Friday, April 21, 2006

So What's a Yaris?

For the informationally impaired -- in other words, Kevin -- Kristi took the train to Fargo last night so she could buy a car this morning. Specifically, a Toyota Yaris.

It's not that you can't get a Yaris here in the Cities; you can. But for some reason, you can't get a 5-speed sedan here. Simply unavailable, and the dealers won't or can't do anything to change that. But we discovered they were readily available in other areas -- including just across the Red River, where it took just one day for the Toyota dealer in Fargo to get pretty much exactly the car she wanted. Go figure. So last night she hopped a freight -- or rather, only slightly less poetically, the Amtrak Empire Builder -- and was waiting at the dealership when they opened this morning, checkbook in hand.

Kristi originally had her heart set on a Mini Cooper or a Beetle turbo diesel. She gave up on both of those dreams for various reasons (mostly, I think, having looked at service and reliability records for German automobiles), and settled in on finding a small, economical car that would stay economical in the long term. The Yaris looks to be the answer. She's cruising down the 94 as I write this, and at last report was very, very happy with her decision. This is her first new car ever, and I'm glad she's liking it.

And no, Kristi's never seen "Fargo," and I saw no reason to warn her about car dealers on the open prairie. Should I have?

So, what does "Yaris" mean? Wikipedia raises more questions than it answers:
The Toyota Belta is a Toyota Vitz-based sedan that replaced the Toyota Platz (originally launched by the Toyota Motor Corporation in 1999) in Japan and the Toyota Echo sedan (as the Platz is known as) in North America. The redesigned sedan goes on sale in North America starting 2006. It will be renamed the Yaris sedan for that market, as the Vitz will also be coming along for the 2006 model year as the Yaris hatchback. The Belta is equipped with 1.0 to 1.3 L engines in Japan and a 1.5 L from the Scion xA, xB and the Toyota Echo sedan.
"Belta"? "Vitz"? "Platz"??? Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia. Okay, how about Google? That search leads to suggestions that "Yaris" means either (a) nothing, or (b) "race" in Turkish. I doubt Toyota is giving its cars Turkish names, although come to think of it, it might explain "Belta," "Vitz" and "Platz".

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 12:16 PM