toyota south africa

On Saturday evening, my girlfriend and I made our way to the Fourways Mall, to the new Tokyo Sky club for the Auris launch party and lucky draw. The evening was filled with entertainment, snacks and drinks, all on the house and not a cent paid by the invited guests. There was actually so much snacks being served by the well dressed waiters that I think they got tired of walking around with the platters. We were entertained with well choreographed performances by dancers and highly energetic DJ’s accompanied by awesome lighting and music. All this set to a beautiful backdrop of Johannesburg from a high view at the Auris Upper Deck.

My favourite dance performance was when a guy dressed in a black trenchcoat with extended ‘laser fingers’ walked on stage, at first I thought this was a cheap knock-off of a Wolverine (from x-men) suit, but was soon proven wrong when the “extended fingers” lit up and filled the deck area with green lasers, smoke was blown across the deck, highlighting the green lasers being waved around. I’m sure from the parking lot below, this must have looked like a battle scene from a science-fiction movie. A memorable performance and my highlight of the evening… If I had won the Auris, then that would have been my highlight, since I didn’t win the Auris, the laser display won my vote.

The other dance performances were all highly original and costume designs were well thought out. Costumes included tops and dresses with neon pink tribal like patterns while serving drinks in shooter glasses with flashing lights in them. Another interesting costume was where dancers wore white coats with white ties around their neck, with another white tie hanging on their back with a white top hat (which had a little white light on top) while carrying white umbrellas… a very surreal image indeed and something you would expect from a conceptual artist. Oh yes, and they also wore white masks with blacked out eyes…

During the evening, we were told by the host of the evening that the Auris to be given away in the lucky draw was on its way to the Auris Upper Deck at Tokyo Sky. We were shown videos of the Auris driving through Johannesburg, making it’s way through the city and encountering a few obstacles along the way, including a female officer of the law dressed in a black uniform that was slightly too small for her and that attracted the attention of more than a few men (and maybe ladies too).

After the arrival of the Auris to the party venue, a black box was removed from the vehicle. This black box contained the swipe cards with the details of all the entrants on it. The box was then taken to stage, a lucky card was chosen and the winner turned out not to be me… Oh well, maybe next time. In the end, my girlfriend and I had a great time staying at Monte Casino, driving the Auris and partying at the Auris Upper Deck. All thanks to Toytota South Africa.

After the stellar time that was experienced at the Toyota Auris launch in Johannesburg, there are no words left to describe the time that was had by all at the event except to say, ‘exceptional’.

From the food to the entertainment that was lined up for the evening at Tokyo Sky, this event was well organised and well attended too! Seeing as we’ve been advertising the event on the blog for many weeks now, it was awesome to be in a space with Auris blog fans and Toyota South Africa too because it gave us a sense of how passionate you really are about this car! The energy and aura of tha car was indeed matched by the audience.

You can read more on this fab event on Tripeak’s blog, which goes into more detail on the event and he wanted me to relay the respect and gratitude many expressed to Toyota for the great Auris launch party in Joburg.

Now for those of you were not able to make the party, here’s a taste of what was on offer:

Well truth be told, the Toyota Auris is definitely leading the way in the motor industry. Keep it up guys!

The question we're pondering on the blog this week is how do big imports into SA land and get delivered? Well I’ve been learning a little about the process of how the lovely Toyota Auris actually landed here on our shores.

The first ship from the United Kingdom docked in Durban on the 28th of July 2007 with the first 480 Auris units on board. Toyota South Africa gradually released the vehicles to the dealers from the 13 August 2007.

According to Senior Manager in the Marketing Planning Department at Toyota, Reuben Lee, there are now approximately 600 Auris’ that have arrived at their respective dealers and another 450 cars are on their way.” Lee says that there are expected shipments of about 250 vehicles that will arriving in South Africa.

So it’s quite a process to get those beautiful vehicles here in SA but I think the great thing about the Auris cars is that they have been made more specific to the South African market by having numerous parts of the car rigorously tested, and changed to best fit and endure the South African climate. How awesome is that? Considering that the cars are assembled overseas, it’s great to think we got our own engineers to correctly assess the needs of homegrown drivers in order to bring you the best vehicle to market.

