The Vauxhall Viva....or the Perodua Viva ?

Many, many moons ago I had just learnt how to take a dump in my little potty instead of taking a dump in my diapers. It was a small step for a toddler and a relief to my mum as she didn't have to wash diapers anymore. I had also learnt that Malaysian Television had only 2 channels in black and white and I managed to survive these dark ages with barely a scratch. This was sometime in the mid 1970s and my father had just taken delivery of a new car named the Viva. Now this Viva was made by Vauxhall and was General Motors’ small family sized sedan that supposedly competed with the Fiat 124, Ford Escort and other European small family sedans. It was a dull looking sedan. If you were six years old and drew a car, you’d draw this kind of car, a typical three box shape with four wheels sticking out of it. (see pic)

Now the thing is the word ‘Viva’ basically means “Long Live” or “Hooray!” and this car had nothing to be praised at all. It was a crap car with crap build quality and handling. I remember my father telling me that he ended up with tons of cooling problems as well as some electrical problems also. It was also a car that my father used for the shortest period of time and not worth mentioning at all. The fact is, I believe that one of the reasons that my father chose a Vauxhall Viva was that I happened to come along into his life by being born, and he needed a ‘decent’ family car (This was after he owned an MGB GT which he sold off due to the reason stated above and another major incident involving that car). In those days, most respectable Government servants wouldn’t be caught dead in anything Japanese. That means something British or Italian, something that wasn’t named Sunny or Cedric or something that wasn’t made out of Milo tin. However, this meant suffering rust, electrical and cooling problems. Build quality wasn’t so much of an issue as buying British or Italian meant you have very little of it and not much difference from the Japanese cars of the same era. German cars were pricey then and only senior officers tended to buy them. Actually, there was nothing much to shout ‘Viva’ during those days in buying a normal family sedan in Malaysia. Basically the Vauxhall Viva was a dull and problematic car to own throughout the known universe. I doubt that any Vauxhall owner would scream “hooray!” after owning this car for a few months. Needless to say, the next car my dad bought was a second hand Mini Minor 850 which didn’t give him or my mum any major problems until he bought another car sometime later.

Notice that after the 1970s and in the 1980s GM basically had no market presence in Malaysia worth mentioning (other than Suzuki which it owns a major portion of shares). In the 1990s, it tried again with the Opel brand, and that too faltered. Hooray for us car purchasers, as Opels/ Vauxhalls in the 1990s were dull looking cars. Even the Lotus Carlton didn’t make me wet my pants. It was too Q car for my liking.

Back to the Viva, the Perodua Viva; instead of the original Viva from the days of terrible British engineering. This is the replacement for the Kelisa, which was first launched in 2000 and also the Kancil, which was first launched when Perodua was still in its diapers, sometime in 1995. From what I gather, it is a car with pretty good build quality and has a lot of space compared to its predecessor, the Kancil. In fact, the materials used by Perodua is so much better than even a Proton Gen-2 or Satria Neo which are cars from a grade higher than the market segment which the Viva is targeting. This is a feel good factor and is actually what Malaysians want; space and quality at a very reasonable price. I have to repeat that Malaysians do not really care if their car has handling like Lotus but just want to load things that they buy from Ikea into their cars. This is the reason cars like this new Viva and the earlier Perodua Myvi will succeed in selling by the thousands. I have sat in the 1000cc Viva full option and the seating position is nice (no silly Satria Neo screwups), the steering is light, the switches and controls very tactile and the quality in fittings is purely Daihatsu. These are good things. Looking at the size, it is as long as a Myvi as even with me pulling the seat to my desired driving position, there is still lots of space for the rear passenger. The boot also is an improvement over both the Kelisa and the Kancil although not by much but the seats fold down to make lots of space. Imagine a Myvi that is slightly lower and 10cm narrower and you have the Viva. I think, it may not be as nippy as the Kelisa due to its size, but at this price, space and comfort takes priority. And if you’re into tuning cars, you’d know that you can make any car handle pretty decent if you have some money to throw into the car.

On another note, I am looking forward to test driving the smallest Viva of them all, the 660cc manual. Why you might ask? The reason is pretty simple. It REVS TO 8,000 RPM! The 850cc and 1000cc models may have more power but they only redline at 6500rpm. This is pretty normal and what we motorheads would like is to occasionally drive a car with redlines closer to motorcycle redlines. Imagine driving this silly small car all the way to 8,000rpm and trying to keep the revs high, maintain momentum and just trying a windy mountain road in a small compact car. It would be like having a diluted experience of driving a small Italian Fiat 500, 600 Abarth through a mountain road. Imagine a mini Viva race series limited to the 660cc Vivas. It would be like a dozen angry mosquitos tearing down Sepang. It would be a race series that would be cheap to run yet pretty technical. It would be glorious, just Glorious. This Viva could be really live up to its namesake this time around.

Expensive Gym Memberships, Mazda 3, NAZA Sportivo version cars and memories of driving a van

How about enrolling yourself in a gym like Fitness First or Celebrity Fitness? It costs a bomb in fees every month and you get to rub shoulders with other pretentious people who usually go to these places to be seen instead of really working out. The people waste money on enrolling themselves in expensive gyms yet only use the shower, changing room and the juice bar instead of pummelling their bodies on the funny exercise contraptions. Some of them even live in apartments with gym facilities yet choose to be seen with other sweaty people. They already pay for the facilities in their apartment, yet pay more for facilities elsewhere. Some of them are not fat, but choose these places as excuses to meet people or to feel good about themselves but flaunting their skinny bodies to those who just enrolled and are really fat. Imagine how the fat newbie feels? I on the other hand refuse to pay any sort of money to keep in shape. Maybe that is the reason I am a fat pudgy man. But I do know the real secret of losing weight; and the secret is don’t eat anything for weeks, or months. For example, look at the starving Ethiopians, with skin and bones and flesh all wasting away. Their secret to looking absolutely fabulously thin is basically not eating and has nothing to do with going to any gym. So if you intend to be slim, just do what the Ethiopians do, don’t eat. However, I think I prefer bread, eggs and cheese instead of swallowing sand.

Joining an upscale gym isn’t the way to be healthy or not fat. It is just a way of showing other people that you have a healthy lifestyle or telling people that you can afford paying ridiculous amounts of money for a lifestyle that one does not actually practice. It’s like those people who are smart, or in this case stupid enough to buy huge 4x4 vehicles yet never spend a minute offroad. These are those who will buy Ford Rangers and never carry anything with it. These are those people who buy Toyota Hilux and bolt on 22inch rims and tires and make the nice purpose built 4x4 have no actual purpose at all except look ‘bling’. Why buy a 4x4 like a CRV when it can never go off road or even go on picnics, mountain biking, white water rafting or hiking like what the advertisements on these kinds of vehicles suggest? What is the point of buying something if you do not use it for the purpose it was built for? You might as well as buy a Ferrari 430 and let your 89 year old grandmother drive it for her weekly trip to play Bingo somewhere. It’s like asking Jean Luc Picard to use the U.S.S. Enterprise’s phasers to carve a block of wood into a cube instead of using them to knock out a Borg cube that’s attacking Earth. Then again, resistance is futile, people who think they’re all about a certain lifestyle would be conned over and over again into buying large 4x4s and use it to drive into their reserved parking lots somewhere in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

A practical car for Kuala Lumpur would be something comfortable yet reasonably sized for city traffic. So the other day I went to the NAZA showroom to help a few family members pick up a reasonably priced car for them. I chose to go to NAZA because they were Mazda dealers and had the Mazda 3 (pic on the right) on display. Currently, the Mazda 3 1.6 auto Sedan is on offer at RM99,500.00 or thereabouts. At this price, it is the best car under RM100,000.00 to own in Malaysia based on the criteria of price, looks, quality and rarity.

