Sounds like quite a car now, don’t it? Wait. There’s more. The Volkswagen Polo combines the best handling features available in the cars of the segment, gripping well but offering adjustability at the same time. And it performs far better than its two main rivals: the Honda and the Hyundai i20.[break]
I know this because I read it in an “auto” magazine that was covering the much-hyped NADA Autoshow 2011, which, in turn, was apparently enlightened by a balanced and unbiased of sources: Pooja International, the authorized seller of Volkswagen cars in Nepal. Damn that. All those kilometers I’ve spent on frozen hillsides getting up at 5 a.m. just to make it on time for te sunrise at Dhampus trying to work out why the car behaves the way it does have been wasted.
Instead of agonizing over a verdict each time, I’m asked to review a car. I could’ve simply telephoned the manufacturer and asked for its impressions. Morang Auto Works, undoubtedly, would’ve told me that the Skoda Laura was a modern, front-wheel-drive equivalent to the Ford Fiesta, and that it offers unrivalled value for money.
Volkswagen would’ve claimed that their new Golf was fast, and instead of calling the Nano ugly, I would’ve said it was bold and imaginative. The Geely, God bless Mandil for he’s the only guy I know who owns one, was probably conceived as such from the very early stages of the model’s design and suffers no shake or a burnout after a couple of thousands of kilometers whatsoever.
Manufacturers never lie! They are hardly likely to spend the best part of their engineering lives working on a prototype and then present it to the press as “a bit of a disappointment.” When I was at the launch of Chery automobiles, I never heard anyone on the podium say that it “handles like a dog” and reminds you of a combination of tin sheets beaten together to remotely resemble a car.
You see, every popular print media in the world relies on gossip for their stories, news, reports and reviews, most of which is either exaggerated or untrue. This is unwarranted, more so since media today is considered so powerful that divorces and affairs can happen entirely in the imagination of the writer, in the same way that handling problems and easily steering through the numerous potholes can happen entirely in the imagination of a so-called auto journalist who may have, in reality, never set foot inside the car.
If you are a “writer” of one of those glossy magazines that feature the Top 10 contestants of Miss Nepal pageant during the first month after the event and the remaining eight contestants in the months thereafter in order to get a “different side of the story,” then you’ll quite understand what I’m hinting at. If Bhuwan KC and his girlfriend were arguing loudly inside their car at Koteshwar and you happened to be there, you’ve got a story. Never mind that they may have merely been arguing over what color to paint their new room.
Same goes with cars. You feel a bit of a wobble over a nasty pothole, and as far as you’re concerned, the car is crap. Or the car with all its doors and windows open and the six speakers are blaring out the latest song from “Bodyguard” and you assume the car is “true value for money.” Never mind that car testing is an inaccurate science, same as writing gossip stories is.
But then along came the NADA Autoshow, and all of a sudden the car companies were queuing up to open their hearts. Here at last was an outlet where they knew they could put their side of the story without fear of contradiction. As a result, the pamphlets from the car stalls, even the ones selling fake Chinese engine Mobil gets into everyone’s lovely homes while the rest of the media personnel are camped outside looking at the inauguration action through a fancy DSLR desperately hoping someone “important” in a daura suruwal will come along in a Jaguar and a convoy of 14 SUVs to cut the ribbon, and while he’s there, look around for a new car since I noticed one of the cars in his entourage break down at Durbar Marg the other day. Oh, and in case he’s worried about the EMI, someone should remind him of the “almost 50%” salary hike, while the state takes care of all his expenses, should take care of that.
And it’s basically the same with cars. We shouldn’t be at all surprised if glossy magazines fight to be the first with the road test of a new car. The glossy magazine most eager for a full page color ad usually beats everyone to it. The trouble is, how do we know that what they’ll write about isn’t total bullshit and that the magazine and the writer aren’t both a sellout? We don’t.
And you, the reader, deserve better than what the glossy magazine or the NADA Autoshow has in store. The NADA Autoshow is a bit like the Second World War when you didn’t just read about it in the newspapers because you weren’t allowed to read it in the newspapers. It was all censored, you know? So nobody knew what anybody was doing. The Autoshow and the glossy magazines may get the long-legged models and the pamphlets first, but if you want opinions rather than public relations puff, stick with the daily newspapers.
But I know that over 50 percent of people won’t vote, and 50 percent don’t read newspapers. I can only hope it’s the other 50 percent.
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