Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

Some of these will come to pass, yet others will remain firmly within Shahzad’s vividly absurd imagination

By Shahzad Sheikh

On the cusp of moving from 2015 to 2016 – where the flipping heck did the year go?! – I’m gazing hard at my Crystal Balls and delving into the murky depths of an uncertain future. I’m trying to make sense of a rapidly changing automotive landscape.

We could be standing on the precipice of doom for the industry as it tackles diminishing sales in the face of struggling economies, and an apathetic youth, who’d rather Snapchat than drive anywhere.

Or we could be about to witness its finest hour, as the future arrives with the most radical shift to alternative and new technology since the last time a boiler blew up in a steam car. And there could be a further relinquishing of reigns to artificial intelligence as we get another step closer to HAL 9000 refusing to take us to Dubai Mall.

Frankly I don’t really know what the future holds. But I can pretend. So here are my 10 Motoring Predictions for 2016, some educated and properly thought through; others wildly whimsical because, hey, you lot will believe anything you read on the internet these days!

[MME Disclaimer: We do not stand by or condone the thoughts and actions of Shahzad Sheikh – he’s been hitting the lassi rather hard this Christmas!]

1.  Hybrids, Turbos and 2.0-liter four-cylinder engines will rule

Begone big blocks, vamoose you V8s and head for the history books you wheezing, belching, gulping naturally aspirated dinosaurs! We love you, we’re addicted to you, but we’ve gotta to go cold turkey if we’re to save the planet and – more importantly – money.

You may not want to believe it or hear it, but I reckon 2016 will be the Year of the Hybrids in the Middle East; when these celeb-adored electrified fuel-sippers will finally come of age in our gas-gobbling region.

‘But fuel prices are coming down,’ you say, ‘and hybrids are expensive, how will this come to pass?’ you ask.

Because Saudi CAFE innit? No yaar, we’re not talking about somewhere to get a stiff cup of Qahwah or a Karak, but the Saudi Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard which kicks in on 1 January 2016 and applies to passenger cars imported into KSA.

Until 2025, Saudi’s aim is to reduce the overall average fuel economy of light vehicles by 4% a year (there are estimated to be 12 million vehicles in the Kingdom slurping 811,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel per day). Present average fuel consumption is 12km per litre, this has to improve to 19km per litre within the next decade.

Saudi is the GCC’s biggest single car market, therefore manufacturers all have to bring in and sell more economical cars in order to bring down their overall average fuel consumption and not risk getting blacklisted there.

This means more efficient smaller engines, the rise of the 2.0-litre four-pots and the largest proliferation of Turbos since we all had red badges on the back of our hatchbacks in the 1980s.

Dunno where that leaves supercar makers, maybe they’ll fall outside the definition of ‘light passenger vehicles’ or maybe what’s left of them will also be shipped over to Knightsbridge and London will witness its first supercar gridlock in 2016! Or maybe the BMW i8 will become the best selling sports car in Saudi.

For the rest of us, prepare to be Priused! On the plus side, this could incentivise the Apple of the car world, Tesla, to set up shop here officially and we can all go electric (not that that actually helps the environment, but that’s a discourse for another time).

2.  VAG will sell Lamborghini

Yes, well there’s been all that unpleasant business over in the US involving Volkswagen; you know, all that kerfuffle over something to do with diesels and being caught cheating etc – fortunately none of it really applies to our region as we don’t do the sooty stuff. But the long and short of it is that ‘Dieselgate,’ as it’s been dubbed, could end up costing Volkswagen up to $35 billion in fines, settlements, reparations and compensation according to Forbes.

Having said that, VW Group which includes about a dozen brands is constantly trading places with Toyota and GM as the world’s biggest car maker, so it’s not poor. However, if it has to tighten its belt, it might have to drop a few assets that are not core to its business.

