Dear Baraza,
I have been reading your articles since Car Clinic started. To my surprise, all these years, I have never read anything positive about the Nissan. My question is, what is the problem with Nissan? I don’t think a company would make a car to be trashed. There must be a reason why they are still manufacturing Nissan to date. Kindly review one Nissan, say Serena. I am looking forward to buying one, and do shed some light on the issues that make you hate the Nissan. Forget about the Kenyan mindset of the Toyota.
Francis.
Well, well, well, here we go again…
You have never read anything positive about Nissan in this column, huh? You never saw anything I wrote about the GTR back, say, around February 25th, 2015? You never read any Patrol (Y62) vs. Land Cruiser (200) comparisons I have done in here, at all? And there have been several, trust me. The Y62 always wins, and that’s saying something. There was also the full review of the Y62 on October 7th of 2015.
I don’t understand why you would use the word “trashing”, to tell the truth, it really gets under my skin, but not as much as baseless accusations do. It’s wrong to draw conclusions that are not based on fact. It’s counterproductive and unconstitutional. Based on what I wrote last week: do some research as well. If you did, you’d realise I don’t “trash” anybody or anything, I’m just brutally honest and I call it as I see it.
I don’t “hate” brands: why would I? There are cars I love, (hi Porsche! Mwwaaaahh!) but there are none I hate, not even the Mobius. I don’t hate it, I just don’t respect the effort that went into its creation. I do not trash brands.
You say you plan to buy the Nissan Serena. Here’s what others think about it. At one time, it was the slowest-accelerating vehicle on sale in Britain. Honest John, a much trusted motoring guru, had it on his list of “Worst Cars Made in the Last 10 Years” between 1994 and 2004. The Telegraph, a widely circulating UK publication, blasted the Serena by putting it on their list of “10 Cars That Should Never Have Been Built”. And before I forget, Jeremy Clarkson said he’d need at least 44 pages to rant about the Serena alone which is on his list of boring cars.
Now, did you say that I “trash” cars?
A look at the double cabs jostling for the head chair at the high table
Mr Baraza,
I saw your piece on the Ford Ranger. The digress was quite informative and I apologise in advance for the blatant plagiarism of it in my next get-together, when shooting the breeze with some die-hard Toyota-ites. I have acquired the new pickup, it’s a bit too pretty for my liking, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.
Patrick.
Hi Patrick,
Finally, some much-needed relief from the steady barrage of accusations I have been getting lately. I can now breathe a little. Yeah, that little digression was necessary. It was about the Amarok, wasn’t it? Quite a game-changer, that one. Feel free to plagiarise the piece as hard as you want, but only verbally. If you do it in writing you will have to give me credit. This is not an ego trip, it’s actually for your own protection – in this day and age of apps and search engines, more and more “writers” are being uncovered as unoriginal. Don’t get caught. Anyway, I’m glad to be of help. Now, about the Toyota-ites… let me tell you a little something. I recently watched the film The Gentlemen, and Toyota is Michael Pearson, the old lion. It has ruled the roost since forever, leading to a semblance of the king resting on his laurels until some young upstarts make an appearance to try and usurp the legend and establish a new order, only for the legend to mercilessly remind them why he is a legend in the first place. That is Toyota.
If you get a chance, try the new Hilux double cab. You will be bowled over – I have test-driven many cars over several days apiece and the Hilux is one of the few I was least keen on giving back at the end of the test. I actually wanted to keep it much longer, indefinitely, to be honest. The fight at the top of the double-cab food chain has really heated up. The Amarok is the young upstart causing an upheaval and selling silent fear among the ranks. The Ford is the overpriced blinged up gangster who is probably talking louder than he can shoot (until he actually shoots then you painfully discover that the muzzle matches the jaw). The Triton is the guy lurking outside peering in through the window at the more fashionable gentlemen duking it out indoors at the poker table. The Navara is at the table too, but has lost a few hands of the game to the rest, so it’s sitting quietly in a dark corner, shrouded in a cloud of cigar smoke, biting its lower lip, chin in hand, eyes shifting from left to right and back, looking for a comeback strategy.
