Totally Unbelievable

"Designed from the inside out.

Dual VVT-i Engine.

Safety - Good

Consumption - Good

Chicks - Good

Totally Unbelievable

And yes, it does come in Diesel"

If you have seen the new Toyota Auris advert on TV recently, you may have picked up on the above couple of lines. The advert has been showing on TV,and every time it's on, I pause it, and boast about my 2 awesome days in the Auris.

I was one of the “3 blogging stooges”, who were invited to the Toyota Auris’s media launch in Durban. And wow, what a “Totally Unbelievable”day it was. As my 2 co-drivers have mentioned below, venturing into the converted world of motoring journalism, is something I could seriously look into as a future career.

What was exciting was that this was the first time that Toyota, or for that matter any car manufacturer in South Africa, had invited bloggers to attend the media launch of a new vehicle in SA. The adventure started with us attending a mind blowing presentation about the features of the car. The 3 bloggers were introduced individually to the rest of the journalists, which was quite a nice surprise. After the presentation and some lunch, we took our first drive of the car, which took us on a scenic coastal journey up to Ballito, and back to our hotel at the newly built Royal-Palm hotel in Umhlangha.

First impressions of the car were that over the next 2 days we definitely had something to look forward to. The first car we had was the 1.8L RX and I was immediately impressed with the new interior design. The dual aircon controls, allowed driver and passenger to control temperature and aircon speed, to their liking. The instrumentation panel on the dashboard was also quite handy allowing you to see stats like your fuel consumption and range left.

After taking the quick trip up and down the coast, we were escorted to our rooms at the Hotel. Well, the blogger boys definitely got the “golden end” of the stick, as we each got our own 3 bedroom penthouse suites. Absolutely amazing, with views stretching inland over beautiful sugar cane fields, and an amazing sunset to end of the perfect day.

We joined the rest of the journalists for a supper, which allowed us to boast more about our blogging lives, and why we think blogging is important in this day and age. The response we got was very positive, with loads of questions being asked.

An early morning rise the next day, for a quick breakfast, and into the cars for a 500km journey through the Midlands, and back to the airport. We were fortunate, to get the new 2.0L diesel RX, as our first car for the day, and this was certainly the pick of the bunch. The power this car had was phenomenal, and still wanted to go in 6^th gear. One of the fellow blogger drivers, Carl, found out the hard way when officer Ndlovo stopped him outside Pietermaritzburg, to hand him a little pink slip. So if you were wondering, the 2.0L diesel does go over 120km/h, in fact, it can go all the way to 195 km/h, but we would have never have pushed it to that limit. Never, promise ;)

Through a stroke of luck, we got to drive the 2.0L diesel all the way to Bulwer, which was great. We also learnt that the car handles very well on wet & windy roads, and saw from one of the other journalists, that it does indeed stop very quickly, when there is a bull cow slowly strolling across the road, on a blind corner.

After taking ownership of 1.6L RT,we eventually got to our lunch stop at the Oribi Gorge Hotel, which was fantastic. We then all zooted off to the airport, which we did quite smoothly
in the entry level 1.4L RT. Surprisingly,it had loads of power, and seemed to happily cruise along at 120km/h to get us back to the airport with enough time to spare for everyone to catch their flights home.

Every time I drive past my local Toyota dealership, and see the Auris standing waiting to be bought, I am reminded of my 2 days in the Auris, and am very tempted to go in and trade my car in. The Auris is a car I would buy in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose, and I can honestly say that Toyota have created a masterpiece this time round. I have been following a few forum threads online about the thoughts of the Auris, and while many people think some of the prices are high, the majorities have said they would buy the vehicle, to
replace their current one. I know I would :)

For a detailed encounter of my trip in the Auris, you can read it on my blog post here, and if you would like to see some of the pictures we captured on the day, you can see them here.

Big thanks again to Brian Eades and everyone at Toyota for an amazing 2 days; it’s definitely something I will never forget.