So let’s see now, there’s SEAT and Skoda (the former actually loses money) but then who would want to buy them? VAG also owns superbike manufacturer Ducati and that’s certainly a sexy nameplate to divest. Besides it only bought that to spite Mercedes which was doing a tie-up with Ducati at the time. So that could go.

But I personally think the highest profile sell-off will be Lamborghini. Think about it – VAG already owns sports and supercar makers Porsche and Bugatti (plus Audi makes the R8 which is a better Huracan than the Huracan).

Porsche makes tons of money off Cayennes (and anyway VAG would NEVER sell it!) and Bugatti loses so much money on each car that nobody would ever buy it! Besides it is a pet project of former Chariman, and industry Godfather, Ferdinand Piëch, who may have been dramatically ousted earlier in the year, but is said to be back behind the scenes at VW in the wake of Dieselgate.

Most tellingly, the charismatically cool boss of Lamborghini, Stephen Winkelmann, who has steered the Italian exoticar brand to such commercial success, is reported to be moving to Audi to head up the Quattro brand. To me that seems like VAG wanting to keep one of its golden boys in the fold before it lets go of Lambo. You heard it here first folks!

BONUS PREDICTION – Lamborghini will be bought by Mahindra Group of India, as it has also just bought Pininfarina design. The legendary Italian design house is famous for its association with Ferrari, so this could see a fascinating new direction for Lambo design.

3.  Deadly Diesels are Done!

Talking of diesel, which we were previously all told would be the saviour of the car industry, the planet and our meagre finances, it has rather turned out to be quite the opposite. And not just because of the VW scandal.

Having finally convinced most of Europe to switch to diesel cars to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, authorities are now discouraging the use of the oil-burners. Why? Turns out diesels are flooding the air with harmful pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, which can cause serious respiratory problems. According to one study alone, emissions from diesels could be responsible for as many as 60,000 deaths a year in the UK!

In one experiment, Paris banned cars from the city’s central areas on 27 September – bear in mind that 80% of cars there are diesels. Pollution had grown so bad that the Eiffel Tower couldn’t be seen anymore – which kinda sucks when that’s your biggest tourist attraction. So on that day only residents’ cars, taxis and buses were allowed and they were restricted to just 20kph.

The difference was dramatic. Smog-free and clear, people frolicked in the streets, children played, birds tweeted their delight, and Cupid was heard to remark how it was the first time in years that he was hitting the right targets in the fabled City of Romance… Even the cheese smelt better.

Yeah, I might have made some of that up, but you get the idea.

So if you’ve ever moaned about why we don’t get diesel cars in the region, actually be thankful that we don’t!

4.  The UAE will start making cars

The UAE actually already does make vehicles, but it’s all very secret and hush-hush – you don’t know about it because they’re military vehicles that look like a cross between a tank and the old Humvee.

But there’s also the W Motors Lykan supercar from the Fast and Furious 7 movie (the one that can hop from building to building in Abu Dhabi and is light enough for Vin Diesel to lift – or he’s somehow developed superpowers between movies 1 and 7!).

Similarly along the lines of the low-volume Lykan, 2016 should see the start of production of the UAE Roadster – a track-focussed sports car; and the Zarooq Motors Sand Racer, an off-road/on-road sports coupe that could also see the creation of a one-make sand racing series. More info about that at this link.

Plus, as crazy and as unrealistic as it may seem, we can’t help but hope that Devel Sixteen project shown two years ago at the Dubai Motor Show, purporting to be a 5000bhp V16 Veyron-slayer, might actually see some kind of realisation in 2016.

Particularly as we hear rumours of an actual V16 engine being developed in America for the car right now. Apparently it runs on freshly born kittens, belches out cyanide and causes a slight shift in the space-time continuum every time it hits the limiter.

We don’t care though, we still want it to exist. It would be like the Flash Gordon of the car world. Outrageously over the top, totally unbelievable and utterly brilliant!

