Hello and welcome to this printed awards ceremony where we focus less on the festivities and more on the nominees and the outright winner, which is the Mahindra Scorpio Pik-Up (yes, there isn't a letter "c" in India's spelling of a light truck), but before we get to why that strange entry walks away with this highly coveted and difficult-to-attain award, a few explainers.
This award is given to brand new cars on sale within the borders of the country at the time of the ceremony, that is why your Nissan Note will never, ever qualify for the accolade no matter how many emails and Facebook posts are written in protest - and for the umpteenth time, no, we do not hate Nissan because we have absolutely no reason to and we gain nothing from such a subjective, unprofessional and unproductive approach to our work as "hating a brand".
If anything, we stand to lose a lot from this blatant lack of counsel.
The award criteria is some sort of moving target in that any vehicle of any class will win provided it ticks all the right boxes.
As a frame of reference, over the years we have had as winners a Jaguar saloon, a Volkswagen hatchback, a Toyota SUV and very recently we even had a Scania truck as one of the nominees but it didn't win because it costs a lot of money and appeals only to a specific subset of people, but you can see where we are going with this – the award is open to any vehicle of any class.
It is the vehicle that impresses us most, citing valid reasons why.
And so? We delve right in to our podium finishers. There are only three contestants because 2020 is that year that will go down in history as the time humanity came closest to the Great Reckoning.
Man has faced down natural disasters, climate change, wars, various pandemics at various times but correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first time all seven billion of us have been forced indoors at the same time, and compelled to stop shaking hands.
It is the only time in history when you will be welcomed warmly into a banking hall while wearing a mask. Had you tried that before, you'd be welcomed with a wall of gunfire.
Lockdowns, quarantines, isolations and curfews mean we only got to test three new cars for 2020, and these are the three, in no particular ranking except, as stated before, the Mahindra Scorpio is the overall winner.
One of the best-selling automotive nameplates in history seeks to expand its reach and profitability, as though selling 44 million cars over 50 years is not profitable enough.
Here is a fun fact, an internet search of how many Corollas have been sold since inception in 1966 does not give a conclusive result. What you get is "44 million cars from 1966 to 2016".
Between 2016 and 2020 you have to do your own math, which I won't because my point has already been made: Toyota has sold more Corollas in total than there are Kenyans as of the last census.
This is impressive, no doubt. Now enter phase II of the master plan. As of the 21st Century, the car-buying public has shown a great affinity for what we call "crossovers", replacing the saloon car as the body type of choice - except in the US where they still buy trucks to load up with high-powered assault rifles and go into the woods to decimate the local populations of grizzlies and deer.
The crossover was and still is the most popular body type which prompted almost all car manufacturers to venture into the segment, even traditional non-crossover builders. You know things are serious when Porsche builds a crossover.
Then Lamborghini. Then Aston Martin. Ferrari is rumored to join in the fray. “Cash rules everything around me,” said one American literary laureate who self-identifies as a "hip hop artist". You want cash? Build and sell a crossover. Ka-ching!
Enter the Toyota Corporation, a company with 13,000 designers on its payroll where most other car manufacturers only have one. With that kind of human resource, it only makes sense that they make too many cars occupying too many niches.
They have no shortage of crossovers of any size: Harriers, Klugers, Highlanders, CHRs, RAV4s, Avanzas, Rushes and countless other models I can't be bothered to get into.
And they manage to sell all of them, somehow. No sales-cannibalising fears at Toyota City like I have observed at other car builders.
However, someone at Toyota thought: We sell uncountable Corollas, and we sell uncountable crossovers. What if, just what if, we combine the two? A Corolla Crossover? The universe would explode in a shower of banknotes and stock bonuses. And thus the Corolla Cross was born.
The Corolla Cross is a fairly ordinary car but an extraordinary philosophical concept. It looks like a Toyota at first glance, and also a bit like a Mazda, and the interior is very well built but avoid the grey monochrome and go for the black-on-red trim if you want to fool yourself that you are in a European car, briefly.
Performance and handling are nothing special, which is in keeping with the Toyota-ness of it all, but what is impressive is the sheer brazenness that is the existence of this car. It didn't need building, but Toyota built it anyway, which explains the success of the company in general.
Where others choose to exercise cautious optimism with a new model, Toyota charges forward and overwhelms the buyer with presence and brand recognition. They are stoning two kills with one bird – the kills being lovers of the Corolla nameplate and lovers of the crossover segment - and these two demographics are very substantial, as we have already established - and the bird in question being the Corolla Cross. Genius. Watch this car sell.
They gave it the slogan "A New Journey", which it is in its own way, but the aforementioned presence and brand recognition so filled my mind that I too embarked on a new journey – that of reviewing a car exclusively on social media.
