I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the car’s name on the app and to make matters even more crazy the car was right in front of us!
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Toyota Alphard Experienced by A Young Petrol Head!
I was on a family vacation to Singapore and Malaysia, as per plan we had a good 5 days stay in each country to roam around and see these beautiful locations. This time we travelled as a whole family. After lots of planning we chose a ten-day trip and we chose the easiest countries to roam as a family without any tour planners. My Appa and his Big brother (I call him Velliappa) was our tour organizing committee They always plan trips in such a way that the trip will be comfortable (based on our luck), and for them it’s not mandatory to see all places. They will limit the trip to few key attractions and leave the remaining days to experience the country, people, food and its culture. After considering lots of choices of destinations and considering the challenges of visa processing for the whole family of nine members, we finalized on Singapore and Malaysia.
How they made me part of the plan:
You all may agree with me, that Singapore has a thriving car culture. It’s a country with many numbers of modified cars. Singapore’s modified car scene includes Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars, European Domestic Market (EDM) cars, and supercars. If you see a car on the Singapore roads, you should understand that it’s an expensive possession and even a used car in this country will cost $ one lakh upward. In Singapore its stated that there are only twelve cars per hundred people, keeping these statistics in mind I was sure that if someone owns a car, it should be a worthy possession, and the car culture of the country fueled my excitement and was sure that I am going to see many best cars in this country. Kuala Lumpur Malaysia too is good with car culture, they are famous for car meets like Art of Speed, Crazy Car Meet, and IAM KL. Malaysia has car brands like Perodua (the largest car manufacture in Malaysia) and Proton (Geely holds 49.9% stake in this company) and companies like PETRONAS, Malaysia’s national oil and gas company. PETRONAS has been the main sponsor of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 team since 2010. The team won eight consecutive Constructors’ Championship titles and seven Drivers’ Championship titles from 2014 to 2021.
Petronas F1 Model Car displayed in a museum in Malaysia.
According to me if you need to see the best possession of cars on the road, you need to visit countries like Italy, Germany, Japan, Michigan, UK, Australia, France, Dubai and Singapore. Even though Singapore has a thriving car culture, I am sure this country is not much explored by enthusiasts like us for Car spotting. So, I decided to check out and see if I can see some exciting cars during this visit. My Appa also fueled my enthusiasm with more stories of cars that we could see in these countries, that to add fuel to our trip plan. We also had kept aside a good amount of time to explore these countries by road.
Bookings and travel:
We booked our flights with Singapore airlines and the plan was to first go to Malaysia spend few days there in Kuala Lumpur and then take a road trip to Singapore border and then get on a train to cross the board to Singapore to make the immigration formalities simple. Sounds exciting? Yes, you were right it was really a fun filled plan. I will be sharing a car spotting travelogue soon covering the details of planning and all cars we spotted during this visit.
We started our travel with a plan to use services from Grab (a cab aggregator like Ola / Uber) for visiting places in Malaysia, the idea was to use this as the service is quick and there is no need to stick to one car for the whole travel. We had nine people in our family, and we will always need two cars to pick us. We three agreed ( Appa, Velliappa and Me) that we will pick different cars through out our journey and every time I will be given the priority boarding. As a young petrol head, I was excited to experience the car brands which I have not experienced yet. In Singapore the plan was to use metro to experience the fast lifestyle, their discipline and underground malls. We agreed to take cars only if we need to visit places that are little far and when we don’t have time to waste.
Landed in Malaysia and our first pick of the day was a Toyota Hiace from airport to our hotel Holiday Inn. From then on, it was Car filled ten days at Malaysia and Singapore. In Malaysia we had Toyota’s, Peruda, Proton, Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia as common on Grab and we extensively used these cars. I travelled in many Peroduas (Bezza, Axia, Viva, Alza) and Protons ( Persona, Saga, X50, X90) models and I must say that they are not bad or cheap. The are built to clock miles and I realized why Geely invested in the Malaysian car scene. From Toyota we got to use Rush, Vios, Yaris and Hiace. In Singapore the scene changed on Grab we got maximum cars from Toyota which includes Corolla Cross, Alphard and Noha Hybrid.
In the whole lot of picks from Grab, my favorite was the Alphard as I haven’t seen many in our country and I was always looking forward to having a ride in the same like a BOSS. This was in my wish list for a while, before traveling for this vacation during the planning phase I realized that there is a huge probability for spotting and experiencing the Alphard during this visit. The excitement is tied to my favorite Alphard scale model which I picked as my Birthday present when I was 7 years old.
