiti was a weekly newsletter and he flipped through the 1954 and 1955 archive of the newsletter and sent me some photos of ones relating to the club and motoring in general. Some really interesting stuff.

I’ve decided to share everything in two ways. Firstly I uploaded all the photos and articles to a Flickr album. If you prefer viewing things that way click here.

I’ve also created a PDF file of all the articles and if you prefer viewing the articles that way then click here to download the PDF

For the scanned images I have all of them embedded in high resolution below. The blog will resize them automatically to fit the width of my page, but if you save the images, you can view them in higher resolution on your phone or computer. Check those out by clicking more below.

Finally, I’d like to thank Kuwait Oil Company for digging these photos out and scanning them for me. Now people looking for info on the club will be able to find some kind of information online.

The all-new Corvette was meant to launch in Kuwait back in May, but due to the pandemic and slow down in production, that didn’t happen. But, they’re now finally here.

The first shipment of Corvettes arrived to the dealership a couple of days ago and they’ve all been pre-sold already. If you want to check them out in person though they currently have them parked in the basement of their Al-Rai dealership until they’re picked up by their new owners. The new Corvette starts at KD22,000.

The General Dept of Traffic instagram account @traffic_kw should really be turned into a series of some sort like the show COPS. They’re very active and constantly posting videos of cars usually racing or drifting and then pictures of the cars impounded. In some of their videos, they’ve even had footage from inside the cop cars chasing people and it’s all pretty entertaining to watch.

If there is one government Instagram account to follow this would be it. So if you haven’t checked it out click here.

Note: They’ve got similar videos on their YouTube channel as well but their Instagram videos seem higher resolution. Link

Totally random and insignificant post to everyone but this post is for people googling looking for a certain brand of oil for their car. My FJ and Lotus get their oil changed at the dealer, but my Alfa and Datsun I change the oil myself. Previously I was getting my car oil from Auto1 on Canada Dry street but they only carried the Lukoil brand and the last time I went they didn’t even have the right viscosity grade I needed. There’s a BMW spare parts store nearby that carries the Liqui Moly brand of oil but they also never seem to have the viscosity I needed and they’re overpriced. But, I recently found a place in Shuwaikh that carried a ton of oil from different brands and grades and its now my goto place for oil.

If you’re looking to buy oil for your car they carry a number of brands including Liqui Moly, Lukoil, Lucas, Kassel, Kendall, Mercedes-Benz, and Shell. Their Instagram account is @q8.oil.center and here is their location on Google Maps (large sign outside that says Motor Plus and also Kuwait Oil Center).

My Alfa Romeos’s car registration expired a couple of days back and because of the pandemic, I’m not required to have the car physically checked when issuing a new car registration. Instead, there are now companies that can renew the insurance for you and get your car registration issued without you having to go or do anything.

There are a number of companies but I ended up using Beep because it was the only one me and my friends could remember. The cost is KD32 for the insurance and car registration issuance. You contact them over WhatsApp, send them a picture of your expired car registration and the back and front of your Civil ID, in return they send you a payment link, and then the next day drop off your new car registration for you. They also take the old one back so you need to make sure you have that with you.

KD32 sounded a bit steep but I usually pay KD16 for my insurance and then KD5 for the car registration stamp so they’re basically charging around KD10 to do all this for you which isn’t that bad. This service is only applicable for cars whose registration expired March 12, 2020 onwards. If your car expired before that date you still need to get the car registration done in person.

Here is the link to the Beep Instagram account @beep_kw

I found the picture above on @molowey’s (AbuJack) account on Twitter and it reminded me of when the Fahaheel Expressway first opened up. I was a kid but I remember it being like a very cool and big thing and I think I fairly remember my dad taking the family onto the expressway after a Friday lunch to check it out. At one point in time, the top speed was 140KM/h before being brought down to the current 120KM/h. If you want to see more old photos of Kuwait, AbuJack has been posting old photos he’s taken practically on a daily basis. Link

I think there are only two electric cars you can officially buy in Kuwait at the moment, the Chevrolet Bolt EV and the Porsche Taycan in addition to the various Teslas that were imported so it makes sense that malls and other places start introducing charging stations. Al Shaheed, Arraya and Hamra Tower all have electric charging stations and The Avenues is now joining the party.