That in itself is nothing new, but there was a unique selling proposition, a USP as corporate stiffs are wont to call them. I did the review in poetry form.
Yes, I wrote and I'm still writing the review of the Corolla Cross on my social media platforms in the form of a very lengthy poem split into episodes that will continue until I exhaust what I have to say.
So how come it doesn’t win the prestigious and coveted MPA CoTY Award? Two reasons, the first being the Mahindra, the second being the price. It costs Sh4.4 million, which may not seem like a lot for a very well made brand new crossover with attractive warranties and bullet-proof reliability, but local franchises have woken up lately and competitive pricing is the in thing.
That amount is not very competitive, especially when you discover what our winner is offering, and for that, the Cross does get its moment of fame but it sadly has to watch the ultimate bauble slip through its fingers.
It will still sell, though. It is a Toyota after all, a Corolla no less, and it is a crossover. The perfect combination.
It took a while before I got my hands on this vehicle, and I am writing this less than half an hour after handing back the borrowed demonstrator that I shook down. In keeping with the theme of this article, let us start with the philosophical implications before delving into the real world stuff.
The Defender name has always stood for rugged simplicity and toughness. I had the old model a few weeks before I tried the new one and the difference between the two vehicles could not be starker.
The old one is agricultural, unrefined - almost uncivilised - but the breeze-block silhouette and the clunky mechanical gear change as well as widespread deployment in various global militaries secured its position as the ultimate man-tool for the winning side (terrorists use Toyotas).
The new one can be viewed as a revolutionary evolution of the previous model, but first impressions imply this only applies to the design language. Drive it a bit and you’ll wonder whether or not this is actually a Land Rover Defender.
Land Rover Defender.
Photo credit: Pool | Nation Media Group
It drives very well, words cannot do justice to just how good it is. The refinement and noise containment is at Mercedes level, as is the pliancy of the ride quality.
It looks smaller than its father in the pictures but it’s actually larger, and this is immediately apparent the moment you get inside. It is roomy in there no matter how far forward or backwards you push the seats, which is interesting because it seems to have been designed to accommodate Americans and guess what?
The vehicle is on sale in the US. The previous forced-intimacy model wasn’t, which may explain the narrow cabin. Or the other way round – the narrow cabin explains why it wasn’t sold in the US. Chicken and egg situation we have going on here.
Since majority of you have only seen the vehicle in various forms of media, this means you have seen it at “Acces Height” or “Normal Height”, two of the three ground clearance settings available.
One would be forgiven to assume this is no longer the off-roader its forbearer was and is some kind of mall-crawler. One could not be more wrong. There is a third setting, “Off-Road Height.” Engage this and watch it grow tall...very, very tall.
The vehicle rises to lofty heights, leaving almost a foot of wheel gap, especially at the rear axle. It is possible to fit your head into the space between the tyre and the wheel well once it’s at maximum ride height, but I don’t recommend this.
What I instead recommend is you take it into some ruts and over some rocks and observe as it fails to struggle even for a single instance. Whoever said the new Defender is not an off-roader needs to be made to pay for one as punishment, and this is where the problems begin.
Talented as it is, the vehicle is horribly expensive. The previous Defender sold for about Sh6 million brand new. The current one sells for more than three times that amount if you go wild with the specifications.
Ouch! Sh19 million can buy you a lot of cars, but you can save about Sh5 million by buying the one I had which had a small engine, a 2.0 liter petrol turbo, which is another problem in itself.
The engine, one from the Ingenium family, is not half bad and will propel the vehicle convincingly in normal day-to-day use.
On startup, it has a grating drone that lasts for a few seconds before settling down to an eerie quietness that I kid you not, will have you wondering whether the vehicle is on or off.
That is the refinement and noise containment I referred to earlier. Pootle around in it and you will notice a few Easter eggs aimed at the driving enthusiast.
There is a discreet wastegate whine once you soar north of 1800rpm, then when you close the throttle... a fluttering sound. Hello, dump valve! Those non-engine noises are addictive.
They can be addictive to the point that you forget to notice how quickly the fuel gauge is dropping.
The initial stages had us burn through slightly more than a quarter tank on a drive from Westlands to the Southern Bypass, to Lang’ata and back to Karen, in clear traffic. Panic ensued.
Further driving brought the total mileage to 311km and upon fuelling, asked for 64 liters to refill the tank. We were doing 4.8km/l and we were not pushing the car. We hadn’t even gone off-road yet!
My word count quota is over for now. Tune in next week for a continuation of this Defender saga as we explain why the Mahindra is more deserving of our award.