5.  We’ll see the world’s fastest production SUV

It’s all but confirmed, Jeep is pinching the awesome 6.2-litre HEMI V8 Hellcat engine producing over 707bhp from Dodge, and dropping it into the Jeep Grand Cherokee to create the mother of all fast SUVs.

AMG Mercs will melt their tyres, X5/X6 Ms will turn in their M badges, Cayenne Turbos will go jump on a Ferry, and Rangie SVRs will run and hide in the Tower of London, when the Darth Vader of the SUV world rumbles into town.

With four-wheel drive and a more modern chassis, don’t be surprised if the Jeep actually out-drags and out-corners even its Challenger and Charger siblings.

This will be Warp-speed travel for your family in the most badass 4×4 to be found this side of Fury Road. This proposition makes no sense, there’s no need for it to exist, it should and must fall foul of every law of man and nature, and you should be immediately locked aware for even thinking of it, never mind have wet dreams about it.

I haven’t seen the so-called Track Hawk, let alone driven one yet, but I want one. A lot.

6.  Mercedes will buy Aston Martin

Actually Mercedes has repeatedly denied that it will buy Aston Martin, despite owning 5% of the trouble British sports and supercar maker, and Merc-AMG signing a technical deal with the company to provide electronics and potentially engines going forward.

However Aston Martin absolutely needs to be bought out by a major player. It’s an iconic and sensational British brand that is frankly wallowing in its own past glories and cashing in on the Bond affiliation as much as possible. Although frankly even 007 won’t tolerate the new cars for long and keeps going back to the classic 1964 DB5.

The legendary marque deserves better, but it simply can’t be allowed to constantly get away with its same old policy of churning out tracing-paper designs, planted on fundamentally the same chassis since the Pierce Brosnan’s Vanquish of 2001. Keeping your fingers crossed behind your back and hoping no one will notice is not a good business strategy.

Aston’s still looks utterly gorgeous and sexy from afar, but then they fall apart in every sense of the word up close and should you dare drive them. Big investment is needed to make them worthy of superspies again.

Mercedes would be my preferred choice of owner – it is making some stunningly solid performance cars right now (AMG GT S being case in point). However truth be told, it seems more likely that it will be bought by another car maker starting with the letter ‘M’. Mahindra.

So if my first prediction fails, the second part of it is that it will go to the Indians where it’ll share platforms and technology with Lamborghini, which we’ve already decided Mahindra will also buy (see above). So Bond’s next company car will be a mid-engined beast with an Italian V12 and… wings! Yeah, WINGS! Bring it Q!

7.  We’ll still be predicting the advent of the Chinese – and getting it wrong

I remember back in 1999, working on an automotive publication in the UK, talking about, and indeed strategising for, the inclusion of Chinese cars in our listings. At the time the logic went as follows: it took the Japanese about 20 years to gain international credibility for its cars; it took the Koreans half that time; so we were expecting the Chinese to flood the market with great cheap cars by 2004.

We’re still waiting. That particular prediction was a bit wrong. Oi Twaddi!

Yes, okay there are Chinese brands here in the Middle East, and they have taken a large slice of the commercial vehicles sector, with some segue into the company fleets and rental sector too. But that’s it.

Despite how cheap they are, private punters still aren’t buying them. Tell me, do you know ANYONE that has gone out and bought one with their own money? [If you do, report them at once, they need help.]

Why has China failed to Takeaway our traditional car buying habits? [Sorry about that]

Well there are several reasons, of which the stigma of owning a Chinese car is only one small contributor. Other causes could include a poor, virtually non-existent, grasp of automotive PR and marketing. Plus dealers would have shoulder part of the blame.

But after giving it a great deal of thought and consideration, I think there is a still bigger, more fundamental reason for the failure of Chinese cars to make serious headway into the mainstream consumer market.

The cars are crap.

Nothing about them appeals in the slightest bit, and there are still serious doubts about safety, quality and reliability. The Chinese industry is too fragmented and to focussed on copying other car makers, rather than actually developing their own products from the inside out.

