Story and photo by Ronald Rey M. de los Reyes
IF the Mitsubishi Mirage was a person, this writer would fancy this elfin car as the petite FHM Philippines princess Ellen Adarna. In fairness, despite its size, this vehicle has a certain allure comparable to the irresistible sweetie—no doubt.
Now, picture her in play, going around the metro pitting her wits and brawn against five other teams. For the testosterone-filled junkie, this would be like watching his favorite sport—in blissful haven. Scrap that boxing video, please.
For a more serious approach, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) recently launched the first-ever Mitsubishi Mirage Metro Challenge employing the Mirage and the Mirage G4 in exciting tests anew. With three grueling yet fun stages, the event features rock legend Rico Blanco; actor and singer Markki Stroem; volleyball superstar Gretchen Ho; Internet action star Ramon Bautista; lovely Cheats lead singer Saab Magalona and, of course, the beautiful Ellen Adarna. These celebrities are paired with students from various universities to complete the six three-member teams vying for the 100,000 top prize for each.
With the aim of highlighting the fun, practicality and functionality of the brand, the Mitsubishi Mirage Metro Challenge chucks in various challenges that require its participants possess some level of street smarts, driving skill, motoring acumen and the use of the Mitsubishi Mirage and Mirage G4’s applicable features.
“We want to underscore the amazing capabilities of the Mirage through exciting challenges around the city,” MMPC Vice President for Marketing Froilan Dytianquin enthused.
“With the celebrity and student participants competing, this surely is going to be fun to watch and follow,” he added.
In their first foray staged at the Quezon City Memorial Circle over the weekend, initial takes deemed strong and promising.
Here, the main challenge is going from one place to another with the Mirage’s navigation system at hand. Once they arrive at a specific place, participants have to complete a task in that area before moving forward to the next. Teams are only given coordinates which they will map out on the Mirage’s GPS and point them in the direction they must proceed.
For the first leg, the six teams were assigned to move to various venues within Quezon City.
The first was Dapitan Arcade near Banawe street. With only a photo provided by organizers, teams searched around the area for a specific Mirage key that only one store sells. Once they found the object, they came back to the starting point to stop the time. The team with the least amount of time recorded in the challenge bagged the most points.
The second was the UP Diliman Bernal Gallery Parking Lot where teams were tasked to completely answer several questions before they were allowed to proceed to the next destination.
The third was Capitol Greenstreet, where teams had to separate the egg yolk of 15 eggs (five per member). Broken yolks did not count.
The fourth was Craft Coffee Revolution near Katipunan, where the fastest team to successfully make 10 cups of Café Amerikana won.
The fifth stop was Quezon City Memorial Circle where teams had to count the yellow and blue triangles. Meanwhile, clues were given to the next location in the areas in Cubao Expo and in Crazy Katsu along Maginhawa Street.
“It was confusing at first, but eventually we got the hang of it and got to cruise in the car around the city easily,” Adarna shared after finishing all the challenges.
Host-comedian Bautista, meanwhile, said: “The car performed well. It was fuel-efficient. The challenges were exciting.”
“We expect to win this,” he chuckled.
As of the first leg, unofficial scores are as follows: Mirage Team Ramon—42 points; Mirage Team Gretchen—41 points; Mirage Team Saab—41 points; Mirage Team Ellen—39 points; Mirage Team Rico—39 points; and Mirage Team Markki—38 points.
The second stage was held on May 16 at the Bonifacio Global City, while the next one will continue and end on May 30 at SM Mall of Asia. Points earned from each challenge and online votes will be accumulated to determine each team’s final points. The champion team will take home P100,000 each with the celebrity’s winnings donated to his or her charity of choice. Second place noncelebrity teammates will receive P50,000 each, while the third place noncelebrity teammates will receive P30,000 each. The rest of the noncelebrity team members will receive a consolation prize of P10,000 each.
If you can’t get enough of them, like how this scribe was mesmerized by this cute little looker, you can catch and closely follow them at https://www.newmirage.ph/.
Image credits: Ronald Rey M. de los Reyes