Alterra-ed States

MANILA, Philippines - What better way to run away from it all than to pretend to be an Isuzu Alterra owner for a day and to go on a long ride and drive to Bicol?

This was the idea behind Isuzu Philippines Corporation’s recent media event called “Trailing Southern Luzon with the 2010 Isuzu Alterra and Caltex Diesel with Techron D.” The event was IPC’s way to show motoring and lifestyle media just how comfortable this SUV rides on long drives. IPC’s instructions was for participants to “think like actual Alterra owners”. The Isuzu Alterra is known to have the most pleasurable ride experience in the large SUV class and it was just our pleasure to comply.

“We were getting a lot of positive feedback from Alterra owners,” said IPC president Keiji Takeda. “Most of them tell us they are really satisfied with their SUV especially on long, out-of-town drives. So we invited some members of the media to do this long-distance drive and asked them to see for themselves if what our customers are saying is really true. We picked Southern Luzon because of the long, scenic route and the various types of terrain that are available in the region, which make it a perfect place to test and experience the ride comfort of the Alterra.”

I’ve slept in an Alterra as it careened over rough roads of Guimaras and my benchmark on the most comfortable ride to Bicol is on the La-Z Boy Extreme, as they call it, aboard the finest buses of Isarog Lines. I settled in my usual place in the second row, buckled up, reclined my seat, stretched out my legs and dozed off as soon as street posts started to whiz by the Alterra’s panoramic windows. In my half-awake, half-asleep state it seemed like it’s the view outside the windows that move and not the vehicle at all like in those old movies.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant in Gumaca, Quezon and had practically an all-shrimp buffet. I swear this area has such a big harvest of shrimp that they put shrimp in practically any dish. For a moment there I thought even the bulalo was shrimp. But it was a great lunch being one that’s practically in the middle of nowhere, it makes one feel truly far away from home and loving it.

For this Alterra trip, we started in Sta. Rosa, Laguna and travelled about 500 kilometers through Quezon and Camarines Norte until we reached Legazpi City, Camarines Sur. The last leg of the trip was a short, early evening traverse of Cagraray Island’s zigzag roads. We reached luxurious Misibis Bay Raintree Resort just in time for a dinner on the beach amidst the lulling sound of the ocean waves.

There was one detail during the island crossing that got everyone puzzled. Loading the vehicles onto the barge took many times longer than for the barge to dock at the other island. Still, the ride in the Alterra felt much like the barge ride to Cagraray Island actually. It was like travelling on calm, inter-island waters. The Alterra’s comfortable ride quality is due to its Flex Ride Move suspension system. The less-than-perfect roads in Camarines Norte proved to be a bigger challenge for the SUV but for this passenger, it was no more than being nudged awake for a timely afternoon snack of cookies and chips. Yes, this is the life of the Alterra traveller. The only thing missing was a caseful of DVD’s to truly appreciate the Alterra’s high-resolution 7-inch headrest-mounted LCD monitors and a 5.1 surround audio-video entertainment system. Or maybe some games and sounds for the in-car entertainment package that has integrated audio-video plug-in box for MP3 players and video-game consoles.

Except for the “Eagle Eye”-ish female computer voice of the navigation system, the Alterra is the same machine we’ve come to know on memorable trips through out the years. There’s still the tried-and-tested 3.0-liter CRDI 4JJ1-TC iTEQ turbodiesel engine that produces 146 horsepower and 294 Newton-meters of torque. It’s Euro-3 compliant, environment-friendly and more importantly fuel-efficient. Official fuel for this trip is Caltex Diesel with Techron D which has engine-cleaning properties that is essential to the optimal operation of diesel engines. Official fuel for the event participants are bags of pastries and every other kind of yummy goodies for optimal caloric goodness. While munching on a chocolate chip cookie, I thought I heard the computer voice say “jump out of the vehicle now!”

In his welcome speech IPC president Keiji Takeda looked back at the history of this SUV, “The Alterra was first launched in the Philippines in 2005. Since then, it has made an impact in the large SUV segment not just in terms of sales but also in terms of awards. Aside from selling a total of 4,141 units, the Alterra has also been a consistent recipient of consumer awards each year from the Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards. This citation is important to us because it comes from the very people who buy our vehicles. It shows their trust and satisfaction in the Alterra, which is the best award any vehicle can ever get.” New features of the 2010 Alterra are scratch-resistant alloy-wheel machine; a new-design dashboard; garnish for the door cluster; a 2-DIN dashboard audio head unit; and new moquette seat material for the Zen Edition.

Indeed IPC has a winner SUV in the Alterra, “The Philippine market is quite fortunate to have the Alterra,” said IPC senior vice president Arthur Balmadrid. “This world-class SUV is only available here and in Thailand. Since we launched it in 2005, it has consistently captured a very good market share and won various consumer awards. It’s a perennial favorite among Filipinos with big families.”

The participants, like one big family on a convoy, stopped by the side of the road to look at Mt. Mayon putting on hints of sunset colors. Seeing Mt. Mayon in the distance jutting out from the flatlands, straight, straight, straight up forming its famous perfect cone, I thought about how the motoring media and IPC has actually climbed higher than that volcano. We’ve done many events throughout the years and climbed quite a few mountains including Mt. Apo and Mt. Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia. Yet only when I saw the entirety of Mt. Mayon from the tops of the coconut trees at its foot straight to the crater at the very top could I truly appreciate with a different perspective how high we’ve gone. As in the pictures we were tiny compared to Mt. Mayon but IPC and the Philippine motoring media have climbed higher than this majestic volcano.

On most mountains you can’t really tell how far you’ve hiked or how high you’ve climbed because normally you never can see the very summit from below, or lowlands from the top. There’s some perspective you gain when on top of a mountain, but there are more things you see once you go back down again. From half-awake, half-asleep daydreams, starring in old, noir movies, imagined lunches of bulalo shrimp, “Eagle Eye” voices that stir up paranoia and two-minute Twilight Zone barge rides that are just too, too short to make any sense in the dark, a trip in an Alterra does change your state of mind.