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I’VE
recently driven the Avanza 1.3J stick shift and it has
been purely fun. For one thing, it’s been quite a while
since I had last driven a non-“matic;” the manual era is
becoming extinct—if you still don’t know it. For
another, the Avanza’s sheer “smallness” offers some kind
of a rediscovery of the joy of going around behind the
wheel of a ride that somehow replicated one way or
another the features of my first car—the Austin Minica.
Seemingly, small has also become big in this time of
iPods and cell phones and laptops. Almost quite
obviously, among yuppies and the emerging, power-driven
middle-class throng, the smaller it gets, the more it
becomes in. Indeed, in this minimalist epoch of ours
when mutants have outgrown King Kong and the Hulk, size
does matter.
The
Avanza, quite apparently, is the answer to the
ever-changing times in taste preferences in the car
business.
The
Avanza was rolled out in the city streets last year, but
it’s only very recently that I got to know about its
magnificent features: very cute but deceivingly
powerful, maneuverability beyond description, comfort
zones all over, a spendthrift’s delight, lean but mean.
I couldn’t ask for more.
 The
reason for its arrival in the family is pretty amazing,
if not downright one for the books, but I’ll say it,
anyways, for its sheer drama, if not for its
made-for-movie effects if this were an autobiographical
piece.
The
Avanza has become a very much-welcomed addition to the
garage because it’s a gift from my balae Pareng
Rupert and Mareng Lydia Sadiwa (the parents of my
son-in-law, Ricky). Am I that lucky, indeed, to receive
such bonanza from Pareng Rupert and Mareng
Lydia?
Well, in
a sense, yes, but the truth is, it’s not really for me
per se.
The
Avanza’s for our grandchild, Malaya Sol (everybody calls
her Maya, but Mayo, the baby’s cousin, calls her Mayasoh).
Mayasoh, thus, could yet be one of the world’s youngest
owners of a car. The toddler, who had just turned
“terrible two,” and her parents live with us. That’s by
design as we “required” them to do so. Wanting to keep
the family intact has been—and will always be—the last
thread binding the Filipino kin together, through thick
and thin, in this part of the globe.
Thus,
you can just imagine how happy my wife and I are these
days, seeing Mayasoh waiting as we emerge from our
morning door almost every day to greet us, “Guw mawin!”
My, if that’s not heaven, what is?
These
days, therefore, any trip using the Avanza without
Mayasoh onboard has now become as rare as the
President’s smile.
Some say
the Avanza is a bit “jolty,” but to me, the ride’s just
fine. Not as comfortable a ride as, say, a Murano or an
Alterra, but it’s comfortable enough to put Mayasoh to
sleep after merely an hour or less of travel.
It’s
small, but the Avanza can seat eight! If that’s not
huge, what is?
The
Avanza is a car and a minivan all at one. Whether it’s
city driving or country trip, you reap the benefits of a
value-for-money buy. It can get you to any destination
without a pinch in the pocket, and on relax mode, as the
wheel sits tight when the car’s “on the fly.”
The
Avanza had the championship trimmings of my Austin
Minica. In the Avanza, I was glad my Minica had been
resurrected.
As
Ricky, the father of Mayasoh, loves to say after a
country ride with the Avanza, “Driving has never been
this easy.” |
