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THIS one
is really small, but it comes huge in more ways than
one.
It is
fast, really fast. Easily, it can tackle 120 kph without
much rpm.
It is
spacious, as it can fit in five adults with much ease.
The
trunk?
Toss in
your luggage, plus your favorite body-hug pillow and
your golf set, too, and off you go to Baguio Country
Club for all the world cares.
It is
fuel-efficient, a magnificently built gas-miser that, if
you fill ’er up going up Tagaytay, you can still see
your tank filled more than half after you have driven
safely back to your Quezon City abode.
Answer to the times.
The Toyota
Yaris can help solve that nagging pinch at the fuel
pump.
Stop
saying, “I need a car that fits my shoestring budget in
these terrible times of gas-guzzling on all fronts of
our daily existence.”
I don’t
know how Toyota has done it, but the Yaris is a wonder
waiting to wake up your senses.
The
Yaris is one of the biggest answers to our yawning need
for a car that practically solves that nagging pinch at
the pump.
Easily,
it can go 18 km to a liter, depending on your driving
habits.
If you
have Arnel Doria’s ways from the Honda Safety Driving
Center, you’ll have more miles to your budget than you
can ever imagine.
Of
course, if you are truly that fuel-conscious, the Yaris
can give you more in response to that much-abused line,
that “value-for-money” pitch.
Ana
Agregado of Toyota Motor Philippines didn’t think twice
about the Yaris, satisfying my curiosity that even if I
was half-sure driving it to the country (maliit kasi,
hehe), I relented after sensing the genuineness oozing
behind that lilting voice.
“It’s
really good, Sir Aaaaal,” Ana said. “The bumper has a
dent, though, and I want it fixed before it gets to
you.”
In a day
or so, it’s right there—literally at my doorstep. Ana’s
done it again! (Danny Isla and Elijah Sue Marcial, take
note, huh?)
Now, who
am I to refuse?
Only a
jerk like, say, Pedro Penduko, would, given the guy’s
penchant for the surreal.
It used
to be that arguments about small cars being bullied by
the big ones, the buses, especially, held water. That in
the expressways like the world-class North Luzon
Expressway, they would immediately, dangerously, shake
and tremble once the bigger vehicles speed by them.
While
that may be true in the past (I used to drive an Austin
Mini), it isn’t anymore in the scheme of present-day
living.
In fact,
the bullies of the road have become mere spectators as
the Yaris can virtually outsprint anyone in the highway
today if it wants to.
The
small ones are not the bullied anymore and, in contrast,
they can now bully the bullies themselves.
They
have become the new Davids, and the so-called Goliaths
can only watch in awe every time the Yaris whizzes by
them like wind in the “boulevard of their dreams.”
Of
course, we also have the Honda Jazz, the Swift and the
Getz, the Aveo and the Cherys, the Kias and other
flyweights with similar gas-miser feats being flaunted,
if not painted, all over town, but the Yaris ranks
highest at the moment that even Lee Iacocca would be a
fool if he thought otherwise.
Likewise, if Aris Ilagan of Top Gear and Manila
Bulletin, a big-bike aficionado like Raymond Tribdino
and Danding Cojuangco, cannot love the Yaris, I will
teach him to.
If Aris
refuses, I will ask Ana A. to do the convincing.
Mark my
word: After Aris’s stint with the Toyota wonder, he’d
change his name from Aris to Yaris Ilagan.
Wanna
bet? |