Information on the Toyota Alphard:
Toyota Alphard is a luxury minivan, the flagship minivan model from Toyota launched in 2002. Unlike normal minivans, Alphard is used to carry executives, celebrities and even royalty! Alphard is a popular car for the wealthy and celebrities. This minivan was made primarily for Japanese market, it’s also sold in many Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia. Alphard was named after the Brightest Star in the Constellation Hydra. From the second generation a twin model called Toyota Vellfire has also been available, which is marketed as a sportier alternative to Alphard. Alphard had many generations and grade levels; it is also a treasure and popular minivans in the minds of car enthusiasts like me. Alphard is described as having an “elegant and sophisticated” design while the Vellfire emphasizes on “strength and strong individuality”
My Alphard:
A week before my seventh birthday I was browsing on amazon for a scale model, yes, you guessed it right. I used to pick my gifts for birthday and my parents wrap these and add few more scale models to give it to me, to be honest I am happy with the approach. This is something I’ve been doing since my sixth birthday to find the perfect gift. A black vehicle! I loved it after seeing the pictures on amazon and for that whole week I was in my own fantasy world, thinking about it, finally the delivery date approached, and I had sleepless nights due to the excitement of this delivery and my birthday. I was ready with my PDI list before delivery and when the delivery uncle came home with the packet I was in Joy and excitement. My parents collected the packet and shown me the box, I saw the company’s name (XLG) on the box and a glance of the marvelous black van through the transparent side of the box, I was sure it was going to be a great model. My parents took it for the pre delivery checks, Once the checks were done the minivan was nicely wrapped and decked up with a ribbon to be gifted on my Birthday. Last year I got a Maybach made by the same scale model company, so I knew it was going to be a good model. Alphard is close to four years old now, but it’s still looks like brand new. Its accurate to the real thing, it even has the same smooth sliding doors. XLG make some great scale model cars, and they are value for money when compared to the famous scale model companies like Bburago which are in some cases extremely expensive.
My Alphard experience:
Me and my family were at Singapore zoo at around 9:00 pm, we have spent the whole day there having loads of fun. We had just experienced the thrilling night safari at the zoo, little did we know we were about to feel another experience! After the night safari we came to the parking lot of the Zoo and I was roaming around and seeing many cars, there were many exciting cars in the lot, and it all looked like waiting for its family to pick. As we don’t have our car, my Velliappa on his Grab application tried booking car, and the app was showing a car which was near to the Zoo and our destination was to the Yotel Hotel on Orchard Road which was a seventeen kilometers drive and took approximately twenty minutes. As it was getting late, we quickly booked the one which was shown as nearby and waited, in our earlier rides we got many cars and to me the exciting one was NOHA, which was a mini-Alphard for less than a quarter of the price and an Opel Astra estate. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the car’s name on the app and to make matters even more crazy the car was right in front of us! In front of us stood a white beast with chrome accents called the Toyota Alphard! I got to sit in the second row in the captain seat, since when we got a ride in Noha I had to sit in the cramped last row. I got in with my parents and grandparents. My parents sat in the last row, my grandpa called shotgun, and sat in the front, and me and my grandma were in the captain seats! Those seats could have put business class airplane seats to shame! But one thing I noticed was that the vehicle was kind of sluggish and slow even though it has a decently powerful engine. I sadly couldn’t use all the privileges of the captain seat since it as a twenty-minute ride.
Toyota NOHA:
The Alphard look:
This car is quite big, in fact if you check the dimensions, the Alphard (third gen) is longer and taller than the Fortuner by 150 mm in length and 60 mm in height . Right now, the Alphard is in the fourth generation. In my opinion I like the third generation one since it doesn’t look similar to the Vellfire. The Alphard is smoother looking than the Vellfire which is supposed to be sharper looking, but now they are similar.
In India, you see a Vellfire quite occasionally (even though it’s rare) and you may not see an Alphard quiet often. In Singapore and Malaysia, I saw many of these cars being used like an Innova in India! There you can see every generation of these two vehicles from the first to last generations.
The quirks and features:
The rear doors are MASSIVE but not to worry my friends they can be controlled electronically. The captain seats are electronically adjustable, ventilated, heated and have a mini screen which had more controls like massaging functions. All Alphard’s before the fourth gen had a special badge which depicted a lower-case alpha letter. Now its just the standard Toyota logo.
The brothers:
Even though the Alphard costs close to 1.3 Crores it’s still a subject to badge engineering like most cars under the Toyota name. The Toyota Alphard, Vellfire and Lexus LM are all the same car with different looks, features and price points. Alphard 1.3 crores, Vellfire 1.2 Crores, LM 2 crores ( these are the base prices), The LM is the only one with any significant changes in comparison to the other two, but that’s quite expected as it’s a Lexus.
With brothers:
Engine specs And brakes:
The Alphard is available in three engine options, the lower variants are powered with a 4 cylinder in line engine with 2487 CC, 180 BHP and 235 Nm torque paired with a CVT gearbox with an engine which runs on petrol. The Alphard has also got a 2.5-liter petrol hybrid heart that puts our 250 BHP and a 2.4-liter turbo petrol heart, which is the most powerful of the lot that makes 275 BHP and 430 NM. The Alphard has ventilated disc brakes in the front and normal disc brakes on the rear to stop the great brute of a car.
Feedback from the cockpit:
In my little conversation with the driver Uncle (Mr. Muhammad Ibrahim), he felt my excitement and shared his thoughts and experience with the car. As per my conversation with him, the Alphard is not a fun car to drive, it’s a luxury home for long drives to move your family in style and comfort. The car is a great family hauler to have in the stable, but probably only if you have another car which is fun to drive.
With The BOSS
Your Little Ewan!
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