Getting a 'new' car is always an exciting time that, for most of us, doesn't come around too often. When I found out that my time with company lease cars was coming to an end, the search was on for my next ride.

After searching through many different van and wagon options, a friend gave me a tip off that he had started seeing early Nissan Cubes hanging around on 1 or 2 dealer yards.

The Cube would not have even be on my radar as they have never been available here in Australia, or had I ever seen one in the flesh here or anywhere else. A little digging and lo and behold, compliance was completed a few months ago and since sometime close to Christmas the '02-'06 Cubes have been making their square little way in to the country.

After a quick look at one (this one) at a dealer, I was hooked and decided that it would be the perfect Fuel Magazine vehicle. So here it is, my new toy, in all it's cutesy metallic blue glory.

More info on this one as we get to know one another....

Luke.

After 17 hours in the car, 3 hours of that on tricky dirt roads, we somehow made it back home after the epic trip from the salt flats of Lake Gairdner in South Australia.

I still have the best part part of 1000 photos to go through, but here are a couple that were right at the end of the trip.

After a few of great days of hard racing, I rounded up a couple of the coolest cars out there for the obligatory sunset shots. These photos by no means represent the incredible activity and buzz of this truly spectacular occasion, but they stick out in my memory as a fitting end to a memorable trip.

More soon.

Luke.

Picture the scene, it's around 10pm in the local football stadium car park and i'm sitting having tea with around 20 influential Qatari men, all of them with one common passion (apart from their families) their love of classic cars. Brilliant!

And their cars... 60s Firebirds, a 58 Thunderbird, a 70s Stingway, completely mad vettes, various stock & custom trucks, a brace of Datson 280z's, and my personal favorite the early 70s Mini 1275 GT.

Take the JUMP for the pics....

Leigh

The gang from Lap57 are out in the Chevrolet V8 Supercars this weekend in Bahrain supporting the first race of the 2010 F1 Season. We wish the drivers and the team well and will be bringing you results and pictures from behind the scenes in the coming days.

Phil

Welcome back Formula1!! I woke up this morning a happy man and sat in front of my Mac, fired up the little program that makes bbc.co.uk work for me and kicked back.

2010 is going to be the most exciting season in a long time and rather gladly the controversy has started already. Ingenuity and engineering uber skills from the unsung hero's in Mclaren have really thrown the team owners into a tizz. I'm not going to try to explain what they have done, as I am far from qualified to do so, but suffice to say it is a great idea and only time will tell whether it's hit the spot.

To capture that moment and the intrigue it has caused, you have to love this great picture taken by getty...Says it all really!

Phil

Truly epic stretches of tarmac are few and far between in this part of the world, there are some – but you have to really look hard for them. We first found the Salalah hairpins during an idle afternoon zooming around the region on Google Earth.

In a vast expanse of nothingness, they caught our interest. And though they looked impressive from a bird’s eye view, they’re even better when you’re down on the ground driving on them.

Two lines of smooth tarmac cut their way deep into the countryside with a sheer rockface on one side of you and a significant drop on the other. It looked so enticing that we drove for two days to get there in a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

It’s a fair old slog – Salalah is 1300km away from the UAE border in the very bottom corner of Oman. But with a milder climate and plenty to see in the area it’s certainly worth the trip down.

GPS Co-ordinates: 16°45’ 00”N 53°13’ 20”E

Tom Bird
www.carmiddleeast.com

It holds the slot as the poster child of the new generation...the kind of car that as a kid you dream of and as a man you still dream. Unless your one of the lucky few around the world that is..

Just in case you are unaware of what this car is, the R is the current Zonda F model's final edition as such now that the all new model from Pagani is on the way. The "R" features a 750bhp 6.0 V12 built by AMG and weighs in a faintly ridiculous 1,070kgs.

Pagani are saying that 80% of the Zonda's components have been redesigned for the "R" version, and 16 examples were originally scheduled to be built, based on an original concept of an existing customer who wanted the ultimate track car...not bad if you can afford it at a cost of well over £1 Million Euro a pop.

