Autoworld Blog

The most popular Toyota nameplate is the Corolla and there is a reason why this is so. The Corolla is the essence of Toyota. If you want to know and understand what Toyota is all about, what their philosophy is, then you drive a Corolla. This is their killer application, this is their formula for success.

This latest incarnation of the Corolla is, like all its predecessor, designed to appeal to as many millions of people as possible and this means finding out what most people want out of their cars. I suppose it should come as no surprise that most people care very little about driving. To confirm this all you have to do is poll your family and the majority will tell you that if they could have their way, they would give up driving altogether but since public transportation is unreliable and inconvenient they will continue to put up with the chore of driving.

Given that most people feel that driving is a chore, it only figures that they want the experience to be as painless as possible and, if at all possible they do not really want to have any memory of it. You know like a visit to the dentist.

Since you guys are reading a motoring blog I will assume that most of you are keen drivers who love nothing more than the feel of steering leather on your palms and exhaust fumes in your lungs so you may disagree with the majority.

I am a keen driver but only when I want to. most of the time when I am driving across town to a meeting or an event, the driving is not joyful and I do want it to be over as quickly as possible. In fact it would be great if I could afford a driver for the urban driving bits but that would be too expensive.

It would be better and cheaper if I just got a Corolla Altis. That’s right, this car has been designed to take most of the pain of driving from the average person who despise driving. Everything about the Altis has been engineered to minimise the effort of driving, all the controls are featherlights and isolates the driver from the road and the evironment.

You get in and turn on the engine and it hums unobtrusively, the air conditioning comes one and immediately keeps the cabin cool without ruffling your hair. Then the stereo would pick up your favourite station and soon your favourite singer is crooning next to you.

The cabin itself is spacious and five people would sit in leather-lined comfort.

Then you put the car into gear and lightly squeeze the throttle to get the car moving. It glides off from stationary and the driver then points the light steerign wheel to the intended direction of travel.

Up front the MacPherson struts takes care of bumps while in the rear a beam axle irons out road imperfections.

On the move everything outside is kept away from the cabin, you feel happy to be in the roomy and airy interior of the Corolla Altis. I tis not particularly luxurious but it is a nice comfy place to be and everything is so neat and tidy that you are reminded of home, or if your home is a mess, your parent’s home where everything is in its place and there is a place for everything.

Just like your home, it may not be the most anything, nto the most expensive, luxurious, glamorous but it is a place that you feel comfortable in.

I had a discussion with a fellow motoring writer and we came to the conclusion that compromise cars are rubish, you know cars that try to be sporty and family oriented at the same time. Usually these cars end up disappointgn both driver adn family.

The driver feels the car is too soft and compromised while the family is forever moaning about the hard suspension and harsh ride.

We decided that it is best to stay focused. If you want a family car, get a family car, if you want fun, then buy yourself a balls-out weekend car.

The reality is, most of us need a family car more than we need a fun drive. Actually most of us want to have a comfortable car for most of the time and on weekends when we are feeling up to it, we want a toy to play with.

Since comfort is typically a bigger priority and what we want most of the time, then the Altis is a car that is definitely worth looking at. Apart from the painless driving, you will probably appreciate the durability , fuel economy and also good re-sale value.

Did I forget to mention good fuel economy? Well, during our weekend date, teh Corolla returned about 11 km/litre which is quite good and that works out to about 60 kilometres per RM10 of fuel under normal driving. If you are particularly careful you could get it to go as high as 13-kilmetres per litre but you have to be really light on the throttle.

The new Altis will be a popular car because most people just want tog et from point A to point B with as little hassle as possible and since they treat driving like a visit tot he dentist, they are not expecting to derive any joy from the act, they just want it to be painless and over as quickly as possible.

In this respect the Corolla is peerless. You could pay 10 times more for a Bentley with a driver but then you would have to worry about people wanting to rob you.

Granted that your pulse is not likely to quicken at thought of the Corolla Altis but that is like complaining that your living room is too restful.

The new Altis is what it is, a car that is as close to being an appliance as Toyota can make it to be. It is easy to use, it should never break down and just like the washing machine and refrigerator, you don’t get emotionally attached to it until it breaks down, then you realise how dependent you are on the Toyota.

Toyota has cultivated that sense of dependency among its customers to a point where they feel that they cannot live without one or that other brands are simply not as dependable.

Just ask someone who has owned a Toyota, their answer will convince you that they are on hooked on the drug that is Toyota.

This is why motorheads describe Toyota as the most boring car company in the world, yet the majority of the world population disagree and for the first quarter of 2008, Toyota sold more cars than General Motors.

The Toyota drug is powerful and more and more people are hooked on it.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am and is filed under News and Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.