For the price of slightly lower than RM100k, you get a very sporty looking car, great Japanese build quality and technology as well as the rarity factor due to all straightlaced, normal individuals conforming and buying Toyota Vios’, Honda Civics and Citys, various Kia vehicles and those crude Toyota Avanzas. The Mazda has a great driving position of which everything falls into easy reach and place; with tactile knobs and turn signals. The tactile feel of the knobs and switches was actually better than the tactile feel of its bigger brother the Mazda 6, which is actually one reason why anyone should buy a newer designed car compared to a bigger, but slightly older car. It feels so much sportier than its competitor, the Honda Civic. It is of course not as huge as the Civic but I think the Civic is too huge to be actually called a Civic. It should be called the Accord. Compared to the 4^th Generation Civic, it’s a Honda Legend. The size is actually why owning a Mazda 3 is actually more viable than owning a Civic in Kuala Lumpur. All the Mazda 3 needs in its standard 1.6 litre form are larger rims. The stock 15in are too small for the car and it looks dumpy. It needs rims from the 2.0, which are 17inches in diameter. The materials used in the Mazda 3 are of better quality than your average Korean or Malaysian car. In fact, I’d rate it close to its European cousin, the Ford Focus in build quality as well as its handling. But being Japanese, I would suppose the cost of maintaining it won’t be as high as owning a Ford. I also have to mention that the Mazda is a CBU or fully imported unit from Japan as a plus point. This is currently my favourite small sized family saloon (circa 1.6-2.0 category) made available locally because of the points stated above.

While we are on NAZA, do not buy any NAZA Sportivo version of the 206 Bestari. Its carbon fibre look panelling interior looks like it came from the world’s worst plastic manufacturer. The carbon look plastic feels cheap and its carbon weave pattern is absolutely horrendous. Even a person with a spray can would be able to paint carbon weave better than the plastic manufacturer who did that panelling. Even a baboon at the local zoo if given a paintbrush and the colour black and grey will be able to get the carbon look right. This was so wrong I cringed. The 206 is French, meaning that while the carbon panelling was like duck food, the plastics in the whole car also felt like brittle plastic containers sold in the 1970s. the 206 looks good, but after the interior of the Mazda 3, its doorhandles felt like wafer biscuits instead of sturdy plastics. It felt like the cream cracker that you hold in your hand and if you use a bit more force would flake and crumble in your hands.

Do not also buy the NAZA Sutera Sportivo just because it has the same el-cheapo plastic panelling and MOMO equipped steering, gear knob and pedals. The driving position is awful. It you were ever the owner or either a Catering firm or a Nasi Ayam stall owner who once owned a Nissan C20 Vanette and wanted to relive the ‘good ol’ days’ where you had toiled hard, please go ahead and buy this car. It has a driving position which is exactly like a Van, a commercial one at that. That says it all.

So if you want to buy a car and feel good about it and be different from the other regular people. Buy a Mazda 3, don’t waste your money on stupid 4X4s or expensive gyms.

The Sad Looking Ant Eater, the Perodua Kelisa, Engineering feats that never will be performed due to monetary concerns and the new Impreza

The Bugatti Veyron is a 250mph monster that has an engine that sounds like Victorian plumbing and biblical tire roar. You’d think that Clakrson had rubbished the said car, if you ignore the very next line that he wrote on it, in which he said that the car is a magnificent piece of engineering. Now taking mis-quotes into context, we see our Members of Parliaments doing the same thing by looking at part of a Clarkson special on the Perodua Kelisa and noting that the Kelisa was the worst car in the world.

It isn’t the worst car in the world but to actually put what Clarkson said into perspective, is that Perodua and on a similar extent Proton do make soulless cars devoid of any sort of character. Numbers and volume are more important than soul is what makes Clarkson a little bit pissed off when it comes to cars made in Malaysia and Korea. Most Malaysians would actually relate to this as most have at any one time owned a Proton or a Perodua.

Back to the car that has a soundtrack from the 1900s. It is a monumental piece of engineering work that supersedes all known automotive engineering feats including the funny seating position but supremely engineered McLaren F1. It is the fastest and most expensive production car in the world. But I am betting that VW won’t make money out of it but still lose from each unit built. It is amazing that in this day and age of cost cutting, realistically budgeted and environmental friendly companies a monster like this is built. Ugly, like a sad looking doe eyed anteater with a 2 tone coat of paint but as politically correct as daily open air burning staring in the face of global warming. I think this is actually the only engineering feat worth mentioning in the last decade or so. And I estimate that after the Veyron, nothing fantastic will be built by any car manufacturer in the next 10 years including Ferrari, who is actually building race cars that resemble roadcars. These don’t move the goalposts, these cars are still within the usual tolerances of car manufacturing as if you read the specifications of a Veyron you’d notice that everything has to be over engineered to a grand scale to handle 1000 horses.

Mankind has gone backward. In the 1970s to the 90s we had supersonic airliners ferrying people across the Atlantic and we went to the moon in the 1960s. Now, the furthest we’ve gone is up to the International Space Station and the fastest we can fly across the Atlantic is by a Jumbo jet at mach 0.78. Even fighter aircraft development has slowed down. In the 1960s and 1970s America had its F15 and F14 followed by the F18s and F16s. But now, it only has the money to built one Joint Strike Fighter or whatever it’s called. Money and inflation to be blamed for this lack of development.

In those days, governments weren’t so obsessed in counting every single penny. If an inventor came up with a hair brained scheme, most probably some Government in the world will cough up with a hundred million dollars or so. But now, after listening to all those people who wants to save the whales, trees, homeless people, ozone layers, water, bees, locusts and what not, the Governments of the world has no choice but to limit spending on mind blowing projects. I suppose mind blowing projects must now be funded by groups like Volkswagen Audi Group or crazy Russian billionaires. If it were a Government from a developed nation like Germany or even France, a project will be shot before anything can even happen.

“ve haf come up with a solution build an elevator to a stationary point 200km from earth.”

“vat vould be de use?”

“So that it vould be easier and cheaper to dock de ISS instead of vesting precious fuel sending space shuttles to it. Plus its something never been done before. We would be in the annals of history!”

“Vat vould be de cost?”

“Ve estimate it to cost 4 Trillion Euros”

“Mein Gott! Ve can feed a billion African people with that money. Ve can plant trees. Ve can build portable airconditioning units for Antartica so dat de icebergs von’t be affected by global warming. I am afraid ve cannot approve your budget. Let’s go for lunch, I heard dat der hotel across de street has an all de wiener schnitzel you can eat for 5 euros.”

There, and nothing momentous or magnificent gets built anymore. I blame inflation, Governments too concerned with spending money on statues and planting trees and Non Governmental Organisations for pressing for aid and curbing everything in sight. The question of “because we can” will be limited to small measly projects instead of wonders of the world due to this.