The Hilux? It went to the bathroom only to return and find the rest squabbling over its seat at the head of the table. All it had to do was clear its throat and everyone scrambled back into position. Huh.
Enjoy your pretty new Ford Ranger, sir. And keep in touch, I always enjoy the correspondence.
* * * * *
Clarification: the Hilux may or may not ultimately rule the roost. It is a very close battle between it and the Amarok, with battle lines drawn along premium quality and price. The Volkswagen trades on feel while the Hilux hits back with pricing, but both vehicles are really close to each other on both grounds. While the Hilux has reputational reliability to fall back on, the Amarok has two aces up its sleeve: DT Dobie has lately been on a price offensive that could soon touch the Amarok, thus undercutting the Hilux, which will be an uppercut to Toyota. If – or when – the Dobie decides to start selling the 3.0-litre V6 TDI Amarok, it will be game over.
Where is the Ranger in all this? I’d be more definite if Ford gave me one to review, but instead I’ve had to make do with customer cars which cannot be subjected to extensive testing because these people need to use their vehicles. In addition, Ford’s pricing strategy seems to assume that either this country is full of billionaires or the Kenya shilling is a joke, so it prices itself out of the running. However, that does not mean that this cannot be a three-way battle, there exists such a thing as a Mazda BT-50.
The BT-50 is essentially a Ford Ranger – which is actually quite good in itself – with a price tag for real people who work for their money. Chances are I will be reviewing one soon, but let’s see how that goes, my bet is it may pull the rag out from under one or both of the main contenders’ feet.
Isuzu DMAX: the last bastion of automotive realism in this segment – a double-cab for actual double-cab work, not for posing. What it surrenders in luxury and performance it makes up for in pricing and rugged dependability. The smart businessman’s choice.
The last thing I want is to come out smelling like a rose…
Jambo!
I almost dismissed you as a guy who does not want to upset the status quo. That you want to give advice but at the same time come out smelling like a rose. This feeling has changed drastically from your handling of the case of D.R.I.W. (DN2 28 03 2020 – should be 26/02/2020 I think) You told him what he needs to be told. You did not fence sit. Maybe I shall just give your column another chance.
Kudos.
Jambo! Thank you for the kudos, Other Patrick, but me? Fence-sit? Smell like a rose? Not upset anyone? Are we talking about the same motoring columnist? Every week I sit at my ageing typewriter-with-a-window and check my mailbag, honourable intentions overflowing from my chest-heart and superfluous knowledge overflowing from my mind-brain and I ask myself: how am I going to improve the lives of my readers this week? Ah, the usual recipe: information, critical analysis, honesty and just a little dash of humour. If and when it allows, literary art finds its way into the script, but the overarching brief is: Tell it as it is.
I don’t expect a medal, I do get paid after all, but it is not a pleasant feeling when your brand-biased readers deliberately misunderstand you (Why don’t you love Nissans! And Mitsubishis!) and car dealerships wonder why you will not act like a public relations shill for people you have never met and who don’t pay you anyway (You hate Nissans! And Mitsubishis!), so as you may have gathered so far, I do take a lot of flak from both ends of this linear ecosystem for being brutally honest. It’s like they want me to lie. Why are you so callous, so unfeeling, so blunt? they ask. Can’t you say anything nice?
And then along comes Other Patrick saying I’m not blunt enough. Wait, what? Me? The same guy who got a scathing phone call from South Africa one cold morning, taking umbrage at my saying you need both a trust fund and a salary to comfortably operate a Range Rover, but failed to mention Jaguar Land Rover’s wonderful warranties despite the fact that the soon-to-be-tearful reader behind the correspondence was referring to a 2013 vehicle in 2018 – which meant the warranty had long since expired and was therefore irrelevant to the discussion? Are we talking about that guy?
I’m glad I vindicated myself in your eyes, though, really glad. Yes, you should give this column another chance, you don’t know what you are missing. There is a lot that happens here, you need to be present to witness it.