Along Came a Spider

Norkis Trading Company has a knack for showcasing Filipino ingenuity in the automotive industry. The Cebu-based company has pioneered the “4R” process – recycling, reengineering, reconditioning and rebuilding – and applied this process initially on motorcycles with the Norkis Wonderbikes and then later on the successful and highly popular Multicab models. Company patriarch Norberto Quisumbing, who’s credited with introducing the tricycle as a commercial model in 1962, is a known innovator and the hundreds of “Norkisans” under him are encouraged to be innovative for their personal improvement as well as for the country’s.

Recently, Porta Coeli Industrial Co., Inc., Norkis’ four-wheel vehicle division came out with the Legacy and the Maverick, which are re-worked micro cars that passed through the 4R process and offered affordable motoring to the average Filipino. Instead of resting on their achievements, the “Norkisans” worked on another innovation based on the Japanese micro cars and focused their design on affordability and utility.  The MTT Spider is the result of their innovation.

Multi Tasking Truck

Unlike the Maverick, which is basically a reconditioned Japanese micro car and the Legacy, which is a micro car reengineered to function as a mini pick-up, the MTT Spider has fully utilized the 4R process and invents a new category in the multi-purpose vehicle market. The kei-car sedan chassis and engine of the Spider places it in the subcompact sedan category while the high roof, eight-seat arrangement, open sides and bar-type doors of the Spider places it in a class of its own.

According to Manuel Gaspar Albos, Jr., the managing head of Norkis four wheel vehicle division, the MTT Spider came about with the demand for affordable passenger vehicles that can be used for transporting people and goods quickly and economically. He added that the design of the MTT Spider makes it an ideal vehicle for resort hotels, tourist spots, industrial parks, aircraft hangars, massive warehouses, golf courses, private villages and even for law enforcement. The tall roof and unobstructed 360-degree view would indeed make it ideal for viewing sceneries and patrolling vast areas.

Econocar Base

The MTT Spider is powered by a 660cc 12-valve three cylinder gasoline-fed Suzuki engine. Reengineering and reconditioning allowed the micro car engine to perform with added zip and retained economy, returning a factory claimed 18 to 21 kilometers per liter during their test runs which included a run of the North Luzon Loop that passes from Bulacan-Nueva Ecija-Nueva Vizcaya-Isabela-Tuguegarao-Aparri to Ilocos-La-Union-Pangasinan-Pampanga-Bulacan and back to Manila. Norkis engineers also claim that the Spider can run at 120kph with uncanny stability and they cited their test runs on the North Luzon Tollways as the basis for their claims.

Curiously, the automatic transmission-equipped MTT Spider at P172,000 is priced lower than the variant equipped with a manual transmission, which is priced at P182,000. We speculated that the company is promoting the automatic MTT Spider for added safety so the driver can concentrate on driving and enjoying the scenery instead of shifting and becoming distracted with the clutch. However, we later found out that they have more automatic versions than manual transmission-equipped ones in stock, thus the price difference.

With gasoline prices escalating at an alarming rate and heavy traffic choking our streets, perhaps Norkis may have again created an innovation that would alleviate the transportation woes of the average Filipino. As they did with the Multicab, the Legacy and the Maverick, the company has given the car buyers another alternative on how best to stretch their peso when investing in transportation.