DriveArabia.com launches new car buyer guide

"We realised that there are practically no online car buyer guides on the internet that are tailor-made for this region or provide enough information. People here still continue to purchase cars solely based on word-of-mouth. We decided to change that," said Diago Martins, DriveArabia.com's new Head of Marketing.

Work on the new car buyer guide started at the beginning of the summer. The guide is presently about 65% complete, but it has gone online early since the most popular makes and models have already been covered. Information on the vehicles include a short overview about convenience and safety features, which is then followed by a systematic listing of local price ranges, available engines, performance stats and even fuel economy numbers. All model listings even have a mini review outlining good and bad points about each car. The full guide is expected to be completed by the end of the summer, and will complement the road test section of the website.

"As part of our research, we went through numerous car guides in local auto publications, and realised that most of them are either out of date, inadequate or just downright inaccurate," said the Editor-in-Chief, Mashfique H. Chowdhury. "And people actually have to pay for this stuff. Our guide is completely free and updated on-the-fly."

The new car buyer guide is the latest addition to the growing DriveArabia.com website, after the Middle East's first professional automotive blog, aptly named DriveArabia News & Views, was launched in June this year, providing daily news updates.