Heck, look at the latest version of the Impreza (see the pic to the left). It’s conservative. It’s dull as all character has been squeezed out of it. Look at the bonnet scoop. It’s been severely blunted by rising awareness for car manufacturers to provide for pedestrian crash safety. Pedestrians should look left, right and then try not to get hit. But now they're suggesting that pedestrians will be smiling with comfort when they fly over the bonnet of your car. Look at its boot, specs for the sedan say that it can carry 3 golf bags in it. Do I want to know information like that if I bought an Impreza? I suppose Subaru has to sell more cars and golfers are a demographic that they would like to cover. It is no longer a monumental piece of affordable fast machinery, but it is a compromise to cater for all markets. I suppose it’ll handle well as it has a better rear suspension and lower center of gravity, but sometimes, that’s not what matters to most (maybe having space to put 3 golf bags is what matters). Sometimes, making a profit or trying to make a profit kills a car. Making money isn’t everything.

Who would you want? Flat Chested Plain Jane in a Gucci Dress or Eva Longoria in Jeans and a Cheap T-shirt?

Recently I met two old friends of mine somewhere in Desa Sri Hartamas for a late night mug of teh tarik. One of them was an owner of a Toyota Celica VVTL-i Auto, the other a Proton Satria Neo 1.6. The guy who owned the Satria was a motoring journalist and had only owned the car for about a month. We basically talked about his car quite a bit as it was about to be transformed by Subi of the Promote bodykits fame. The car already had a suede alcantra dashboard as well as a suede alcantra wrapped steering wheel, 17inch rims and BMW-like angel eye projectors. It looked pretty good one might say, but none of the flaws inherited from the basic Satria Neo had been ironed out. Like my previous posting on this car, it had seats perched too high and a rubbish steering wheel and driving position.

Now this friend got some ridicule from me due to the fact that he was an automotive journalist and bought such a flawed car. His argument was that at the price range the Satria Neo was (circa RM55,000.00) nothing could touch its handling. I suppose he is right on that point as journalists don’t actually make much even though they get to try out (or in his case, trash out) new cars but yet would still want to own a reasonable handling car. But the next remark he made was that he is already looking at the latest range of seats OMP have brought into Malaysia to alleviate the seating issue that the Satria Neo has. Could you compromise on such an issue? I compromised when I bought the Proton Wira in 1998. However, even the Wira at the time didn’t have such glaring flaws.

But, the main issue that I shall bring today is on something I noticed just as the two of them were driving off from the parking lot and out to the main street along Desa Sri Hartamas. The all important point that the Toyota Celica, even in its stock 16inch rims and tires looks a whole lot better than the Proton Satria Neo which was complete with the larger 17inch rims and tires; and angel eye projector headlights. It’s not like the Satria is a bad looker, but it was totally outclassed by a car that was rarer in Malaysia and sportier looking. Now it’s not about price difference, as you could put a RM120,000.00 Honda Civic 2.0 beside the Celica and the Celica would still catch my attention over the Civic which costs the same as the Civic here in Malaysia due to most of them being re-conditioned imports. I suppose its all about exclusivity. As no matter what you do, a Satria Neo or a Honda Civic are 2 cars mass market made cars and bought by the thousands every year; whereas the Celica, only a couple of hundred have been imported over the last few years.

I suppose it’s also about design. The Celica is a low slung sports coupe, and that alone helps. The Satria Neo my other friend drives will have the full treatment of big rims and tires, a stonking body kit and lots of upscale trimming. But all in all, spending RM20,000.00 on a Satria Neo still makes it a Satria Neo, which is the actual problem that cannot be addressed. Yes you will be unique, but think of the Satria Neo as your flat chested, plain Jane friend dressed in Gucci and the Celica as Eva Longoria in a pair of Jeans and a cheap t-shirt and you’ll get my point.

Yes, yes those who own Satria Neos or Honda Civics will say I am biased or so forth. But that’s the fact, and that is why when it came to me having a choice to do up my trusty 1.6 Wira when it came to the looks factor I left it totally stock except for the 16inch rims and tires for better handling as no matter what you do to it, it’ll look like a Wira which is a copy of a Mitsubishi Lancer which in turn is modded by the thousands into Mitsubishi EVO look-alikes. Is that a waste of hard earned money? Would it be better for someone to save the money and just buy a more expensive car? Would it be better just to sort out the performance aspect of the car like I did? The answer is subjective. But what does my journalist friend think? He’s the exception to the norm, as being an automotive journalist means that he got friends in the right places to pimp up his ride for a ridiculously small sum of money, unlike other Satria Neo owners that is who would have to spend tons of money just to get where my friend’s Satria Neo would be at.

The 3 Grouses For The Beautiful Month of February

The other day I was reading the latest issue of HYPERTUNE and the reader’s help section caught my eye. A guy who owned a Toyota Unser was asking for help from a performance tuning magazine concerning his Unser. Why? These van owners must get it through their heads that they are driving a van that is trying to be a ‘lifestyle’ vehicle that can do everything. A swiss army knife kinda thingy. However, a large 7 seater object isn’t a small and dainty pocket knife. A Toyota Unser is as dainty as a hippo wearing a tutu and trying to dance the Nutcracker suite. It’s as pointless as asking the current government to start and finish projects on time. It’s as pointless in asking a nun to lift up and show you her knickers. It’s as pointless as trying to ask Proton to stop producing the Saga. What the owner should do is stop wasting his money on performance CAR magazines and publish a magazine for Van owners like him. Maybe I should capitalize on this in the first place. I’d call my magazine – Lifestyle MPV – with the motto – For the discerning MPV owners with Taste. I’d be rich. But as I do not like these vehicles at all, I shall not bother. But others who have read, feel free to capitalize on this idea. These people are like eager beavers. The second option for guys like the Unser owner is stop buying HYPERTUNE and save up and buy an Estima, which at least looks sleek.

Now the second grouse for the month are on car clubs. The problem with people who own cars these days is that they like joining car clubs or inventing car clubs specific to their vehicle. It is getting ridiculous as every other day there is a new model being launched and if every one of these vehicles have their own club, there’ll be a million by 2010. For example, if you buy a Proton Satria Neo, you decide to start a new club called the Satria Neo Club. Then lots of others who want to exchange ideas join the club. Soon, there’ll be about 500 members with the same car joining the club. Things will be fine and dandy for the next 5 years, where new members join and old members sell off their cars and leave. But then, a newer Satria comes out, and therefore makes the old one out of date. What happens? Another bloke decides to start a new car club called the Satria MK3 club or whatever the latest Satria might be called. In the end, there will be 200 clubs for Satrias alone, the Satria GTI club, Satria Special Edition Club, Satria original club, Satria Pencen Club, Satria 1.6 owner’s club, Stupid Satria Owners Club, Dumbass Satria Owner’s Club, Balding Specky Pot Bellied 30 something Satria Owner’s Club and so forth. What needs to be done by these enthusiasts is make one club like the Proton Satria club, then have divisions in the club, like the Satria Gti Register, Satria 1.3 register and so forth. It’s as systematic, and logical as you won’t see membership turnover slowing down just because the car has been out of production for 10 years. Members will help other members of the same brand and because there are so many interchangeable parts, there can be inter-registry meets and these clubs will flourish. Of course its easier said than done, as every one of these car owners think that their car is great and deserves a group of their own. But then again, how unique can your car be if you see 100 others of the same type gathered in one spot? Imagine 100 Satria GTIs in one place at the same time? What’s unique about that? I believe a club with diversity will last a long time rather than a one make club.

