Guide Car

Photos by Ulysses Ang

DOHA, QATAR—Shell’s Technical Partnership with Ducati Corse came full circle as both of its riders arrived home in the winner’s circle at the 2015 Qatar MotoGP race at the Losail International Circuit. After snatching pole position, Andrea Dovizioso almost won the race if not for a brave charge by Valentino Rossi. Team mate Andrea Iannone finished in third place.
Continue »

The Car Awards Group, Inc. or CAGI, known for its annual Car of the Year – Philippines and Truck of the Year – Philippines awards has come up with what they hope as a standardized way of measuring fuel economy of vehicles in the Philippines. According to CAGI, simply relying on data provided by overseas entities such as the US’s EPA, Europe’s NEDC, or Japan’s JC08 standards cannot accurately capture pertinent data for two reasons: first, because the models sold in the Philippines may vary from what’s sold in the US, Japan, and Europe; second, because it doesn’t capture driving habits here in the Philippines.
Continue »

2014 is a renaissance of sorts for the Philippine automotive industry. Record-breaking sales (topping north of 200,000 units), tons of events, and a great number of new entrants—for those covering the industry, it’s been a very busy year. Therefore, picking just the top five cars/vehicles of the year isn’t easy, but it’s something we have been doing for the past three years now (2013, 2012, 2011). As always, we don’t break it down into categories or classifications here. This is pretty straight to the point. No bull crap here. There are only two rules to be considered for gukcar.blogspot.com’s Top 5 Picks: first, we should have driven it; second, it must be mainstream (no cars above PHP 4-million).

Now that we’ve put everything in order, let’s get on with gukcar.blogspot.com’s Top 5 Picks of 2014. The list begins, in preferential order, after the break.
Continue »

The MediaCorp Subaru Challenge 2014 came to a dramatic finish, with the Singaporean 50 year-old catering officer, Mr G. Jaishanker emerging as the champion and setting a new Challenge record time of 82 hours and 16 minutes after the runner up, Ms Analiza Binte Mokhtar dropped out.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang

The Mona Lisa is something you admire for the way it looks. Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony is something you admire for the way it sounds. Robuchon’s food is something you admire for the way it tastes. Although these things can move you, the experience is rarely encompassing. In truth, any of these engage just one of the five senses. This is what makes cars special. They are, by nature, a multisensory experience.
Continue »

It seems Ford Philippines is re-defining what ‘premium’ in ‘premium compact crossover’ really means with the all-new 2015 Escape. Available in two variants, the 1.6 SE and 2.0 Titanium, it’s bound to draw comparisons with the best compact crossovers available in the market as of now namely, the Subaru Forester, Mazda CX-5, and Nissan X-Trail.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang

The Toyota Road Trek is the annual event where Toyota Motor Philippines brings us members of the motoring media on a ride-and-drive activity that takes us all around the country. Every year, it’s an excuse to take off the serious hat and put on something a tad sillier. This year though, they’ve ramped things up a notch and not in the physical sense. This year, Road Trek welcomes the world of social media.
Continue »

Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc. (HARI) strengthens its presence in the country by inaugurating its new Hyundai Logistics Center (HLC), a new and state-of-the-art facility that’s the first green-certified vehicle logistics hub in the Philippines. In addition, the Hyundai Logistics Center is reflective of Hyundai Motor Company’s new Modern Premium brand identity and a proof of its commitment to sustainable motoring.
Continue »

Editor’s Note: If you want to check out the full launch story, click here. For the ASEAN launch story, click here. Philippine specs, model variants, and prices here.

