Edric Ashley popularly known as “Arab” or “muArab” (the Arab guy) is a Zimbabwean set to change the story in as much as car culture in Zimbabwe is concerned. Zimbabwe’s most popular car meet is the burnouts obviously and the Borrowdale race course is the place to be on such occasions.

Arab, however has a keen interest in German cars and during the course of interviewing him, an Audi drove in and you could see the excitement from the way he expressed, “Audi, my favorite.”

Edric recently had a car meet show at Emagumeni, in Hatfield. From your local car lovers and critics, to the fine antiques neatly kept, it was such a cite for engines lovers in one place. Edric instantly was a busy man sharing his vast wisdom on German cars. The event had various car owners meeting and sharing notes on maintenance and upkeep of vehicles. Of course you would meet someone with a similar vehicle and have conquered similar challenges.

Edric runs Rard Fire Engineers which was one of the sponsors for the event. Rard offers safety and service of fire fighting equipment which is basically fire protection equipment, fire extinguishers and fire suppression systems.

Asked Why German cars? Edric said: “For me it is the build quality mainly on and obviously safety. They are safe cars.”

The highlight of the event was one of the latest power bikes, the Suzuki Intruder M1800R which has a powerful engine that produces 127 horsepower at 6,200 rpm and 160 Nm of torque at 3,200 rpm. The massive 1,783 V-Twin engine is paired with a 5-speed manual transmission, making it a beast on the road. With its incredible power and torque, the M1800R can reach a top speed of 209 km/h and impressively so, the writer can attest for it to be a very fast bike!

Edric is doing these events out of his love for engines and he hopes the car culture in Zimbabwe improves and citizens continue to have a platform to share notes on maintaining engines.