The third grouse for the month is Proton, Hyundai and Kia owners who think that their respective Waja (see pic and check out the front grill), Wira, Accent and Spectra are Imprezas. What is wrong with you people? Why aren’t you proud of the type of car you drive? (Although I wouldn’t be proud driving a Accent RXS in the first place) Why do you think your car has a semblance of an Impreza when its either too boxy or too small or what not? Have you been getting high on ganja? Did you have too much Jack Daniel or Budweiser on that day? If you own a Proton Wira, it is excusable if you want to mimic a Lancer EvoIII. But a Subaru? Waja owners, kindly refer to my earlier article on this stuff sometime end of last year. Accent owners, why did you even buy this small crappy looking car in the first place? Why stick on the Subaru sticker? How do any of these people who drive these cars feel when the real deal passes by or stops right beside them? Does it make them proud?

If you have any friends who are one of these car owners mentioned above or think that they should modify their Van or join a ‘special’ car club, please advise them to stop what they are doing. Either that or take some C4 and shove it into their nether regions and do an Altantuya. It’ll make me a very happy chap indeed. Now if you’ll excuse me its time for a cuppa tea.

Electronics, Why they will be a burden in the long run to car owners.

It’s been awhile since the last posting. In fact, it’s already mid-end January 2007 and Mitsubishi’s getting ready to launch the new Evolution X. I was actually quite worried when I read that it was going to come with a 6 speed DSG-like gearbox and no manual shifter. However, upon reading up on the production ready versions, I’ve found out that there will be a 5speed manual shifter option and because of this I am relieved. The reason for my worry is that it seems that every new sports sedan/coupe etc has more and more electronics thrown into its guts than the previous generation of sports cars. The actual impact of these additions is that while these cars will corner like its on rails, blast off into the horizon like nothing you’ve ever seen before or change gears faster than a speeding bullet, these cars have too much dependency on electronics.

Electronics are good, according to all car manufacturers. They aid the driver in driving bla bla. Enabling extremely high cornering speeds in an otherwise family sedan based automobile. However what worries me the most is that all these gizmos are somewhat burdensome in the long run. Most cars with all these gadgets, gizmos and ting-tongs may only have a shelf life of 15 years max before their electronics give way and no spares can be found. Basic stuff like ECUs may be abundant, but stuff like the Active Yaw Control for the Evo IV from 1996 may be impossible to get hold of by 2010 and a relatively good car from 1996 isn’t that usable anymore (to an extent as you could get the later AYC controllers to fit). Of course such a scenario may not even be applicable as there are lots of chop shops out there. But it would be a hassle to find parts that get obsolete so fast. Owners of current Evo IX may be enjoying their cars now, but I would assume that 10 years down the line, after they have disposed of their EVO IX, the next owners would find huge bills trying to find and buy electronic parts for their newly purchased old Evo. I am of the opinion that all these new additions, while they do make cars go faster, stop better and are more comfortable, they are going to be harder to maintain than the classics of yore. Imagine sourcing an electric motor for your new 2011 Mercedes S-class rear air-cond blower.

“Hello, my rear air cond blower is not working”

“Which side”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, the left rear passenger blower has a different mounting bracket built into the motor, while the right side has a built in speed controller module that controls both left and right blower”

“I see”

“But you may need to buy something else as it may not be the blower, these model W510 S-classes have another electronic sensor that is located under the rear seats to tell the Air Cond ECU how heavy the passenger is and how much air needs to be blown. Also, it may not be that, but it could be the main override switch from the secondary systems ECU that controls the Air Cond system overall. That is also reported to give flaws after approximately 100,000km of mileage. But, that’s a no option fix that Mercedes is giving its customers.”

“I don’t see clearly anymore, what would be the damage?”

“It could be a Thousand Ringgit if it’s just the motor or 3 million ringgit if it’s the Air Cond ECU. It depends.”

I see that in the end, consumers will be forced to change their cars every 10years or so whether they like it or not due to tons of electronics been put into their cars. The curse of mass production. Where change is good no matter what the costs are to the consumers. This actually highlights the second main problem that consumers are faced with, too much gizmos and gadgets.

The first problem is the fact that cars are becoming larger. Look at the current Honda Civic, it’s so large that an Accord from 1990 looks small compared to it. Before 1995, Honda didn’t have a need to have a Honda City, look what’s happened now? In the year 2025, the Honda City will be Accord sized and the Accord will be slightly smaller than your average terrace house. The Mercedes S class will be slightly smaller than a small bungalow and would need a ladder for you to reach the door, occupy 2 lanes on a highway and because of the miracle of lightweight materials, electronics and engine development, make 125mpg. We are obviously screwed when it comes to a desire for space. Years ago, before men invented MPVs, we all went round in 4 door Mazda 323s, Volvo 244s and so forth. I think those days were simple. So simple that we won’t go back there again because cars those days have their own set of issues. We were screwed then as well as in the future.

Of the Avanza Owner's Club and What Proton Needs to Do To Survive

Somehow, the past couple of weeks have been extremely hectic. With not much time to voice out my opinion on things concerning the automotive world, it has become obvious that there have been no new articles on my blog for the whole of last week. I have been busy glancing through magazines and recently, an article in the latest issue of a local Malaysian tuning had caught my eye.

I read an article about the Toyota Avanza owner’s club and found out that it is an active club and that the owner’s of this Van were actually spending their time and money researching on how to make this Van corner better. While this is a good thing, they’ve actually went slightly overboard in putting tons of chassis bracing and high end Kayaba shocks in order for the Van to corner better. I wonder whether firstly, they are doing it for the safety of the passengers or secondly, bragging rights within the club or lastly, so that when they take corners, their children, wife, maid and pet dog or cat will be flung left and right as well as up and down while they are doing the chicanes at obscene speeds around shopping complex car parks. I suppose being Malaysian, everything’s possible. If they can fit a Supra twin turbo engine in the Avanza’s big sister the Unser, I suppose soon we’ll see a 20valve Toyota twin cam 1.6 or a TRD/BEAMS Yamaha tuned 2.0 VVTL-I in an Avanza anytime soon. I can hardly wait.

What I’d like to talk about today are the problems faced by Proton. This small insight to why Proton has actually failed and if no changes are made was cooked up at a weekend Teh Tarik session with a friend of mine somewhere in Gombak. I have to thank this chap who drives a Celica with another round of Teh Tarik on my the next time I see him. I’d divide this examination in brief to a few parts.

1. The people in Proton love cars that handle until they are blind.

The simple fact is that you see Proton building cars that can handle and corner very well. However, none of the general Malaysian public bothers with this fact. What they want is actually tons of space. Good examples of these would be the Perodua Myvi and the Toyota Avanza. At the price they are selling these cars, space counts. Young couples who like buying stuff at IKEA love the Myvi. Thirtysomethings with 3 children and a maid love the Avanza. These people don’t want to drive like Senna or Montoya most of the time. If you go to a small town, you see Pakciks and Makciks driving at 60km/h everywhere. These people don’t need handling. What they need is space to carry their tempoyak and ikan kembung from the pasar to their house. They’d like to know that the car is safe and will be able to protect them in an accident, not handling by Lotus. Proton has its marketing and strategy wrong. While being pro-handling is actually good, the well-being of the company and its future should be considered here.

