Brown Man, White 4WD
Brown Man, White 4WD
In the mid‑eighties, Abu Dhabi had its own quiet rules, including who was “allowed” to drive a 4WD. On a routine work trip from Dubai, a borrowed Nissan Patrol gave one young fellow a chance to test that rule, and discover how small rebellions can linger in memory.
This is a slightly odd story to tell.
When the Trucial States came together as the United Arab Emirates, the maps were redrawn, flags were hoisted, and in the banks we drew charts to match. Each emirate suddenly had its own importance, and head office had neat reporting lines to Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. It all looked very orderly on paper — the sort of thing that reassures auditors and confuses everyone else
Abu Dhabi, the setting of this story, however, had its own rules, its own police, and a quiet confidence that felt no need to explain either.
In the mid‑eighties, the Dubai branch sent me up there for a few days. I met Peter Butler, the operations manager, checked into the Holiday Inn, and began to feel mildly important. They even had a spare vehicle: a Nissan Patrol, large, sturdy, and clearly not expecting to be driven by the likes of me.
The rule was simple enough. In Abu Dhabi, four‑wheel drives could be owned by Europeans and locals. Asians — Indians, Pakistanis, and so on — were, by some mysterious logic, better suited to two‑wheel drives. No one could explain why, but the rule stood there, solid and immovable, like a badly parked Land Cruiser.
I already owned a Mitsubishi Pajero in Dubai, thanks to Paul Rivers and his sand‑dune driving lessons, so I was not easily impressed by local regulations. I asked for the Patrol, signed the necessary papers, and took it out. If anyone was keeping score, I wanted it noted that at least one Asian had driven a 4WD quite legally through Abu Dhabi that day.
I drove around the city, visited a few classmates, and enjoyed the small, childish pleasure of watching faces as they realised that the fellow behind the wheel — brown, bespectacled, and utterly ordinary — was not supposed to be there. No one stopped me. No siren wailed. The police remained magnificently uninterested.
It was hardly a revolution. But for a few hours, in a borrowed Nissan Patrol, I felt I had quietly poked a finger in the eye of a foolish rule. I am told such apartheid‑like regulations no longer exist. The Patrol has probably retired by now, but the memory of that afternoon still starts up with a single turn of the key.
Years later, in Sydney, the same bank handed me a brand‑new Nissan Patrol for my family’s exclusive use. I drove it for as long as I worked there, and sometimes, at the traffic lights, I would think of that borrowed Abu Dhabi Patrol and smile at the way life rearranges its own rules.
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