You’ve seen the all-new 2015 Ford Everest. Now let these handy “cheat sheets” help you out. These series of factoids, produced by Ford serves as a handy chart to see why the Everest is bound to re-write the SUV rulebook when it finally hits Manila and the rest of ASEAN soon. It’s pretty extensive covering its heritage, safety technology, exterior and interior design, and a whole lot more.
Continue »

The original hot hatch is finally here: the 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI. Although the GTI nameplate has been around for a while in Europe, it’s the relative new comer here in the Philippines. In this match up, the Golf GTI is pitted against the Filipino favorites: Subaru WRX, MINI Cooper S, and the Toyota 86.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang and Porsche Philippines Press

Porsche is a name now eponymous with style and speed. Throughout the decades, the dream makers in Stuttgart have come up with objects of desire. But for all the talk about their design and brevity, there’s one thing that ties all of them together: engineering. At the core of every 911, every Cayenne, every Panamera lies precision work making them feel like they’ve been cut from the same piece of cloth—a cloth dipped in both heritage and tradition, in ingenuity and cleverness.
Continue »

How does a vacuum story exactly fit in the automotive world? Well, if you’re as obsessive in keeping your car as spic-and-span as me, then a proper portable vacuum for the car is in order. Here comes the Dyson DC62 cordless portable vacuum.
Continue »

Re-invigorating the stagnant Thai automotive industry, Inter-Media Consultant Co., Ltd. has formally opened the doors to the 31st Thailand Motor Expo at the Impact Challenger Convention Center in Muang Thong Thani, Bangkok. The show brings the biggest brands and names together showcasing the capability and readiness of Thailand to maintain its status as ASEAN’s main automotive hub.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang

PGA Cars, Inc., the Philippines’s exclusive distributor of some of the finest high-end automobiles in the country showcased the best that they had to offer at The World of Super Cars held at the SMX Convention Center. Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley all had their latest offerings on display as well as some iconic ones for the public to see up close for the first time.
Continue »

Who says crossovers can’t handle a real-life off-road trail? Subaru just proved naysayers wrong when they brought bone stock Foresters, in both turbo and non-turbo trims, to the first-ever X-Mode drive that brought their compact crossovers from  San Juan to through some rough terrain eventually ending up at the Daraitan River in Tanay, Rizal.
Continue »

Editor's Note: here is the full launch story of the Honda HR-V.

The small crossover segment battle is heating up with the entry of the Honda HR-V. But just how does it stack up against its similarly sized (and priced) rivals, the Mitsubishi ASX and Subaru XV? Well, this is your chance to play trump cards. In this round, we decided to pit the top-of-the-line models against each other to give you a better idea of their specs vis-à-vis their rivals.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang

It was an unequivocal show of strength for Toyota Motor Philippines as the country’s number one automotive company shared the waku-doki spirit to racing enthusiasts down south. Last May 16 to 17, Toyota successfully staged Second Leg (Race 3 and 4) of the 2015 Vios Cup.
Continue »

Growing up on a steady diet of Car and Driver, Road and Track, and Automobile Magazine, the typical Filipino car enthusiast will probably not know what to make of Peugeot. After all, it’s mostly a European-only affair since the 1990’s. Hence, when it arrived here back in early 2000’s and remerged once again a few years back, the brand recall, admittedly, wasn’t so great. It didn’t help that Filipinos had a hard time pronouncing the name thanks to the lengthy string of vowels. Imagine, therefore, the mountain for its distributor to climb just to get recognition in the sea of growing upscale Japanese and American brands, and new entry-level European brands.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang and Porsche Press

On the moon. At the north pole. In the deepest jungle. There isn’t a place where someone hasn’t already been and opened up new territory, raised the flag, and written history. You can follow their example or leave your own tracks. For Porsche, the answer has always been obvious: it’s in the company DNA to take new routes which question what was once cast in stone. Where others give up, that’s where their engineers begin. The all-new 911 Turbo S and 911 GT3 are testaments to engineering a tradition, a tradition of leaving the beaten path.
Continue »

Photos by Ulysses Ang

Should you find yourself with a free day in Tokyo, try one of Tokyo’s little-known gems for car aficionados and Subaru enthusiasts – the STI Gallery. Located just 30 minutes away by train from Tokyo, the STI Gallery is part of the Tokyo Subaru/Car Do, a super Subaru dealership which houses the head office in Tokyo as well as the products and activities of the Subaru racing unit in Mitaka.
Continue »