2. The people in Proton are blind until they fail to see what the market wants.

Again we see the Avanza and Myvi come into the picture. Ever since the Waja, Proton have not launched a car, MPV or SUV that the market actually wants. Proton had launched the Juara to almost no success whatsoever. The reason being that while it is good strategy to launch an MPV, the Malaysian public’s perception on MPV is that is cannot, must not and in all that’s holy look like a van. What Malaysians want in an MPV is that it must be car-like in its features. Look at the Naza Ria/Citra as well as the Toyota Unser (while Pig ugly, still has a 2 box shape) and Avanza.

They also came out with the Proton GEN2, Savvy and the Satria Neo. Notice that the best selling new Proton is still the Waja for the simple fact that it has a boot bigger than most cars in its class and it has 4 doors and legroom for basketball players at the rear. With the Gen2, you got not much bootspace and rear headroom. With the Savvy you got not much of everything as it’s a small mini sized car and with the Satria Neo, it’s a 2 door hatch that’s out to capture the single girl or single guy market. Why come out with cars that do not hit the spot? Why come out with niche market cars in a market where niches aren’t that profitable? Note that there are still not that many Savvy or Satria Neos on the road to this day. You see Gen2s on the road as it has 4 doors. Malaysians still can accept a car like this if it has 4 doors.

Proton has totally misread the basic needs of the Malaysian public by not coming out with cars that they actually need. What they want and need are actually 2 different things. By launching 3 hatchbacks in a sedan driven market is actually bad strategic planning actually. Proton needs another sedan, an SUV and a MPV (that doesn’t look like a van) to survive.

3. The people in Proton believe that they do not need to improve on the quality of material they use and only improve on the finishing and producing defect free cars.

This is another strategy gone wrong for Proton. Let’s take the success story of another Korean car that is a success story in Malaysia. The Kia Spectra. This piece of Bantha fodder is actually a car which is even less substantial than the Proton Waja, yet the Malaysian public still rush out and buys it. What Naza Kia has done is listen to what the general populace wants in a family sedan. What the general populace wants is this:

“I want what a Mercedes have. I want Leather Seats, a CD player, ABS, EBD and some semblance of class that Proton cars don’t give me”

And as such, the marketing team in Naza Kia throws in leather seats, a CD player ABS, EBD, rear disc brakes and great marketing advertisements showing class and grandeur from a Kia Spectra. The general populace buys it in droves.

What Proton has done to counter Kia is come out with products that have an interior made from the same plastic as the microwave containers we use for takeout food. There are no leather seats unless you pay for it and only recently decided to offer CD players on most cars. Proton, no one listens to tape nowadays. Are you in league with aftermarket accessory shops? You want more people to go change their players at accessory shops issit?

If the basic Kia Spectra offers ABS, why isn’t Proton offering ABS like what the general populace wants? I think all Protons should have ABS for the simple sake of telling the people who buy cars that Proton cares for the safety of its consumers. The actual fact is that, the Pakciks and Makciks who drive at 60km/h do not really need the ABS as they seldom use the car fast enough for anything to happen. Some even send the car to the workshop because they think that the judder they feel upon heavy braking is a faulty brake system whereas it’s actually the ABS kicking in. These people wouldn’t know how the ABS works but they just like to have it on their car as it gives them bragging rights when they’re exchanging information at the Mamak stall or among relatives at a family reunion. Imagine this scene:

“Wah, Pakcik Abu, new car arrr?”

“Yes, my new Kia Spectra.”

“Nice lah, got leather seats. Must be very comfortable.”

“Ya, summore got CD player, ABS, EBD, 16VALVE SOHC, leather steering wheel 15in Sports Rims and more.”

“FOOOOOOYIOOOOOOOHHHHHHH, so good lah this car, everything also got. I must tell my dad to buy one also”

And a sales phenomenon starts within Pakcik Abu’s family and friends.

This is also the same with the rear disc brakes. Notice with the Honda ES model Civic the 1.7 models came with rear drum brakes. Malaysians were aghast as they thought that drum brakes couldn’t stop anything but a 1950 morris minor. So the latest Civics brought in from CKD packs in Thailand come fully equipped with rear discs. This is what Naza Kia thought of so much earlier and then packaged them in. From a sales and marketing point of view, brilliant. From a cost point of view, not so brilliant. But if it’s what the public wants, so be it. Of course, this fact Proton has countered as all new Protons have rear disc brakes. But it all goes to show how mighty the consumer is.

If Proton wants to at least gain back some of the sales which it has lost, it would need to actually give more than what they currently give. They would need to work on a more tactile interior. The interior would have to be at least a good as a Toyota before people would actually believe that it is better than a Kia. The mountain is really that high as currently, if you took a look at the Gen2 and the Satria Neo, you'd notice that the dashboard is made out of hard plastic that is only fit for cars in the small mini size or budget bracket. Of course, the lack of stupid defects like power window failures should not occur anymore. That is obvious.

Malaysians want space, toys and class. They do not want Lotus to tune the suspension. They want gadgets that they see in Mercedes and BMWs. They want bus sized interiors with the luxuries of a pleasure cruiser. What has been given by Proton are hatchbacks and more hatchbacks and ugly van-like MPVs which no one wants. No wonder people are not buying the latest batch of Protons.

A breakdown on what should Proton do in order to survive:

1. Market on safety, luxury and space. People at this price range do not want “handling by Lotus.” But want a cheap Mercedes knockoff.

2. Make MPVs, SUVs and Sedans instead of launching 3 hatchbacks in a row.

3. Improve the tactile feel of the cabin. Give top notch plastics.

4. Install the latest safety features at whatever cost as Malaysians like to brag about what they have in their car.

5. Have a proper strategic planning team in place. Find out where Proton needs to go from here on. Proton is never going to be a Ferrari who formed his company with the need to maintain his racing team. And as such, Proton has to know what t wants to be. It needs to be a volume seller. It needs to make safe, reliable, spacious, luxurious and stylish cars within a price range. It needs to be the next Toyota. That’s the company it should benchmark. There are no excuses. Benchmark the best global manufacturer and you can’t go wrong.

Tech Focus: Would the noise from a car make you buy it? I would.

I’ve decided to work harder today (and hopefully for the rest of my career). The reason being that recently, a Brabus versioned SL 55 AMG zipped by on the opposite side of the road and the driver basically let it rip. The sound emanating from the tailpipes or engine was absolutely mind blowing extra loud BRRAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPP.

It is exactly a cross between a NASCAR V8 and a World War II fighter plane. I suppose the engineers at AMG must have conveniently forgot about drive-by noise regulations when they designed this engine and exhaust system. I suppose when you can afford one of these, you wouldn’t be bothered about neighbours complaining that your car is noisy and disturbs their 6 month old baby’s nap. You’d just buy over the whole surrounding neighbourhood or buy a 10,000 acre estate somewhere in Sungai Buloh. The police won’t even bother you unlike the time when you once owned a Proton Saga with a hundred Ringgit ‘meriam buluh’ muffler. And as such, you can make the SL55 wail in graceful abandon, without a care in the world.

