I’m quite fond of car manufacturer, Daihatsu. I’m not particularly one for badge engineering, but in Daihatsu’s case it can’t be bad thing – Daihatsu’s are for the most part Toyota’s and as such, should give you years of reliable motoring and hopefully hold their value when the time comes for an upgrade.
Even the venerable Aston Martin chose the might of Toyota when teaming up with them to create the Aston Martin Cygnet City Car as featured in last week’s column.
Don’t expect Daihatsu forging a partnership with a low volume, luxurious sportscar manufacturer any time soon, that’s just not cricket as they say. But that hasn’t stopped Daihatsu SA from letting their hair down and building a proudly South African, limited edition Daihatsu Materia Turbo.
The Daihatsu Materia, to sum it up briefly, is a box on wheels. No doubt the standard model will turn a few heads out and about, with its unique slab-sided look and goofy dimensions, but honestly most onlookers will be scratching their heads as to what company would sign off on such a weird looking car.
But then again, the Japanese have never been one to shy away from quirkiness, the whole new Mazda range is evidence enough.
On looks alone, if the standard, run-of-the-mill Materia is a ‘box on wheels’, then the Materia Turbo can only be described as a ‘Hot’ box on wheels. The designers could quite possibly have been in a ‘hotbox’ when they put pen to paper and designed the new look Turbo edition, but let’s be honest, if you want to arrive from far left field you might as well go the whole bang shoot and really shout about your arrival.
The Materia Turbo defiantly does that with a real ‘Pimp My Ride’ makeover. Sitting lower to ground and on very menacing looking matte black alloy rims, the Materia Turbo now cuts an even more unique profile than the bogo model. Side glass has been darkened to the max, so much so that my two year old son could be driving it and no one would be the wiser.
Daihatsu call the Materia Turbo an ‘Urban street fighter’ and besides the gawdy bonnet scoop, it really does look like the steely eyed glare from a hooded prize fighter – I could imagine 50Cent driving one these, in a ‘I’m gonna give you beat down’, rap gangster, gold chains, grabbing his crotch, cap on sideways, kind of way.
Don’t think the Turbo makeover is just cosmetic – Daihatsu’s decided to really shake things up and have gone the whole hog. They’ve bolted on a Turbo, a stainless steel exhaust, given it a trick racing suspension and an optional limited slip differential (sorry about the techno mumbo jumbo, read = will drive better). You can even spec a 1000w amp and sub-woofer, and set of optional high-performance brake discs in case, “You’re worried about stopping on a dime, Yo!”.
At R219 900 it has to be the performance ‘hatch back’ (if you can call it that) of the year. What’s even better is that the 3 year/100 000km warranty with 15 000km service intervals still stands.
Will you buy this car? Probably not, but it’s worth a test drive just for entertainment value alone. I suggest taking a CD along, preferably one by Little Wayne or Puppy Dogg or whatever their names are, getting dressed up in whatever their respective ho’s wear and give your bleary eyed Daihatsu salesman a very memorable Saturday morning wake up call.
Now say it with me, “Whatcha lookin’ at Beeyiach?”
