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Three
Cars under R100 000
- Toyota Tazz
- Opel
Corsa Lite
- VW Golf Chico |
Broadcast
dates : 20th June 2004
24th June 2004 |
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When
it comes to solid, reliable, basic transport, South Africans
are a conservative bunch of people.
How else would you explain the fact that the top-selling cars
featured here have been around for decades?
In fact the Citi Golf is essentially the same Golf that was
launched in South Africa way back in 1978. And the other cars
here are no johnny-come-latelies either.
The Toyota Tazz, often the country's top-selling individual
model in the monthly sales charts, is based on the Toyota
Conquest that made its debut in 1988.
And the spring chicken of the bunch, Opel's Corsa Lite, has
been in production here since 1996.
The manufacturers of these cars have found ingenious ways of
freshening them up, with new grilles, tail lights, wheel
patterns and paint jobs.
All three of these models are built locally in South Africa.
One of the reasons for keeping these cars in production has
been that the tooling costs of the cars have been amortised
over many years. So these entry-level cars can be produced
relatively cheaply.
The down-side of choosing one of these mainstays is that
tehcnology has largely passed them by. If you want safety
items that are considered essential by some people, such as
airbags and ABS braking, you'd have to choose a new-generation
car like a Fiat Palio or a Ford Focus in the under R100 000
bracket.
But for many buyers, a big plus is that all the niggles have
been ironed out of these cars long ago. Any production
problems have long been attended to and all three represent
well-rounded products that should be stone-reliable.
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Car Torque is
produced by
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