Some cars produce noise that’s irritating and outright loud without an ounce of character in them. Some produce a sound as if the Angels had come down from Heaven and blessed the engine and its exhaust pipes with their harps. Some produce a sound as if a gigantic beast had awoke and now wants to eat everything it its path. However, it is usually the first case that happens to be in abundance around here instead of the second and third situation. We get the sound of mosquitos and the sound of a hollow tin can rattling around in most cars. The mosquito like sound usually comes from a Perodua Kancil with a RM95 muffler from the shops proclaiming ‘murah, tarak tipu punya’. You pay el-cheapo money for this crappy irritating sound. And it does not make a 3 cylinder Kancil engine sound like half a Porsche 911 flat 6. This is because we all know that in order to get a decent sounding car, (or a decent handling car, or a decently characterful car etc. etc) you’d have to pay through your bleeding nose for something like that if you want it brand new.

The thing that limits the ownership of a soulful sounding car in Malaysia is the same as the ownership of any soulful looking or a neat handling car. The reason is that these cars usually cost a whole lot more than those anodyne cars you see everywhere. It is also because manufacturers who sell basic low end cars are too busy working out numbers on how to milk as much profit from them rather than spend money on developing interesting handling, loads of power, a decent driving position or even the tuning the exhaust system or intake system of a car to make it sound nicer. But sometimes, it is advancement that makes an engine quieter.

We shall look at good sounding affordable cars in this article. The problem of cost also limits most mass produced cars to having a 4 cylinder in line engine. An in-line 4 is very cost effective when it comes to piston displacement and the power it produces. With the correct camshaft profiles, correct intake and exhaust as well as ignition and camshaft timing an in-line 4 could produce an efficient 100bhp per 1000cc. We take note of the Mitsubishi MIVEC and the Honda VTEC engines for this. The power outputs these engines make are astounding. But, I’ve experienced that a correctly tuned VTEC or i-VTEC engine from the year 2006 will not sound like the step-up VTECs from 1990. You won’t feel a rush or a change in induction like in those days as it’s more linear nowadays. Less character you may say, but there are no gaps in the powerband like before. There is less of a blood curling howl in the latest DC5 Integra than in an early DA6 Integra. I suppose it’s when everything is balanced out it goes quiet. It may however still have a somewhat unique shriek due to the fact that the Honda Twin Cam VTEC revs to at least 8,500rpm where most cars find it a struggle to reach 6,500rpm. The extra 2,000rpm or so makes a lot of difference when it comes to induction roar and exhaust note.

Some may say that it isn’t the way to make a car sound good but these people have forgotten the induction roar of those old 4 cylinder cars running 2 or more carburettors. Honda once in the late 60s came out with their S800 which ran 4 Mikuni carbs and a 9,500rpm redline. As such, one of the pleasures of owning a high revving Honda or Mitsubishi would be gunning the engine right up to the redline, knowing that you are one of the few with engines (in cars) that can howl and shriek like a Pontianak with some belacan shoved up her arse. However, you need at least RM195,000 to fork out for a Jap unregistered reconditioned Integra DC5 for the pleasure (if one can still be found that is). Of course second hand EG series Civics from 1992-1996 could be bought, but they aren’t worth paying up to RM35,000.00 for one and hard to get financing also.

However, note that with the Yamaha designed Toyota VVTL-i 1.8liter engine found in the Celica or the MRS you won’t find any outrageous noises anywhere. Being a Toyota engine, it performs like a grown up engine should. Quietly doing its job with a very, very normal twin cam noise. Nice, but not as good as you’d expect. Somehow, you’d buy the car to enjoy driving it. Sound is secondary to a Toyota. In fact, you’ve never once heard anyone say that they bought a Toyota for the sound.

Now we come to flat 4s, a rare sort of configuration once used on Lancias and Alfas as well as the VW Beetle. Only Subaru carries on with this configuration nowadays. Porsches are 6 cylinders and BMW makes 2 cylinder boxers for their bikes. If you noticed the newer Subaru Imprezas are pretty thrummy instead of burbly due to the fact that it has equal length manifolds which balance the pulses of the exhaust gasses. In the early days, you get Imprezas with manifolds having very unequal lengths from each bank of cylinders. This causes the exhaust pulses to be unbalanced and therefore a burble as nice as a V8 engine. With each improvement, the Subaru EJ series comes closer to being as interesting as a workmanlike drone of a Mitsubishi 4G63 engine, a classic in its own right, but a very electrical appliance sort of drone when it comes to making noise.

However, at this moment, there still is a semblance of character in its exhaust note compared to other 4 cylinder cars. The Subaru Impreza/Forester and the in some ways the Subaru Legacy are the only 4 cylinder cars that sound different and good nowadays. No one utilises flat 4s anymore. I suppose it does cost more to produce with separate cylinder banks and all, but the price for maintaining this kind of engine makes it worthwhile as it makes it have a dozen times more soul than the run of the mill in-line 4s. Expect to pay RM115, 000.00 for a recently new Subaru Impreza WRX bug eye from 2000-2001. This version still has a very single beat sound compared to the later models as with the 2004 revision (applied E onwards) the manifolds are of equal length.

The next affordable type of engine that produces decent noise would be the Alfa Romeo 4 cylinder in-line engines, with its twin spark cylinder heads and variable cam timing. This covers both the newer JTS engines as well as the earlier fully Alfa Twin Spark ones. The Alfa trademark is a very throaty growl. The Italian engineers/designers seem to have perfected the art of making everything they touch from the look of the car to the sound of the car seem just nice. However, the only problem of owning an Alfa is that you may be afraid of driving it due to the fact that something may break and cost a bomb while you’re driving it. This puts a spanner to the cogs to most people’s plans of buying one. Even if they do buy one, they hardly take it out of Kuala Lumpur and hit the B-roads. Some don’t even leave their neighbourhood in the first place. One Alfa I’d suggest anyone to buy is the one my cousin bought, a 147 1.6 Twin Spark manual from 2001. It doesn’t have the selespeed gearbox, therefore you won’t die a pauper trying to maintain it. It’s been pretty reliable throughout the one year my cousin has owned his and it still looks great. The market price for a 1.6 is around RM60,000.00.

After this the only car that sounds decent for around RM100,000 would be a Proton Perdana with its V6 engine. But you won’t want to pay 100k for a car that’s been in production for so long and when there’s gearbox problems cropping up, and a flooded second hand market of Perdanas. You wouldn’t want one anyway. But a V6 sounds good nonetheless. And if you want one, get a recently used one from the year 2004-2005. It’ll sell for around RM60-80,000. But the thing is, you may need a few thousand more fixing up the gearbox if the previous owner hadn’t experienced the gearbox problem first. It’s a catch 22 situation with this car.

There are other cars that have a vocal engine, but you will be looking at cars that are second hand if you want them cheap. 6cylinder BMW 3 series E36s and E46s as well as the 5 series (all of them at the age where things start to go wrong and cost BMW money to fix), the 5 cylinder Fiat Coupes (with tons of problems to go with it), certain old Nissans with the RB20, 25 or 26 engines, the newer VQ series V6 from Nissans in the Cefiros (fwd and dull to drive).

The thing is, cost is always the constraint, and if cost wasn’t a constraint, the top 5 list of current production cars to have just because of the noise they make would be as follows (I shall limit to the cars that I have had the pleasure of hearing them sing):

1. Mercedes Benz SL55 AMG

2. Ferrari F430

3. Bentley Continental GT/GTC

4. BMW M5

5. Range Rover Sport (basically that would make the new Jaguar XK coupes sound fantastic and its cousin the Aston Vantage which utilises the same engine as desirable)

So, should we choose a car to own for the noise that it makes? I suppose some cars like the SL55 AMG would make me say yes.