I’ll have more for you on the Toyota Auris this week so don’t forget to subscribe to the Auris Blog RSS feed to keep up to date on the latest info and news. You can alternatively subscribe to the Auris Blog via email so poke around the blog for more details on that.

The tension heated up on this past weekend’s blistering hot Saturday afternoon at the Woodmead Value Mart as the “Get Attached to the Yaris” competition got past its halfway mark.

By the time that I visited the Toyota Yaris Competition site, there were swarms of people surrounding the festivities, which included fantastic tunes by a local disc jockey and lots of happy snaps being clicked up by the contestant’s families and friends.

The organisers, Charmaine Joubert, Lynne Hemingway and Jo-Anne Levitt-Spracklen were so warm and welcoming of me that I felt like a celebrity at the event when I rocked to take some pictures of the competition, which was organised by City Property and McCarthy Toyota.

There was one moment when a gentleman who was helping out even got his Toyota Hilux and ramp parked so that I could get some aerial shots of the action down below. Thanks to that gentleman because my short, little body wouldn’t have managed that feat otherwise!

The Yaris Competition was a test of sheer willpower as the contestants had to stand up and attach one hand to the Yaris for 12 hours without the notion of a bathroom break or rest. At the 6pm cut-off, there were 15 contestants left all eager to get their hands on the magical key that would allow them to drive off with the big prize that was up for grabs.

There were also many consolation prizes like laptops and store vouchers all sponsored courtesy of the shops within the Woodmead Value Mart. Congratulations go to Eleanor Warnes who will be driving off in her brand new Yaris in a week’s time when it will be signed, sealed and delivered in a manner of speaking.

All in all, a fun time was had by all that came down to join in the competition festivities and passer-bys all walked away with cool freebies that McCarthy Toyota handed out at the event.

Well, as Mike’s already mentioned, Toyota South Africa really rolled out the red carpet for a handful of local bloggers and gave us all a great taste of two days in the life of a motoring journalist.Let’s just say that it’s a job I wouldn’t mind, what with all the nice cars, 5 star hotels and interesting travel destinations being just another day in the “office”. But anyway, I blog about cars so let’s focus on the main attraction of the event – the Toyota Auris. 

The Auris is a handsome that comes across as an evolutionary design step rather than something totally leftfield. Think “RunX meets Yaris”. Its exterior should date well, and not offend anyone along the way. The interior, on the other hand is far more daring. One’s attention is drawn immediately to the central hang down section which incorporates the gear shifter at a very comfortable high-level position. The instrument binnacle houses dials that feature Toyota’s optitron lighting system which is not only a pleasure in terms of visibility, but it
looks pretty pimping too. While soft-touch plastics are conspicuously absent, the Auris does feature very nicely textured hard plastics that are far better than the leather grain plastics used in the Corolla/RunX.

Overall, the Auris range looks to be a worthy successor to Toyota’s popular RunX. The underlying engineering of the car seems rock solid – build quality’s good, the chassis is stiff and responsive and the engine line-up is competitive. Even the baseline RS models are relatively highly specced with features such as electric windows all round, four airbags and air conditioning. Aurises (Aurii?) equipped with 7 airbags, namely, the RT and RX models, have already scored 5 stars in the Euro NCAP crash test programme, so safety’s top class too. 

A big thanks Brian Eades, Toni Herbst and everyone else at Toyota for giving some SA bloggers a chance to participate in this great event.

If your heart races at the thought of getting up, close and personal with the new Toyota Auris then best you get those fingers typing and send us an email about why you would like to attend the launch of this insanely cool car!

It has been hyped as one of the biggest and most anticipated car launches this year so it makes sense that we, at the Auris Blog would let you, the avid fans, come share a part of the action. We're giving away tickets to the public launch of the Auris which happens this month so if you'd like to stand in line to get your hands on a ticket then send us your story of why want to go to the launch. You can send your entries to editor@aurisblog.com.

Remember the best stories that will get our attention will be the ones that stand out so make it worthwhile.