Seeking lost tribes
IT’S fair to say Renault’s marketing team is tremendously skilful at naming cars. While most French manufacturers settle for a selection of numbers, or an odd assortment of vowels and consonants, Renault always gives its cars fun names. Current examples include Talisman, Clio, Captur, Kwid, Twizy, Zoe, Fluence and Kangoo.
The latest car to join the stable is called Triber. A rather self-explanatory name pasted to the rear of a funky SUV-esque seven-seat people mover carrying an entry-level price tag of R165 000. Sounds like a smash hit, right? At that price, there’s nothing even remotely close to offering the same number of seats. The nearest competitor is R50 000 dearer.
Obviously, there had to be a catch. In order to offer so much car at such a small price, Renault surely cut some corners and I was on a mission to find out what those corners were. And to find a lost tribe in the process.
I found the former almost immediately. At very car launch, a group of motoring journalists is shuffled into a room for a product presentation. In this presentation the manufacturer will tell you about the design, powertrain, safety, standard gadgets and, more often than not, who they built it for.
During this presentation, Renault told me all about the lovely infotainment screen and the smart seating arrangements. Then, near the end, it was revealed that the Triber is powered by a 1.0-litre naturally aspirated three-cylinder petrol engine.
The Triber was starting to sound a lot like a larger version of the controversial Renault Kwid, a car I’ve argued over many times before, mostly with myself.
As a motoring journalist, I understand the need to have rigid safety standards in a country with an appalling road safety record. Then there’s this other
