I have been driving in the UAE for a year now, and still get into the car every day knowing I need my wits about me.
Getting on the road here was an achievement for me – the driving culture is unlike anything I’ve experienced. The challenge was heightened by the fact that for the past 20 years I’ve been driving on the opposite side of the road in Australia. I got my driver’s licence at 16; by 36, I thought I’d have been well and truly over the stress of learning to drive – that was until I moved to Abu Dhabi.
Even now, if I have my mind on other things, I go to the right-hand side of the car, before realising, with a chuckle, that it’s left-hand drive.
Fortunately, I haven’t had any major dramas so far, apart from a disagreement with a parking barrier, and I hope this record stays intact. I’ve experienced tailgaters, encroaching-on-my-lane changers, and the horns. And because I’m driving a Chevrolet Cruze, I’ve got used to the fact that I don’t seem to exist on the road, particularly among the Patrols, Hummers and Mercedes off-roaders that seem to own it.
Twelve months in, I’m relatively comfortable, but I won’t be heading out to buy a supercar like the ones that saturate the roads here. My car just needs to get me from A to B – it doesn’t need to be flashy, just reliable and practical. At least that was my mantra until recently, when I was given the opportunity to drive a Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II as part of a ladies’ driving event, where I found myself behind the wheels of two bespoke models during a 560km overnight round trip to the Rub Al Khali desert.
Not having been in anything this luxurious before, I was excited and nervous. When asked if I wanted to hop straight in and drive, I blurted out: “Now? Really? No, I think I’ll wait.” I couldn’t afford to tarnish my UAE driving record with a ding in a million-dirham Rolls-Royce, and definitely not right outside my office.
Once we were out of the city, I slid into the driver’s seat. It was a rocky start. “How do I turn the engine on?” I asked naively, to which the PR replied: “It’s on.” That was the first sign this drive was going to be the smoothest I’d ever had; so smooth that I was forced to watch the speed constantly. The more comfortable I got out on the open road, the more the speed increased without me realising, as we headed towards Anantara’s Qasr Al Sarab desert resort, our stop for the night. Considering I was a new Rolls driver, I couldn’t find much to fault about the car. And it was near impossible to pick a standout feature. The leather seats and trim were beautiful, as was the shiny wood veneer on the dash, and the 18 individually tuned speakers made playing music a sensory pleasure. At nightfall, I was “star-struck”, when the flick of a switch lit up thousands of tiny fibre-optic lamps handwoven into the roof lining. They began twinkling down on me like diamonds in the sky.
While this was nice, I suspect car aficionados would be more impressed by the twin-turbo, 6.6L, V12 engine, which can take the Ghost from 0 to 100kph in five seconds; and a satellite-aided gearbox, which uses GPS to read the road ahead, and alters the transmission accordingly.
The brand’s chief executive, Torsten Muller-Otvos, has said that the model is a less-formal, more-contemporary and dynamic expression of Rolls-Royce luxury, and since its launch has led a new, younger generation of men and women to ownership. I can totally see why. For now, though, it’s back to my trusty Chevy.
mhealy@thenational.ae
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