Vans, Cars and More

When we were growing up, the trusty Volkswagen combi brought us to St. Scholastica's in Marikina. I don't remember if Mother accompanied us to school. It was way too early in the morning that I was probably still on auto-pilot just to wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, comb my hair, grab my bag and go to school. I do remember that our maternal aunts would be the ones in the combi to fetch us in the afternoons. I also recall that there was a small fan in one of the corners of that combi to keep us cool and that when we got picked up there was a basket there with our merienda to keep us happy for the trip home.

As we got older, the combi got replaced by our beige Hi-Ace (IH-139). That vehicle didn't have an airconditioner because windows were still kept open in those days. Since there were ten of us going to school in that single van, everyone had their place in the car. (I got the window seat in the back!)

NLE-159, the Toyota Hi-Ace Commuter that came after that, was Foxy Grandma. I guess Father figured that even if there were still the same number of children, everyone was getting bigger. Foxy Grandma was quite a Hi-Ace. I imagine my high school friends remembering that they would know I was about to be picked up from school because one could hear it from across the campus. (It was called Foxy Grandma because it had a red sticker on its back which read 'Foxy Grandma'. It was the first car we had placed a decal on, I think.)

I learned how to drive our two-door Datsun when I was in college. Oh, we had NCC-544 for years!. It was a very reliable car. I was quite dependent on those side mirrors which were by the front hood rather than by the doors. Most of us learned to drive using the Datsun. Perhaps it was the car which almost everybody got to drive. I remember when it was still new (we were much, much younger then), there was a metallic plate that redirected the air from the airconditioner. It would get misty when the aircon was so cold. By the time I got to drive the Datsun, that piece of equipment was lost and the aircon seemed to have lost its cooling powers as well.

Though I know we probably didn't acquire the two cars one after the other, our garage also had NCC-543. I think this was the time they mandated that all cars have license plates with three letters and three numbers. NCC-543 was a white 1975 Toyota Crown. I found that to be a HUGE car to drive, especially since I'd if you'd gotten used to driving the two-door Datsun. I felt like I was occupying so much of the road when I drove the Crown. We still had that car when power steering became the auto standard. Obviously the Crown was not yet in that league, so we just had to contend with 'pawis steering.'

(I got to ride NTZ-371 several times in high school and college though that car didn't belong in our garage.)

For our Sunday driving, we had the gold '83 Toyota Super Saloon (PEH-534). When I meet people who used to see all twelve of us go to mass, they would relay their amazement at how many children would come out of our car during Sundays. Simple. Father drove, Mother sat in front with J and Z, and everybody else had to stay in the back. The smaller ones sat on the lap of the bigger ones. (I always sat behind the driver's seat and I remember Sunshine sitting on my lap. There came a point though that I ended up on Slash M's lap as he got bigger and more muscular.)

We used to have our cars fixed at the Araya Motor Shop at 75 Maginoo St.

Father got an automatic transmission car for Mother to drive. That was the theory. I don't think Mother ever got to drive that car. It came and went. I got to drive that Ford Ghia several times. I am not very fond of automatic transmission cars. You see, the clutch and the gears are my friends.


NSL-509 was a Mitsubishi Colt Mirage which was acquired in January 1986 for the sum of P70,000. This car was being used by sister London Eye. In the most classic case of divine intervention, the car got stolen on September 7, 1986. London Eye was able to use the insurance money to go abroad. Certainly it was God working in mysterious ways.


TLJ-596 was Slash-M's Mitsubishi L200. Being the COOL dude that he was, he had a radio which was detachable.

Eldest Sis had a blue Nissan Pulsar. She drove this car with back and forth from Cebu Avenue to PGH at Taft. The traffic in the Manila area was terrible, but Eldest Sis drove this car with such skill it was simply amazing. I liked that car. I could actually drive it without wondering if I could get in and out of small spaces.

Sisters Mindy and Z had PTX-866, a 2 door Honda Civic to drive for a while. That was a cute car.











Storm was the car I drove next. PPE-927 was named by my brother after Mason Storm (played by Steven Seagal in the 1990 movie Hard to Kill). It was a blue Toyota Corolla.

When we returned Storm so that it could be used at Cebu Avenue, MacGyver was able to borrow Classic (NKJ 554) from his parents. MacGyver had seat belts and a third brake light installed when this was the car we were using. We brought GI home from the hospital in this car when he was born.

Then we got bold and availed of the car facility being offered by the bank as one of its employee benefits. Our first car was Eeyore (UUN-324). It was a white 1997 Toyota Corolla. GI was the one who gave Eeyore his name. Obviously he was a Winnie the Pooh fan back then because MacGyver certainly didn't drive as slow as the Eeyore it was named after.

RD was born in December of that year and Eeyore brought him home. I retired from the bank in early 1999 and all my retirement went to the payment of the car. (Yes, after all the accounting of who owed how much to whom, I had to pay a minimal amount to the bank since my retirement couldn't cover my car payment. Ouch!)

When I returned to work in 2003, we still had Eeyore. After about a year or so, we decided to sell Eeyore and get a new car to avail of the bank's car facility which was part of my employee benefits. We acquired a black Toyota Altis (XNY 452) which we named Nightwing.

I thought that I would complete the term of the car loan because moving banks was not something I really expected to do. Well, sometimes things just happen. I resigned in 2006 and moved banks. Once again, I owed the bank money because naturally, I had to pay off my car loan. (I was not quite convinced that the ruling of my new employer for separation would be beneficial to me. If I took out a car loan from them for Nightwing, if I were to leave the bank before the 5 years was up, I would have to pay the market value of the car or lose it.)


Earlier this year, we decided it was time to sell Nightwing and take advantage of the 0% interest rate on the car facility being offered by my current employer. Waiting this long to get a new car enabled us to get the 2008 Toyota Corolla. If I had availed of the car facility when I transferred banks in late 2006, we would have been stuck with the old Altis model. MacGyver would have wanted to get a black one again but there were none available at the time we were getting the car. We opted to get the car in silver model and the kids just call it by its color, Quick Silver.

The feature I like MOST about Quick Silver is the automated mileage display. MacGyver is able to monitor his mileage with greater ease. He KNOWS when he is driving like a mad man (mileage DOWN) and when he is driving with his foot on the pedal as if there were an egg under it (mileage UP).

GI turns 16 next year. He has learned the basics of manual driving c/o computer games of his oldest cousin, whose set-up comes complete with steering wheel, clutch and brakes. Unfortunately, the virtual world is lightyears away from the real world. And barreling through fences, ramming into walls, flying off mountain edges and running away from cops are definitely no-no's in my book. He'd better not even think of doing such things when he gets behind a real steering wheel.

As for me? I really prefer to ride shotgun* now. No more driving for me if I can help it, thank you.

*Riding shotgun is to ride in the front passenger seat of a car or other vehicle.

(Details for this message required research into dusty papers and documents. One cannot entrust everything to memory, especially not mine.)

(GI' s comment to this whole post? tl;dr. The meanie!)