In search of the true people’s car

With the way carmakers are loading up their new models with feature after feature, one would think that car buyers are hungrily snapping them up as soon as they hit the showroom floor.

Of course, nothing can be farther from the truth, what with sales hitting record lows month after month. Still, it makes one wonder why carmakers are relentlessly adding gizmos and gadgets when the end result is that they price their very own products beyond the reach of most car buyers’ budgets.

Walk into a car showroom today and the loudest sound you hear would be the collective sighs of frustrated buyers who could only drool at the latest models bristling with leather seats, LCD monitors and VCD players, wood-grain trim, sunroofs, and even a backseat massager.

Desirable features? Undoubtedly. Value for money? Depends whose checkbook you’re holding, but chances are, only the very few can truly afford these cars.

Where is the people’s car when we need one? Even the supposed car-of-the-masses of the new millennium – the AUV – is now loaded to the gills with leather seats, wood trim, CD changers, automatic transmissions, alloy wheels and body cladding – bringing their prices dangerously close to genuine-SUV range.

More than a decade after its launch, only the Kia Pride exists to fulfill the duty of a true-blue damn-the-prestige people’s car. It is still the cheapest car in the market at P315,000 for the CD-5 hatchback (the sedan model has been axed). A new power steering-equipped CD-5 is priced at P340,000. The next cheapest model is another Kia; this time, the much more modern Rio 1.3 sedan at P455, 000, its only major amenity being power steering.

Surprisingly, the third cheapest model in the country now comes from a company noted for its high-end cars: Honda. It’s 1.3 City GL starts at P508,000, followed by the City LXi which adds alloy wheels, a better audio system, and a more upscale seat fabric at P548,000. (All cars mentioned are equipped with manual transmissions. Automatic variants usually cost P30,000 more on the average).

One more surprise comes from yet another purveyor of high-end vehicles: Ford. Its all power Lynx 1.3 sedan puts you in a Ford for a relatively low P555,000.

The 1.5-liter cars come next, with the shapely all-power Kia Rio 1.5 hatchback getting the ball rolling at P559,000. The City 1.5 VTi follow suit with a retail price of P599,000. This is followed by Mitsubishi’s cheapest model, the all-power Lancer 1.5 GLX at 620,000.

A notable pricing coup here comes from Ford, which manages to put a 1.6-liter all-power Lynx GSi in your driveway for the same P620,000 sticker price, making it the lowest priced 1.6-liter car on the market. The second cheapest 1.6 liter car comes from another high-end distributor, GM. The car? The imported 629,000 Chevrolet Cassia, after which comes another 1.6-liter car – the Mitsubishi Lancer GLS at P675,000.

All-new models invariably cost more than older models. Thus, the next higher-priced model is again a 1.5-liter car – Nissan’s all-new and substantially enlarged 1.5 DS Sentra Exalta at P680,000. The new-for-2001 Civic is next with the 1.5 LXi at P688,000, thus closing the chapter on 1.5-liter models.

The 1.6-liter cars can basically be grouped into two: the traditional all-power fabric upholstered models and the leather-lined damn-the-cost automatic-only luxo editions. The aforementioned Lynx GSi and Lancer GLS are the only ones that slip below the P700,000 threshold.

The next-up P745,000 Civic VTi is actually cheaper than the P760,000 Sentra Exalta LS. Ford’s top-of-the-line full-boat Ghia A/T actually outvalues all comers with its window sticker of P745,000, the lowest among the luxo editions. In contrast, Mitsubishi’s range-topping MX sedan goes for P785,000 (the A/T-only GSR coupe goes for P755,000) while the high-end Civic VTi-S retails for 823,000.

Finally, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Sentra Exalta Grandeur tops the class with its P875,00 asking price. Of course, that includes an upsized body and array of features as long as this article.

So where does this leave Toyota? The Japanese giant is launching an all-new Corolla as you read this. It will also be bigger, have more amenities, and feature all-new VVTi engines. Needless to say, the price will be higher, too.

But going back to the people’s car roots, perhaps a 1.3-liter sedan with all-power amenities, aircon, a decent stereo (no black bumpers, please!) and a price ceiling of P299,000 would be a reasonable embodiment of the modern car-for-the-masses. Of the players, only the Kia Rio meets these criteria. The 1.3 models of the Honda City and Ford Lynx are not too far off, though.

Let’s hope that everyone learns from the rash of repossessed entry-level cars (some of which were converted to taxi cabs) a few years back, and carmakers get back to selling us cars we can truly afford to buy. They’re hardly money-making machines for their makers, but they do bring the volumes. "Build it and they will come," I say.