Romancing Avanza

BEING a first for me, I never knew that owning a brand-new car can be this intriguingly humorous – or is it humorously intriguing? I don’t know though if it’s the car or it’s just me.
“The official campaign period for local candidates has yet to start and already you have your miting de Avanza,” punned good friend Sonny Lopez speculating on my 2007 Toyota Avanza as a political favor returned for some propaganda job.
The chromed letter J stamped at the back of the car indicative of its model type or variant was a dead give-away of its funding source to the imaginative Lopez, J being the publicly perceived power-packed letter in contention for the Pampanga governorship. The other is Q. You’re a dummy if you don’t know what and whom the letters represent. Okay dummy, it’s jueteng and quarry.
After asking me to drive him around the City of San Fernando, Deng Pangilinan had a double vision of my car – as family sedan and taxicab, promptly calling Arnel San Pedro of CIAC to get me a franchise at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
Deng’s bossman, my dear compadre Perry Pangan had a different take on my car. So what got into me getting a Toyota, he asked.
I write for this paper that is part of the Laus Group of Companies which holds the dealership for just about every car manufacturer hereabouts – American, German, Korean and Japanese – except Toyota. Ain’t there some sense, if not act, of disloyalty for having an Avanza in my garage?
Ay, here’s the rub. Owning a Toyota was not my choice. The company that so graciously let me avail myself of its credit line happened to be a dyed-in-the-wool Toyota loyalist. My car being the least of a dozen it recently purchased. So there…
Avanza J is a steal at 585 grand. It’s the only car that meets both my budget and my needs: the downpayment and the monthly installment fall well within my reach, and it’s good-for-seven-but-can-seat-eight configuration comfortably accommodates the whole Lacson family, the hyper-active grandson included.
Its DOHC 16-valve 1.3-liter engine merely inhales – never gulps down – unleaded gas, making it a truly economical car. This, thanks to VVT-i technology that is now standard in all Toyota cars. That’s variable valve timing-intelligence, not vigay ni Vaby ang taksing ito, as Deng shrieked in gayspeak, still pursuant to the J mindset. Anak ng jueteng, talaga!
Though basic stock, the J comes with a CD player cum AM-FM radio branded Toyota, but of course. Ah, one never felt as much joy in driving as when Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner, Vivaldi and Tschaikovsky, Groban and Bocelli take one to the very realm of the divine. That the audio system is but a single-slotted CD player matters not: the great sound is all.
But can the Avanza stand its ground against, err, side by side those heavily loaded dump trucks, container vans and passenger buses?
Well, mine proved its worth at the North Luzon Expressway. With but the slightest shake when passing or being passed by these multi-wheeled monsters of the highways.
A good car this Avanza. Made even better by the sales and after-sales services.
I got the car in two working days, and that was already “delayed” due to my own fault. The first oil-change – after 1,000 kilometers – Thursday last week was a breeze too.
Waiting has never been this fun for me – only at Toyota. There is a fiesta atmosphere – complete with food and drinks – at the cool, cool lounges. The marketing persons and mechanics are both professionally polite and very friendly. A stand-out among them is Ms. Joy Isip. Already a joy to behold, she makes an even more enchanting conversation piece, err, charming conversationalist.
She is – like my Avanza – sheer customer’s joy. And no pun is intended there.