The New Uncle Car, Sex and Violence and the Reasonably Priced New Car that I Own and You Can't Own Even If You Tried

Very recently Toyota launched the new Camry. A car somehow specifically designed for uncles and people who feel that they belong in the ‘uncle’ category. This category is basically filled with middle aged managers, grandfathers, slow people and also people who think that this car is suitable to be driven by a 30 year old as it exudes a sense of prestige and style. What I think is that this car is for uncles and aunts. There is nothing this car exudes other than the image of your 50 year old uncle who is slightly balding, slightly pot bellied, needs reading glasses and with hair growing out of his ears and nostrils.

The new Camry (see pic) however looks much nicer and with this would knock the average age of Camry owners down a few notches (to around 40 instead of 45 years of age) as it looks very Lexus-like and pretty smart looking with touches of BMW somewhere in its design. Copycat. But the thing about the Toyota Camry is that they always look good in the pictures, but what you might see in real life is usually quite conservative and dumpy looking and as such I'll reserve my actual comments when I see this car on the road.

This is because Toyota is a very conservative company that has actually stopped building sports cars. Right now I cannot think of one sports car which they still make as the production of the Celica and the MR2 (or MRS) has since ceased. In short, they’ve gone from conservative to downright boring in a period of only one year. Toyotas have basically captured the hearts and souls of sensible, dreary people i.e boring people with their exceptional build quality.

It got me thinking that people in the world buy cars because they have to travel from A to B and have exactly no choice in what they have to buy. In the ideal world, we’d all be driving Mercedes CLS’ or BMW M5s. But in the real world, we have to drive Proton Wajas, Toyota Vios’, Avanzas (note – a followup from the last article about Avanzas – if you highlight the VAN from aVANza, it spells like what it really is.) and Corollas, Honda Tadpoles and Naza Rias. All of these cars were basically bought using the words, budget and practicality. What people should add to their list of priorities is sex and/or violence when buying a car as this is the basic instinct in man. Clarkson once said that Sex and violence actually sums it all when you buy a Ferrari or any supercar. You get a nice sexy/beautiful body and the brutal and violent acceleration and handling all coupled into one car. So in the real world, how can such priorities make you choose a decent car then?

With the words; Budget and Practicality coupled to words Sex and Violence we should therefore choose the 3 best things out of 4 as realistically we can't have them all. This is the real world challenge then; for a reasonably priced and practical car, coupled with either sexy or brutal personae thrown in for good measure.

Most Protons are out of the picture as they have the either lacking in practicality or lacking in either sex or violence. The Waja is a shopping trolley, wheres the sex or violence in that? The Gen2 has a bad driving position and no rear headroom, so its not practical. The Satria Neo has a really ridiculously bad driving position so its totally not practical (unless you're a hobbit or a dwarf). The Perdana is ancient, Ursula Andress in Dr. No. was sexy, but she’s 760years old now. You wouldn't bed someone as old as Yoda would you? Same goes to the Wira and Saga.

Toyotas? At the reasonable price range we’re looking at the Vios and the Altis. Putting Mr. Pitt and Miss Spears in the adverts may have made the cars look chic for a while but buying either car won’t get you in bed with either one. They’re pretty good but pretty conservative.

Nissan? The Sentra. Nissan will not let you poke Stephanie Chai after you buy it.

Suzuki? The Swift. Yes, its sexy (from a MINI point of view), its on a budget and its pretty practical as a town car. It should be on your list of reasonably priced cars in Malaysia.

Honda? The City Tadpole on Stilts will make you look years nerdier than you actually are. The Civic 1.8 is as fantastic as a family sedan can get. Its practical, on a budget (if your budget is around RM115k that is) and looks fabulous. It can be pretty violent (in a family man sense) in the performance department as it has 140bhp to play around with.

Kia/Naza. Look at the Bestari 206, it has a good looking body, it is reasonably priced (sub RM80K) and is pretty practical for a town car. The other models are merely rubbish.

Ford. The 1.8 Focus at around RM115K has some qualities that we should look at. Practical, Reasonably Priced but it still looks conservative compared to the Honda Civic. That in itself sways away buyers by the dozen.

Actually the car that I bought should be on this list. The Subaru Impreza 1.6ts, but its not available in the brand new market anymore as the local importers can’t seem to sell Subarus fast enough to justify them importing more in quickly enough. This is sad news but its reality. Why do I say this? It isn’t cheap for a 1.6liter car, but its still less than RM120K, has 4 doors and a boot for practicality, and with the All Wheel Drive offers fantastic handling but seriously lacking in power (which I’ve countered with several mods I will one day divulge in here). It looks brutal (not sexy) with the rear wing, Side skirts, heavily blistered wheel arches and creases. No other sub RM120K car comes close to its handling, and brutal looks (hence the 'violence' portion to the equation). Yet it still keeps that practicality. Check out the pic for reference.

One other point on why you should try this car is that while it is slow, and is one of those cars that require momentum for you to drive it fast and actually rewards you even more than some cars that would smother your mistakes with its power. With this car, if you make no mistakes, it is absolutely rewarding to drive as you know its you making the car flow at ridiculously fast speeds through winding roads and high speed bends. This is also where the handling isn’t corrupted by the All Wheel Drive, it will dance around corners and its natural balance is not corrupted by too much power which sometimes cars suffer from when they do have tons of power. If you’re a driver, it is better than any front wheel drive around. Find me a brand new sub RM120K rear wheel drive car or a 4wd car at this price range?

Yes, yes it sounds like I’m justifying my purchase for this car. The faults in this car are that it isn’t as spacious as a Honda Civic (which is the current best sub RM120K new car by a mile right now) and that the gearbox is pretty crappy. But the advantages outweigh the faults by a mile. But note that you can’t buy this car brand new in Malaysia for now even if you had the cash ready in your pocket. Unless you can find one nearly new one being advertised in Motor Trader. That is till the official distributors decide to import this again. I’m lucky. Of course not as lucky as owning an Impreza WRX STi, but for a fraction of the price you get all of the handling, ride and practicality, minus the horsepower (which you and I know is so easy to procure a little bit more than usual in a very not very catalytic converter/not enviromentally bothered country like Malaysia). And that is what we should all aim for. Something to have fun with while paying for the car instalments in the first place. Leave the uncle cars to the uncles. Stop thinking conservatively. Live a little!