Another Activity To Waste Your Precious Sunday Away

It has been a while since my last article but I have got valid reasons for not posting anything.

1. Watching the complete Second Season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. (all 20+ episodes in a week);

2. Watching Casino Royale. Pretty good I must say. However, not like what you’d expect but close to the Bond that Mr. Fleming pictured him to behave and act;

3. Preparing stuff for my company’s display at a certain Defence Exhibition in Indonesia as any merchant of these kind of stuff would do;

4. Discussed World politics and also the current Administration of Pak Lah with a Dutchman friend of mine; and

5. Went to a car auction.

This of course brings me to the topic of the APAC Sunday Auction for Automobiles which I attended last Sunday. Big business this auctions. You get individual sellers, companies, government bodies and banks auctioning off vehicles and you get individual buyers and also used car salesmen buying up cars for their own use or for resale. What impressed me the most is that here, you can have RM2,500.00 and be lucky to drive off in a 1988 Proton Saga (but sometimes you need a battery to get the car started or worse). How about a 1993 Isuzu Trooper 4 door (ex-Telekom Malaysia)? RM6,500.00. You get all the cred of a farmer or a contractor instead of an el-cheapo Proton Saga owner who collects scrap metal for a living cum small time crook. The engine of the trooper sounded pretty smooth as it drove by.

How about a 1996 Alfa Romeo 155 1.8 for RM18,000.00? I suppose you wouldn’t want Alfa related headaches but for RM18,000, why not? A Proton Gen2 1.6 registered in 2005 for RM33,000 would also be good. It costs RM50,000.00+ when new. A friend of mine said that he’d go to the auction and buy one when it drops to RM10,000.00 as it’s a fun car to drive and he’d love a fun car to drive it to the market and back.

If you want to start carting large stuff around or start your own pasar malam business, you have ex-Telekom Toyota Liteaces, Perodua Rusas and also the odd Proton Juara. RM6,500.00 gets you a nicely worn but mechanically sound Toyota Liteace and if you want a post 2000 van, the Juara is there although when it first came out and cost RM40K+, no one in his or her right mind would buy one because it looked downright silly and ugly. Didn’t stop my friend’s dad from buying one as it could be bought for a measly RM16,000.00 to be used as a carrier for their foodcourt stall business. Pretty good when something has a purpose instead of lugging around only people which some MPV owners fail to do.

There are cars that don’t get buyers. One such example is a Citroen C5. The reserve was set at RM40,000.00. But who would want to own pain and suffering? It’ll be like owning the Titanic knowing that it cost you a bomb and then 5 minutes later sinks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Another example, not surprisingly are 3 units of Government utilised Proton Perdana from 1999. The opening price was RM30,000.00. No one wanted one. Not even the second hand dealers. I suppose the dreaded gearbox problems kept buyers away.

I was there at 10.50am on Sunday and stayed on till 1pm. The auction still had about 40 more cars to go and there was a nice Fiat Coupe waiting somewhere. But I don’t think it got a buyer. A nice place to waste your Sunday away unless you work somewhere around here that is.

Can't the person who blew up the Mongolian Model think of a better way to hide the evidence? And the Naza Suria.

The headlines of most newspapers these past few days are about some political/strategic/defense analyst together with 3 policemen being involved in the murder of an exotic looking Mongolian model, who purportedly had an affair with this analyst, the cause of death was a couple of bullets in the model's head and then, trying to cover up the crime by blowing her up with C4 explosives.

The moral of this story is not about someone who did a bad thing and got caught and deserves punishment. But, someone who did a bad thing, and didn’t know how to cover it up properly. It’s like watching an action movie, where the person who got killed, usually the baddie, gets stabbed, then shot, poisoned, then gets thrown out of a building. Why do you need to kill a person so many times for him to die? Or if you want to dispose of the evidence, other means are easier. Like stuffing the corpse in a barrel, filling it full of cement and dumping it in the middle of the straits of Malacca. Not nuking some bushes or trees together with a Monglian model near a densely populated area like Puncak Alam, Shah Alam.

Now the question is not whether the analyst really did such an act or did not do such an act in the first place, but why a learned man would stoop so low and end up in such turmoil. If this person, who graduated with distinction at some glorious English College, associated with tons of professional bodies, written tons of stuff, advised ministers, planned strategy and who knows what other crowning achievements, manage to be silly enough to be embroiled in tabloid fodder like this. I think that somehow, the leaders of the nation who’s being paying him visits and asking him for advice have been played like a fiddle by this guy. I mean, if he is part of this mess, or in the first place had a messy affair which led to the model being pregnant and so forth, his advice on world affairs, politics, defense and strategic planning would be actually rubbish. He however would be good at giving advice on how to have an affair with someone or tips on extra-marital sex or ways on how to bed an exotic Mongolian model. The reason being, if he were anything good on strategic planning, he wouldn’t be in remand in the first place. Or he was thinking with his loins instead of his brain.

I suppose all of us do that most of the time. You see an object of beauty and it’s not your brain that registers first. It could be your brain, but the loins actually sends impulses soaring and you (if you are a guy) may get a hard-on, if the object of beauty is a girl; or in the case of a guy in a Fiat Punto HGT in Desa Sri Hartamas last Saturday night, other guys.

If it’s a car, it would surely be some Pininfarina designed Ferrari or Maserati, a Mercedes CLS, a Jaguar E-type and so forth. But being civilised men, would you kill for a woman or would you kill a woman because you were stupid to get caught by the affair you started in the first place? Would you kill for a Ferrari Enzo? Of course that is even more unlikely.

Somehow events like this tell me that we actually have not so clever people telling other not so clever people how to run the country. It’s like the blind leading the blind. I suppose we Malaysians are a tolerant lot, we don’t like coups, we don’t like change to an extent and we just like to be left alone to enjoy our teh tarik. Unlike the Americans recently, they had their Congressional Elections and showed the current ruling party the actual sentiments of the people. We don’t like to rock the boat, and as such, the boat sinks slowly. Something like Proton; on a much larger scale.

Which brings us to my opinion on Naza’s overlapping 1.1liter cars. Recently Naza launched their rebadged version of the Kia Picanto. This car is one compact car which made waves when it was launched in UK. It did so many things so well that Autocar magazine rated it as good as the European Car of the Year, the Fiat Panda. I like this car in that the plastics used are of a quality rarely seen in small cheap Korean cars, or all Protons including their latest offerings. I know that the Picanto can corner well. Once I was on the interchange from Jalan Duta/Damansara towards Jalan Lake Gardens, a Picanto went past me doing around 80-90km/h on the bends. It looked utterly composed from behind. However, being a fully imported Kia, it costs quite a lot for a 1.1 liter car. I suppose this is why Naza, who is the importers of Kia and the assemblers of rebadged Kia MPVs decided to sell the Picanto as a Naza Suria (approx. RM44,000).

However, doesn’t Naza already have the Naza Sutera (the pic to the left) as their 1.1liter car? Talk about trying to get a bigger slice of your own cake. I know that the Sutera is based on a Chinese car (the Hafei Lobo), with lower build quality and a much cheaper price (approx. RM36,000). But somehow, this would still eat into its own market share instead of the market share of others. Somehow the corporate wheels at Naza want to just grab the market share, have a monopoly and the consumers get confused with choice. I suppose the Malaysian ‘local manufacturer’ scene is as confusing as clever people in Malaysia who do not so clever stuff.

