Munir Amlani David Lam Coordinator Since the start of this millennium, many new models of cars have been introduced into the North American marketplace. Some of these have been so “unusual” that they have been hard to place into a category. These are two such “unusual” cars: the Toyota Echo and the Suzuki Aerio. I decided to do a comparison test of these two vehicles because of their similarities: They are both very foreign looking, they both have five doors, and they are comparable in price, at around $17,000. I had assumed the two cars would be interesting, in a weird sort of way, but the test result- ed in a surprise. The two cars have basically nothing in common. They aren't in the same league at all, except in very superficial ways. Nonetheless, I figured this would be an interesting comparison. Just for fun, we threw in a wild card at the end. That’s the surprise, so keep reading. My crew and I first went in to test drive the Echo. This is Toyota’s smallest, most economical car. It comes in 2-door, 3-door, 4-door and 5-door, and in two trim levels, the base trim and the RS. The 2- and 4-door versions have a trunk, they look like clunkers, and in my opinion, they are downright unin- spired, dispassionate, and ugly looking. I often wonder why they built that car at all. When I see one on the road, I wonder who buys it. The 3- and 5- door versions, on the other hand, look like fun little cars, and remind me of the new Mini Cooper, made by BMW. And why not? The RS, only available in 5-door, comes with sporty bucket seats, upgraded fabric, leather wrapped steering wheel, alloy sport wheels, a ground effects kit all around, and at rear, a roof-mounted spoiler. It’s not a very powerful car since all the Echos come with the same 1.5 litre, 4- cylinder engine, but there are two things working in the Echo’s favour: Firstly, the light weight body (only around 2000 pounds) combined with the advanced VVT-i engine which outputs 108 horsepower, nets a decent thrust-to-weight ratio when compared to most other cars. Secondly, the car delivers incredibly high fuel-economy of 42 miles per gallon in the city and 51 on the highway, with the manual transmission (6.7 litres per 100 km city, 5.2 highway). Our test car was the 5-door RS model in Millennium Gold, which the dealer said was a love-it- or-hate-it colour. True enough, I loved it, while my crewmate hated it. The oddest characteristic of this car is the instrument cluster, which is positioned in the middle of the dashboard, rather than in front of the driver. Surprisingly, it wasn’t annoying or difficult to get used to. The rear passenger compartment housed my six-foot tall, two-hundred-fifty pound Toyota Echo vs. Suzuki Aerio; Surprise! October 8, 2003 crewmate in comfort, with four-fingers of space to spare. Although we were quite impressed with the Echo RS overall, the Echo lacked a tachometer alto- gether. It simply isn’t offered. The steering in this car was very precise, and the engine was amazingly smooth. But the true surprise was the power. Even with the automatic transmission, the car delivered plenty of power and pep,m right when and where I needed it. Even with four hundred pounds of extra passengers on board, the car didn’t exhibit any strain at all. We went around a few curves at good speeds, and even cut through traffic for a bit. Considering the size of the car and small engine, I was undeniably impressed. ‘We were unable to track down an Echo with a man- ual transmission in time to review it for this article; many dealers say that the demand for them, in the lower mainland, is greater than their supply. It seems that Toyota didn’t expect the Echo to have a sporty appeal. Since they did make the sporty RS configura- Toyota Echo vs. Suzuki Aerio tion, however, I criticize their lack of offering enough manual transmission models and an _ optional tachometer. Our next bout was with the Suzuki Aerio. The Aerio is, in fact, at the opposite end of the spectrum as the Echo. Oh sure, it seems sporty enough, but beneath its funky Japanese skin, it’s a practical, family car. And, it does it quite well, as it comes with beau- tiful velour seat-fabric and a digital instrument cluster. Yes, I just said that the little 5-door Suzuki has a dig- ital instrument display, which features a numerical speed readout and a bar-graph tachometer. I give it points for having a tach at all, but no sports car enthu- siast, except maybe Michael Knight, wants it in digi- tal. The clutch, on the other hand, was very light and easy to operate, while the shifter allowed short throws for quick gear changing. The car, however, was not a pleasure to drive. We drove the 03 model with a 5- speed manual, and in my opinion, it was dangerously devoid of power in second gear. Folks, I couldn't emphasize this enough: there was no power at all in second. The only way I could get any performance at all out of this car, was to rev it up to 5000 rpm in first gear, every time, so that it could enter into second at 3000. I don’t mind doing this occasionally, like when I’m racing or showing off, but the Aerio requires me to rev up to five grand just to get out of the K-Mart parking lot. Anything less than two grand of revs in second was like pushing the car with manpower instead of horsepower. All this from a car that claims 145 horsepower and 136 pound-feet of torque. Those horses must be the size of my poodle. It was a pitiful performance from Suzuki. I understand that the auto- matic transmission is very responsive, and that the 04 model has a more powerful, 2.3-litre engine with more low-end torque to help move the car. I haven't been able to test the new 04 model yet. But serious- ly, if it takes a 2.3-litre engine for Suzuki to match the performance of a 1.5-litre Toyota Echo. For now, I must recant the title of “the Best Car under $16,296” as announced in the “Best of New West” issue this summer. That honour clearly belongs to the Toyota Echo. So, are you ready for the upset yet? The Suzuki deal- ership we went to also sold Hyundai. There it was, a shiny, new, black Elantra, with a manual transmission, just staring at us with its big round eyes, taunting us. A closer look revealed power windows and door locks, cruise control, air conditioning, and even a remote keyless entry system, all for a humble price tag of only $16,900. I say, are you ready for the upset? The Elantra was amazing! It had a rather dull interior décor, but the shifter was perfect, and the drive train was something to sing along with. The rev-happy engine sang the blues with all the grace of Bryan Adams, and punched out a lot of torque at those right turns, even at revs as low as 1200 rpm’s. There was no hesitation in any gear, no exces- sive road noise or any other apparent compromises. Just a beautifully impressive, albeit underrated car. It’s true that the car doesn’t fall into the same size catego- ry as the others compared here, but then, that was the point. If I were to spend $17,000 on a car, which would it be? The base Echo is quite stripped of features, no AC or spoiler, but it’s a fun car, nonetheless, at $14,600. The Elantra is equally as impressive, but a more prac- tical alternative, at $16,900. Take your pick from among them. The ’03 Aerio with an automatic is all right as a family car, but it lost out big time in our “sporty, zippy, affordable car” comparison; maybe the 04 model will be redeemed. Expect car reviews every month, with informative car-facts in off-issues. This is my favourite part of my job, and I take pride doing it. But I’m open to reader feedback, questions, and comments, and would love to hear from you. vs. Power Price (Free Advice Angie Cameron David Lam Contributor For those of you who don’t have time between school and work to go to the gym, here is a little secret for building arm and shoulder muscles. You might to want to adopt this mode of fitness. I sug- gest three times a week to start. Begin by standing on a comfy surface, where youll have lots of space around you at each side. With a five-pound potato sack in each hand, abduct Page 10 e http://www-otherpress.ca (that means extend for those of you that are a little rusty on their thesaurus skills) your arms and hold them there for as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, then adduct (meaning relax your arms to your sides). Each day, you'll notice that you can hold this position for a bit longer. Within a few weeks, move up to ten-pound pota- to sacks and then even 50-pound potato sacks. Eventually try to get where you can lift 100-pound sacks and keep your arms fully extended for more than a full minute. After you feel very confident about your strength at that level, you can start putting a couple of pota- toes in each of the sacks...but be careful you don’t strain yourself too much. S