Ten top stories on MotoringME.com in 2012
Looking at our web traffic stats for this year, these have been our most popular stories of 2012
By Shahzad Sheikh
[UPDATE – These are the top 5 most viewed videos, reviews and stories we did in 2014 on Motoring Middle East]
[UPDATE – check out our Top 21 Stories of 2013 here!]
Spectacular colour-coordinated sights were to be seen at the Sharjah Motor Show this year
1. Sharjah Motor Show 28 Nov-1 Dec 2012
Our roundup from this year’s Sharjah Motor was a story posted late in the year, but quickly rocketed up to become the most visited story on the website with twice as many views as the next biggest story…
Cheap and cheerful and not even 4WD, but it’s dusting up in the market
2. 2012 Renault Duster 4×2 PE Review
Somewhat to our surprise the most popular review of the year on our website is that of the humble Renault Duster. But since we’re seeing so many of them on the road now, we can only surmise the review has had something of an impact in the market!
Meet the mighty Monsta-mobiles. Which would you take on the school run?
3. 2012 Mercedes ML 63 AMG vs Jeep GC SRT8
This story on the other hand didn’t take us by surprise at all. We love SUVs in this region, and we love muscle even more. Put those components together and we have a couple of monster motors. These ‘five-second’ SUVs are awesome beasts and it seems you loved reading about them as much as we loved driving them!
1500bhp combined – the earth certainly shook for us that day!
4. Dodge Charger SRT8 vs BMW M5 vs Jaguar XFR
More muscle x three! Our trio of sensational super saloons, squared up to each other and clearly had you salivating as much they had us grinning inanely. And talk about ‘Bang for your bucks’? How about over 1500bhp on a single page? Imagine what that felt like on a single road! [We never mentioned in the story that there may have been a little unofficial drag-race style runs on the day – which do you think was quickest off the line?]
Hello there? What are you doing here so far from home, eh?
This was a bit of a fluke. Loitering near the Trading Enterprises service centre, we happened upon the only two Dodge Darts in the Middle East. We subsequently hounded the engineers putting them through a test and development programme until we managed to make off with one in our exclusive drive: MME EXCLUSIVE – 2013 Dodge Dart
Amazing car, beautiful country, and one of the best car launches of the year!
The second most popular single car review is my drive of the all-new Range Rover in Morocco at its international launch – and I only posted that last month! Makes perfect sense though, the new Range Rover is an extraordinary piece of engineering and an instant hit in our region.
He hasn’t gone and chopped in the G65 AMG for this has he? No he hasn’t actually
7. World’s first 2013 Range Rover delivery to Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed
And the seventh most popular story on the website, perfectly follows the sixth by being this news item about our very own Top Man, Sheikh Mo taking delivery of the first new Range Rover in the world. We might just add though that the very next day he was seen back in the trusty Dubai 1-plated Mercedes G-Wagon!
Our Mega-Meet was Massive in every way! You don’t see many events like this in the region
8. Preview: Meet 12 – Sept 14, Dubai Festival City
It’s not surprising so many of you checked out this page, because even more of you (many, many more) turned up at our 12th Meet in September. It was a Mega-Meet with over 700 cars and bikes and thousands of people. The biggest so far by a long shot, it also marked the first anniversary of MME, and we were touched and overwhelmed by your support. What an amazing day that was. Read the report here: Review: Monster Meet 12 at Dubai Festival City
We found a home not only for one of these, but quite a few more. Our unofficial Car of the Year!
9. 2012 Toyota 86 – The Definitive Review
The 86 is a game-changer for Toyota, and a trend-setter for everyone else. It’s our unofficial car of the year, and one that the whole team unanimously fell in love with. So much so that one of us bought one! That story is actually number 11th in this lineup: 2013 Toyota 86 Part 1: The Deal
The Scirocco R is one hot little number – does it get your pulse racing?
10. 2012 Volkswagen Scirocco R
But rounding off the top-ten stories of the year, is another hot little number, our review of the Volkswagen Scirocco R. Somewhat baffling this one, as it’s not a hugely popular car here, as the cult of Scirocco never really existed in the region. Nonetheless, you seem to enjoy reading about it, or at least looking at our pictures!
Thanks so much for visiting the website – please do keep coming back, use the comments sections to tell us what you think of our stories and if you like what we do, share the pages and tell all your friends!
And tell us what your favourite MME stories of the year were below…
E-ON is the best car because of i have E-ONE