Phil

CrankandPiston Racing // Rd5 // UAE Touring Cars from crankandpiston on Vimeo.

The Crankandpiston.com Golf GTI had a fine day out on the track during Round 5 of the ever burgeoning UAE Touring Car Championship. The headline grabber being the VW GTi's first Class 1 podium finish as Phil, team C+P (Pops) and the Gulf-Sport crew grabbed a well deserved P3 during the second Touring Car race of the weekend.

First blood for Project GTI then! More importantly though, the Crankandpiston.com GTi car was back on the track for the first time after suffering a shunt during Round 4 which necessitated a full strip down and some hardwork on behalf of our sponsor Polimar Motors who well and truly pulled out all the stops to get the car to it's usual superbly presented look. We were right up to the wire and we only received the car the morning of the test day!

After a full check and set-up during the morning sessions, Andy Knight at Gulf-Sport had the car running beautifully and I was able to get the car lapping at its best pace ever throughout the day with zero issues. We where just a second behind the first of the top SEATs and a good margin ahead of the monster Honda's in Class 2.

Impressive show then, considering that unlike the ready-to-race factory built SEAT's, this particular car is very much a one-off, locally-built machine which wasn't much more than a flickering figment of my imagination less that 18 months ago. We are very happy that the Crankandpiston.com GTi is now showing the potential that we knew was there, not only that we are confident that there is more to come as the car gets truly dialled in.

p.s - excuse the miss shifts at the start...god only knows what was going on there!!

Spotted recently in Doha, the 'must have' accessory for every eco-warrior Segway owner... a Mercedes GL 550???

Leigh

In the past I'd never really been a big fan of Mercedes. They kinda drifted along in my mind as the big German Stuttgart taxi wagon that I either got collected from Munich Airport in or my mates parents drove. However over the last couple of years they seem to have really put their game face on and started producing some pretty heavy and hardcore machinery.

Now the sweeping statement I just made above clearly doesn't and didn't stand for some of the beauties that popped up along the way, however getting all hot under the collar for a W124 (84-95) should have been a thought that would never see the light of day. That all changed six months ago when I started looking into a certain Mercedes, by the name of the W124 500e.

Mercedes Benz 500e, which would you believe, was created in close cooperation with Porsche. Each 500e was hand-built by Porsche and in modern terms the production method was some what lethargic. Each car being transported back and forth between the Mercedes plant and Porsche's Rossle-Bau plant in Zuffenhausen during assembly and taking a rather monumental 18 days to complete each model.

I whipped the next bit off the net however stats speak louder than words and I couldn't say it better myself. The 500 was called the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" by the press of the time and performance tests of the day yielded impressive results: 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) times of 5.5 to 6.0 seconds and acceleration through the quarter-mile (0.4 km) in 14.1 seconds at 163 km/h (101 mph).

Now I was sold so much on one of these bad boys that I stepped up to the plate and bought one...Mine needs a bit of love and will recieve it as the months go by, so in the mean time enjoy this beaut!

Click for more pics of this awesome saloon car that is either not known or ignored!

The legend that is RUF rocked up to the Geneva Motorshow with news that it is to make its own bespoke V8 engine for the next generation of its 911-based RGT model.

The all new in house designed features a flat-crank, dry-sump, 4.5-litre naturally aspirated V8. This monster new engine will develop 542bhp at 8500rpm and 369lb ft at 5400rpm. And, before you say the V8 will screw with the perfect balance of the 911 you might want to take note that it will be weighing in at less than 200kg...not a bad job I think you will agree!

I for one can't wait to get my hands on this one.

Phil

I feel a million miles away from what makes me tick when I see pictures like this. A country buggy (look it up), type3 notch back (again...look it up) and a Ghia all looking completely awesome on their highly detailed Porsche Fuchs wheels and slammed to the floor. Useless and completely awful to drive but awesome on every level.

We will be bring you bits and bobs from the Yard of Evil Ben's as and when it hits us.