No matter how cheap a car, you will not buy it if you don’t feel you can depend on it.

8.  1980s cars are the Classics to put your money in

This is where I’m going to help you make tons of money! Or cause you to lose all your savings.

[MME Disclaimer Addendum: we will not accept any liability or responsibility for poor investment decisions you may make on the basis of this rambling nonsense!]

If you want to invest in classic cars with a view to seeing your money grow, forget vintage windups, stop dreaming of 50s European exotics that are way out of your league, and even walk past the usually safe-bet 60s and 70s muscle cars, as they’ve already had their day and values will start to plateau in 2016 I reckon.

Instead snap up anything that you can find from the 1980s that’s survived in good condition or, even better, actually been restored. And I don’t just mean super sexy metal like Ferrari Testarossas and Lamborghini Countachs, but even your everyday stuff.

Imagine if you could find collectable examples of a 1980s Mercedes S-Class, an early Lexus LS400, a Caprice Classic, even an old Corolla or Cressida. How about a Datsun Laurel? And then there’s things like Supras, Preludes, the Z cars, the old Trans Ams and Camaros. Think of the Jaguar XJS (I do, rather a lot actually), or even XJ. And if you can find a nice BMW E30 325i, don’t let it go, fight over it if you have to!

You see? Suddenly these old cars which some of us… okay just me… lusted after when we were younger, are moving into classic status. Unfortunately most have been subjected to the ravages of time and hard use, and the desirable stuff has mostly been race, rallied, modified and mostly messed with and ruined. So finding original, well look-after or affordably restorable examples is very hard.

Ergo if you do find one, it’s immediately a thing of value. Get it, look after it, keep it safe. Mark my words. You’ll thank me for this tip! [Send all 15% share of the profits to MME@MotoringME.com].

9.  The Rise of the Robots – or just semi-autonomous cars

Google has a car that can drive itself. A Mercedes S-Class with its existing sensors was shown to be able complete a long journey without human interference. Most manufacturers are testing cars right now that to a greater or lesser extent, can fully operate themselves.

The era of the autonomous cars is not yet upon us. But it is close. I actually predict that within 20 years driving will be banned as it is deemed too dangerous an activity for mere stupid humans to engage in (I even wrote a story about it which you read here).

I further believe that within 10 years, maybe as soon as five, fully autonomous cars, that is vehicles that can entirely take over the driving duties from the driver, will be available to buy. Then there will then be a transitional period of weaning us off driving altogether and getting us to develop a trust and appreciation for letting artificial intelligence take over.

Much sooner than that though, as in 2016, will see the growth of semi-autonomous cars. We already got them to some extent in 2015. Many of your cars have parking assist systems – you know, where you just manage the accelerator and brake and the car handles the steering for those tricky parallel parking manoeuvres?

Well BMW has gone a step further with its latest 7 Series. Now you can simply get out of the car and instruct it, by remote from the key fob, a bit like Piece Brosnan’s James Bond, to park itself.

We also already have lane-keeping assist functions and active radar cruise control on today’s cars. It is actually possible to go quite a distance without touching the steering wheel or the brake and accelerator in some of the latest cars equipped with these systems. Allegedly.  And not that I would recommend ever trying it.

Now Tesla has showcased ‘Autopilot’ where you can in fact hand over driving duties on a long highway journey to the car and let it manage things for you. I predict we’ll see a lot more ‘driver’s aids’ like this in next year’s cars. Be ready to have arguments with your car!

If this terrifies and depresses you, then stick with us on MME as we’ll be ranting, rallying and raving against the onslaught of robot cars for as long as we can. But this is an argument that we will ultimately lose. Autonomous cars are inevitable.

So er… Oops!

That was only Nine predictions wasn’t it?

See? I even got THAT wrong!

Tell you what, why don’t you give us the Tenth prediction in the Comments section below.

See you in 2016!