The Top 5 Brand New Cars You Should Not Buy With Your Own Money

Last night while eating a home made club sandwich(which tasted really good), a thought came to me. What we wear or own is an extension of a person’s personality. It shows the first impression of a person, kind of like a watch. If you see a person who doesn’t wear a watch, you can somewhat tell that he does not treat time as something important. From an un-audited point of view, which even though isn’t audited by some accounting firm with a name that sounds somewhat like Fisher Price Water Fowl, I’ve noticed that most people who don’t wear watches don’t keep appointments very well. They make 'Janji Melayu' or Malay Timing appointments look very punctual and think that their handphone can double as their watch. However, the thing is, they still ask people around them the time. Less than 200grams on the wrist will not kill you.

A cheap watch however shows you at least want to know what time it is, but it also shows that you are a cheapskate. A Seiko or a Tissot would mean you have a chance at being a person with some watch sense and anything more expensive than that means you’ve basically the means to afford a lot of good things in life. However if you buy a current model Tag Heuer, you’re ensuring that they have enough money to pay for Tag’s marketing campaign. As a quartz Tag Heuer 200m diver’s watch can cost as much as a automatic Tissot 300m Diver’s watch for the same price. Somehow you could say the same about cars, some may be cheap because they are cheap, but some are expensive because you are paying for the badge in the first place. BMWs are in the latter category and the Ultimate Driving Machine is seldom bought by someone who actually drives for the fun of it here in Malaysia.

BMW 3series’ are the Ultimate Yuppie Machine. The Ultimate Poser’s Machine. The Ultimate Chick Magnet Machine. BMWs are all these and more. BMW 3series’ are mostly driven by men who work for a multi-national company, have the latest PDA phones, have their Ralph Lauren Polo t-shirts (preferably with the latest big horse logo on it) with their collars lifted up, hang out with their latest laptops at some Coffee Bistro as they prefer to WI-FI rather than talk to each other at a coffee shop and think that they know everything. However, I actually know everything and I tell you that they don’t drive their BMWs the way it should be driven. As such, if you are a car enthusiast, don’t be seen in a BMW 3 series in Malaysia. People will think you’re one of those people who are the stereotypical poser and show off. It’s like the auntie you see at a kenduri with all the jewellery, pointing left and right trying to show off the 200 gold bangles on both wrists and arms. It’s like the friend of yours who ‘inadvertently’ flicks like wrist trying to show of like new Five Thousand Ringgit Omega watch when you already have 5 or 6 nicer watches lying around in your house and couldn’t be bothered about them one bit. All of this brings me to my current list of things.

The Top 5 Brand New Cars You Should Not Buy With Your Own Money

5. Proton Satria Neo

If you’re shorter than 5feet 6inches, then this should not be on this list. But since I’m taller than that, this car makes it on this list. This is one car that the enterior space and packaging utterly disappoints anyone who needs a proper hatchback. No head room, no rear leg room, no boot compared to the earlier model. Where’s the improvement? Going backwards is left to time travellers on TV.

4. BMW 318i

Do I need to say more? It’s basically saddled with an image issue and coupled to a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder, what’s so ultimate about that?

3. Kia Spectra

Are you so much against the Malaysian car that you have to buy one of these? They are Korean, with as good/bad a build quality as a Proton. Their spare parts are not cheap and cost as much as a Japanese car, their handling is actually worse than a Proton Waja. If you want cheap, buy a Proton, it’s a waste just to spend an extra RM10,000.00 on a badge which is actually in the eyes of a motoring enthusiast as bad owning a Proton.

2. Perodua Kancil

Why? It is the cheapest brand new car you can buy on the market. But that’s the whole reason. The driving position is for small people again, too hard seats, no under thigh support, bumpy, noisy, scary to drive fast, unsafe in a crash with anything bigger than a mountain bike. Save up and buy the next car up the line, the Kelisa.

1. Honda City Tadpole

Look at it (see pic). That’s not a car. It’s a tadpole on stilts. Why can’t you have more taste and buy a Toyota Vios. What’s wrong with the people that bought it. It’s ugly. It’s like in the first place you wouldn’t want to date the girl with pimples, a gap in her teeth, thin as a pole or fat as a South African Water Buffalo and then end up marrying her.

Special mention.

The BMW 1 series. Somehow this is the ultimate badge machine. You buy this car purely for the badge as it looks so much like a fat man has sat on it and then got up and left it like that. Look at the crease line connecting the front and rear wheelarches at the base of the doors to see what I mean. Buy a Mini Cooper S for the same amount of money even though it’s a Front Wheel Driver.

There you have it. Note that I’ve left out MPVs and SUVs because they are not cars. They are MPVs and SUVs, simple as that.

Some news

INOKOM GETZ

INOKOM has just launched their version of the Hyundai Getz and as such, it’s at least RM15k cheaper than the Hyundai version at around RM58, 000. What you get however is like the Naza Peugeot Bestari; A good car which is cheaper than the imported version at the same standards. However, we also should note that these cars are actually on their last legs of production with their parent manufacturers and it only strengthens the point that we Malaysians get saddled with something a little behind the current trend. I suppose it’s still something good as we get variety at a cheaper price. But I don't like this car. It does not look like Hyundai spent enough time actually designing the car in the first place. It looks like a European design from a generation ago (circa mid90s). A better execution of this super mini segment cars still come from Europe (206, Punto) and Japan (Jazz, Sirion/Boon/Paseo/MYvi, Yaris etc). They look better balanced looking. Spend a bit more (the Naza 206 or a Toyota Yaris) or a bit less (Perodua Myvi) for something with more balanced looks.

TOYOTA CAMRY

Finally being able to view the latest Toyota Camry and I find it to be younger looking than the previous generation version and pretty sleek looking (in a latest merc S-Class kinda way with some of the BMW chief designer Chris Bungle’s touches here and there). It’ll sell well here in Malaysia. It will still capture the hearts and minds of the average Malaysian Uncle, but will also somewhat do the same to the 30somethings also. I can imagine this car with 18 inch wheels and looking cool, not looking like someone hijacked an unclemobile and slapped on big wheels and trying its very best to look cool. This is not the U.S. of A., where people think its cool driving stupid large Cadillacs with bling wheels. Another car for the Yoda age group people bought by young idiotic rap artists and drug dealers trying to look cool in an uncle car. I mean, Americans don’t have taste. Look at the latest Honda Accord arselift. They had an American focus group tell Honda that the rear lights of the original one wasn’t good looking. This was teh same with Maserati when they redesigned the 3200gt and called it the Gransport - from beautiful boomerang like rear LED lights, they went for a stupid 4th Gen Honda Prelude style lights - which coincidently looks somewhat triangular, also like the Accords. American Focus groups will eventually have all tail lights in triangles if this continues.

While the shape grows on you after a while, there shouldn't be a need for things to look good after a period of time. Its like you'd allow yourself to like that shocking pink shirt you first hated and then liking it later on. It's shocking pink for God's sake!

In short, you have my permission to buy the new Camry. As it does not make you look like an uncle. Unless you are an uncle in the first place.

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!