For anyone that works in Hamra or Arraya, I’m curious, are random cars parking in the electric charging spots, or are the spots properly being enforced and only electric cars can park there?

Thanks Mohamed

Late last week the most popular car upholsterer Ehsan burned down. Ehsan was considered one of the best if not the best upholsterers in Kuwait and there were customer cars that were parked inside being worked on that all sadly burned. One of the cars that was confirmed to have burned in the fire was a beautiful white 1990s Honda NSX that belonged to the owner of B-Tune Performance.

I heard the fire supposedly started at around 3AM and when I passed by in the afternoon (picture on top) there was still smoke coming out of the building and fire trucks parked in the back still putting off the fire. I passed by again the following day and there were still fire trucks there and I saw that the whole building had collapsed into itself. I feel really bad for everyone that lost their car and I hope they get insurance money although I know that won’t bring their cars back.

Someone must have realized that the current rule for the left shoulder emergency lane was complicated and dangerous because the MOI has now canceled the left emergency lane completely. This whole you can drive on the emergency lane between certain hours only didn’t make any sense and nobody was following it anyway.

At least now its clear, if you’ve got car problems don’t stop on the left. Source

Don’t think I’ve ever posted the video above even though it’s been on YouTube since 2012, but I saw it the other day on @classic_kw_ and looks like it was shot in the early 90s. It got me thinking about all the classic cars we have in Kuwait but are falling apart because they’re just parked outside homes in the harsh environment and aren’t being driven. Sometimes I feel like rescuing cars in the same way people rescue stray animals.

Speaking of cars that aren’t being driven, there is a guy with a purple Diablo parked in Shaab that hasn’t been driven in probably a decade. If anyone knows the owner, please connect us!

There are loads of car clubs in Kuwait but all the ones I’ve seen are male dominant which can be intimidating for women to join. This is why I like the idea of Kuwait Motorsports, an all-female car club.

The aim of Kuwait Motorsports is to give women a safe environment where they can meet up, show off cars, hold drag races, and even take part in different workshops. It’s similar in idea to RoadRush, except instead of just being a female-only racing event, it’s a community with all-year-round activities. Joining the club is 100% free and there are perks which include discounts from various brands. The club just recently opened so the more members they get, the more perks and offers they’ll get from brands.

I do wish they had a less generic name than Kuwait Motorsports, but generic name aside, if you’re female and over 18 years of age and want to sign up, visit their website kuwaitmotorsports.com

ROVE is a local car booking app similar to Uber. It’s a lot more upscale than the street cabs and more in line with the likes of Draewil. Before the pandemic, I was flip-flopping between ROVE and Draewil depending on which had a cab closer to me but Draewil hasn’t reopened yet (I think they’ve closed down for good they’re going to be back September) so currently ROVE is the only car booking service I’d use.

Like I mentioned in my Draewil review, I don’t use cabs a lot, usually only when dropping one of my cars off to the garage so I don’t mind spending the extra amount of money for comfort and right now, safety. I actually don’t think ROVE is even that expensive compared to the experience you’re getting in return. A trip from my garage in Kuwait City to Salmiya cost me KD4.5, but I was picked up in a brand new Range Rover, there was a bottle of hand sanitizer in the rear cupholder alongside a water bottle, I had a charging cable, lots of legroom, the driver wore a face mask the whole time and the whole service is very professional.

I’m actually not sure if ROVE have other cars since every time I’ve used them I’ve been picked up in a Range Rover. Depending on where you are the time it takes for their car to reach you will vary, yesterday it took 8 minutes for the car to arrive after I requested one. For payment, you can either set up your credit card in the app, pay by cash or pay by KNET. If you’re looking for a premium cab service, I’d highly recommend ROVE right now. Here is a link to their website with the app download links. [Link]

They’re also on Instagram @rideroveapp