Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

It’s our tongue-in-cheek, crude and lewd caveman guide to the car you drive

By Shahzad Sheikh

It's the Caveman guide to the right car for you

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I’ve been banging on about this for at least 10 years now, because that’s how long it’s been true, but the fact is that there is no such thing as a bad car any more. Even Korean cars have turned brilliant over the last five years.

Chinese cars? Okay, they’re still not great, but they all stop, go, turn and run with unerring regularity and decent ability, whilst not that much falls off anymore.

Give them another couple of years and you won’t be mocking the copycat Chinese conveyances, you’ll be riding in them with your Chinese-made smart phone synced into the Bluetooth playing Chinese pop. New world order? I think so.

Soon you'll be lusting after the Chinese JAC Heyue. Ahem, yeah, right...

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But I digress. The point is that with all things being equal in automotive terms, what then is the point of picking one brand over the next?

Essentially they all have model ranges that offer the same full set of niche-fillers that are fodder to the marketing geniuses.

That is, the very same people that try to convince you one month that you need a red sports car with a swooping bonnet to enhance your stud-rating, and the next that you’re missing the male gene altogether, if you don’t own a Burj-tall SUV with Monster Truck tyres and… ooh, a winch!

That’s even if the only off-roading you’ll ever do is accidently mounting a kerb because you can’t see it from your lofty seat, and the only thing you’ll need to winch back is your chequebook from the dealer that sold you all the accessories that you most patently did not need in the first place.

Are you man enough for a winch?

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Honestly, most cars are as good as each other – many even share much of the same bits and pieces under their shiny bodies (it’s called badge-engineering, which simply means ‘it’s the same car, we’ve just changed the badge’).

So what then possesses you to swear allegiance to a particular marque? Why are you compelled to buy this shiny new car, but not that one?

And why do you ask an ‘expert’ to draw you up a shortlist of cars, based on careful consideration of your budget, needs, uses and style of driving, only to ignore said cleverly compiled collection of congruous cars and buy something else completely?

Why do you continue to waste my time? Why demand my advice when you’re not going to heed it? Why… Er… sorry, got carried away there; been through that scenario too many times!

What it does establish is that all the sensible criteria that you pretend are your reasons for choosing your daily driver, are bunk – or we’d all own Toyota Corollas.

You ask for my advice, then just go buy from this guy!

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Why do you really choose the car you drive? No, really, really?

Let’s be honest, the reason you drive the car you do is because you thought it would make you look cool. Fortunately the term ‘cool’ is an all-encompassing one that can be pushed, pulled and twisted into our own personal perception of what makes us a man-god: the envy of all our brothers, and irresistible to anyone missing the dangly bits between the legs.

Of course what I might think cool, you might call naff, passé, tacky, drab, outrageous, shallow, distasteful, trying-too-hard or, well, pick your preferred derogatory remark and insert here.

Still we seem to share road-space with supercars on the one hand and blinged-up off-roaders, riding flat-on-the-deck and sporting massive rims with chrome spinners and neon underbody lights on the other. So everyone’s view on what constitutes cool can be utterly different and yet all are totally valid.

And with that proviso (a sort of disclaimer if you like, lest you feel the need, by the time you reach the end of this missive, to come find me, and then proceed to thump me) let’s look at some people’s possible perception of some drivers based on the motors they’re peddling. (Other people of course, not me, you understand. I would never be so judgemental!)

The opinions expressed herein are not my own, some bloke told me to say them, honest!

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The mis/perceptions (delete as appropriate)

Drive a Honda and no-one really cares, unless you’ve got a rare and interesting example. But by the time you get around to telling them about rev-tastic VTEC engines that scream higher than a male soprano whose attempted vault over a gate just ended very badly, they’ve lost interest.

Toyota owners are deemed unadventurous – unless you’ve got an 86, in which case you’re a wannabe drifter who arrives sideways at the customisation shop everyday to pick up more parts that will just ruin your ride. But that’s okay, you still own one of the trendiest cars on the planet.

Mitsubishis are driven by penny-pinching accountant types and nobody even notices if you have a Nissan. Unless it’s a GT-R in which case people in the know are mildly impressed initially, but then dismiss you as a gamer-geek with more money than sense, who thinks he can drive but actually it’s all just the car.

Audi drivers are logical, precise, but a bit tedious, and can’t stop talking about something called ‘Quattro’. BMW owners are go-getters that are unable to stand still for a minute and have an insatiable urge to attempt mating with anything that returns their gaze – usually unsuccessfully.

Okay, successfully then, at least in his case

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Mercedes owners are just boring old farts, unless they have an AMG, in which case they are young boring old farts who dream of taking over corporations, or if it’s an S63, entire countries.

As for Porsche owners, each and every journey is a time-attack and there are tenths waiting to be shaved off every commute, even if it’s just to the corner-shop. They are 911 anoraks and they are track-heads who can read telemetry; which is akin to reading music. Impressive, but can you actually play?

American car owners are loud, brash, but good company to share a cold one with, whilst anyone with a flashy supercar is just desperately compensating for something. Which probably means what you think it means, but could also refer to a lack of hair on the pate.

John Steed: Very debonair, but also quite mental!

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Jaguar drivers are charmers that always sport a grin and a twinkle in their eyes, they’re also every-so-slightly barmy, whilst Land Rover people are salt-of-the-earth types – or at least they want to be. And they wear safari shorts. All the time.

Likewise all those driving serious-looking off-roaders believe they are distant relations to Sir Ranulph Fiennes or maybe that dude that drinks his own piss and eats grilled bear – or was that his name?

Those in soft roaders are basically dads resigned to family-ferrying duties, but still trying to be cool. Whereas if they are in People Carriers or Minivans, they’ve just given up altogether and have learnt to ignore the constantly lingering stench of stale kiddie vomit that permeates through the upholstery.

Alternatively, most guys owning small cars are either poor or gay, and that rare breed driving ‘hot hatches’ are just blatantly refusing to grow up. Those with Minis are cheeky chappies who choose their own path and claim they have nothing to prove, except maybe why they spent a fortune on colour-coordinated roof and wing-mirrors.

Dad in a Minivan - you're not cool, and you know it. Stop being pathetic!

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Ciao Bella, baby

What then, is the ultimate cool car? What’s the one ride that will never fail to send out the right impression and be a hit with everyone and especially the ladies?

Oh there is one, and it’s called a Maserati.

Driving a Mazer says you’re not desperate, as you would be if you were in a Ferrari. You’d be behind the wheel of one Europe’s most stylish and sexy cars. It marks you out as a maverick, a man of distinction and uncommon good taste.

Of course you’re also a man constantly on the phone with Roadside Rescue, but hey, at least you look chic and can pretend you’re posing rather than being stranded by the side of the road.

There’s one more thing: a few years back, research by British luxury insurer Hiscox proved that the sound of a Maserati exhaust was the only one that turned all women on, based on measured hormonal activity.

’Nuff said.

9 out of 10 beautiful women said they preferred Maserati owners - allegedly

Now tell us below why I’m totally wrong and what YOU know for a fact really is the coolest car on the planet!