Sneak Preview of the Toyota Innova
Published by simon on May 24, 2005Since the world didn’t end today as predicted by Nostradamus, I’m taking a break from satirical or humour blogs.
Yesterday on the way back from shopping I decided to go and check out the new Chevrolet Sparks and Optra5. I’m not at all interested in buying a car, let alone a Daewoo-pretending-to-be-an-American Chevrolet, but I just like to look at new cars in showrooms and make life difficult for those over-enthusiastic sales people.
Turning into side road, I saw a banner for the Toyota Innova (Kijang) at Toyota showroom, which was 2 doors away from the Chevvy place. Entering the large hall, I there wasn’t an Innova in sight, just the usual gleaming Hiluxes, Camrys and Avanzas. So I asked the salesman, “Where’s the Innova?”
To which he replied, “Not launched yet. But if you want to ‘see’ it, you can go down to Basement 2…”
Waah! Got ‘secret viewing room’ one aah?! OK, I didn’t mind going doing to this ‘covert underground facility’ to see Toyota’s secret weapon, so I followed the smartly-dressed salesman down two floors to the parking basement.
The floor was entirely empty, save for a few Toyota show vehicles (Avanza, Vios, Unser) obviously used for test driving. But there was one metallic brown ‘Kijang’.
It looked solid, with high specs (I won’t go into details, since it’s still not launched yet) but I couldn’t see the interior, since it was locked. Most auto guys actually are quite familiar with this model, since it was launched earlier in Indonesia.
But get this, they actually taped a small piece of paper over the ‘Toyota’ and ‘Innova’ logo. With a cellophane tape! Wow! Hi-tech security!
With the true 8 seat cabin space (unlike the ‘7 seater’ Citra & Avanza for midgets and pygmies), tough suspension, VVT-i, dual airbags, etc and RM90k to RM100k, it will sell VERY well. I can foresee a few months waiting period, just like a certain recent model…
The sales guys even said this, “It will kill the Naza Ria.” (HE said it, not me…)
And by the way, both the Sparks (reminded me something about fried chicken) and Optra5 (still a Korean car) didn’t look appealing to me.
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