Phil

We brought you a couple of these stories at the back end of the Middle Eastern summer last year and thanks to the skills of Jaime Lipman and the guys at carmiddleeast.com we bring you some more to enjoy.

There is nothing like the oddity created by GCC Nationals and their ponchant for shipping their uber toys around the world during their summer holidays. I say summer holidays however its more a case of Summer escape, getting themselves as far away from the Middle Eastern summer heat as possible.

So armed with Jaime's GPS equipped phone and some hear say and experience based on Internet chatter the crack team hit the streets of London.

Click on and enjoy some more of Jaime's pics...

Thanks to jalopnik.com I came across this rather humerous picture of ex F1 Driver and King of the Chin's, David Coulthard ripping it up in a KAMAZ-4326.

It must be hard to be a retired Formula One driver.....

The KAMAZ-4326 is a 4x4 Diesel-powered truck designed to haul cargo to remote, hard to reach areas. Kamaz says it can operate in any environment, functioning reliably anywhere from -22 degrees to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Kamaz won the truck class in the 2010 Dakar...Not surprisingly really!

Phil

I'm a HUGE fan of Redline Time Attack in the US and would dearly love for it to become a feature on the UAE's Motorsport Calendar. One of the super heavy hitters in the US series is AMS Performance with their super sexy and very delectable Mitsubishi EVO X which seems to have run faster and harder than most of the cars throughout the year to a point where they grabbed the Unlimited AWD Championship! Considering the effort and the workmanship that went into the car I almost expected it would happen.

Turn it up...revel in the sense of speed and enjoy.

Phil

In that eternal search for anything motorsport related here in Qatar, I came across this small fledgling series that's ran at the local Losail International Circuit. The series is very similar to the original tin-top races held at the Autodrome a few years back when just a handful of like minded petrolheads raced just for the fun of it.

The series is based on two classes of cars either modified or stock with the race is run over 10 laps. Various machinery shows up, like an insane locally modified GTR through to a pretty looking stock Lotus Elise. Unfortunately I just missed the last race, so i'll try and catch the action for the next one at the end of the month.

Leigh

2010 is the year that GT racing becomes truly global with the launch of the FIA GT1 World Championship. Twelve teams, with a total of twenty four cars representing six brands and driven by forty eight of the world’s leading sportscar drivers will compete in twenty races on ten of the leading circuits on four continents. The championship will feature the most iconic and inspirational sportscar marques in the world including Aston Martin, Corvette, Ford, Lamborghini, Maserati and Nissan.

The FIA GT1 World Championship will visit some of the world’s most legendary and iconic circuits. The season starts in the United Arab Emirates in April on the F1 circuit at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi. The European leg of the championship starts on another Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone in the UK where the drivers will be the first to race on the new ‘Arena’ circuit and compete for the world famous Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy.

The next round is held in Eastern Europe at Brno in the Czech Republic before heading to the Paul Ricard HTTT in the South of France. At the end of July, the FIA GT1 World Championship will race on another world famous Grand Prix circuit with two 60-minute races at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, before the 24 Hours of Spa. Round 6 will be held at the end of August at the Nürburgring in Germany, with the final European round held in September in the Algarve, Portugal.

The Championship then heads to the southern hemisphere with Round 8 in South Africa on the streets of Durban. The final two rounds will take place in South America with Round 9 at Interlagos in Brazil before the finale of the inaugural FIA GT1 World Championship season takes place in Argentina on the majestic San Luis circuit in December.

Overall, the new FIA GT1 World Championship will be ground-breaking, truly global, prestigious, and technically innovative; ushering in a new era for sportscar racing.

There is something oh so right about this picture...The car, the composition and scene and of course that insane looking turbo poking out of the bonnet...I can almost hear the noise it would make.

Phil

The word on the street and the internet gossip forums is that the awesomely successful and gorgeous Khaleji Motorsport GT2 Ferrari F430 GTC has been given the nod to run in an Invitational Class in the UAE GT Championship.

The big question now is how many cars will appear in that wing mirror and for how long?!

Boys, can you clarify?

Phil