When were you last part of an automobile convoy?

I was given a chance to experience the exhilaration of being in one last weekend, when Rebecca asked me to save my Saturday morning to join the fun.

You might think that Rebecca just satisfied my wet dreams of taking an F430 down the highway at breakneck speeds, but reality said that I should do something a little smaller for the time being:

‘A Day out in the All New Freed’

The all new Honda Freed is out!

Advertlets, being one of Honda’s media partner, organized a special blogger preview ‘A Day Out in the Honda Freed’ half day event, that included:

A test drive of 9 cars with 4 or 5 of us in a car from Souled Out Cafe to Putrajaya.

I know it’ doesn’t look very much like the group of red cars at the top of the post, but we were riding high and felt pretty much like it. Until we were overtaken by a convoy of BMWs on a test drive. Life is not fair at all.

Surf’s up for Leonard Chua of An Honest Mistake!

So this is what happened. The drive to and fro Souled Out (Hartamas) and Putrajaya is about 80km, so each of us got to feel 20km of the highway in the Freed.

Through our journey, I learnt the following Freed’s selling points:

(1)  Really smooth ride.

You can take it to 140 km/h on the highway and won’t hear the engine screaming for help.

Instead, there’s good stability in the passenger compartment, and and importantly, there’s minimal wind noise at these speeds. The gear shift is surprisingly smooth from ‘Neutral’ to ‘Drive’, where one will normally feel a light jerk in many other cars of this range.

(2) Automatic Dual Sliding Doors.

Just pull on the latch and the door slides out. Particularly useful for the older folk, or lazy folk like myself. Pretty surprising since this feature is present on higher range of MPVs like Toyota Alphard, and even the Alphard has only 1 Auto door, while the Freed has two. Lazy people, rejoice!

Maybe one day all cars will have Auto Front door, Auto Front passenger door, Auto Change-Tire, Auto Fill-Petrol, Auto-Everything. All we have to do is wire our brain signals to the car and we’ll reach Ipoh before we know it.

(3)  Lots of head room and open floor.

Photo courtesy of Eric Yong

I enjoyed having plenty of head room in the passenger compartment. (Rather) High cars like the Freed are not built for performance, so it doesn’t matter that ‘it’s so high..not aerodynamic etc..’. It’s just great that I don’t have to worry about hitting the ceiling each time I go over a hump. This doesn’t affect the middle row so much, but it does in the BACK seat of many other mini-MPVs, like the Avanza.

Note : the dude in the pic is Zen. He’s significantly taller than me, but it doesn’t take a tall guy to complain about car headspace. Short guys can bang ceiling too, okay?

The floor space of the Freed is flat across, which is great. This easily overlooked feature is perfect for ergonomics, especially if passengers need to move around the back seat. Some cars have a hump in the center, thanks to air-ducts / handbrake / petrol tank. Pain in the ass.

We is the Team 4!

L to R : @chualeo, Shamhardy, EVo, @botakai, @feeqsays

Extra feature in the front seat.. Made possible by Team 6..hehe.

My only real complain came when I was passenger at the back seat (3rd row). I was bouncing up and down even while we were on a straight stretch of road. I feel that Honda could have done better in the suspension department. Then again, I suppose this happens to cars of this range and price. Oh well.

In general, it was a real joy driving the Freed around, especially when we were escorted by a great deal many babes. <3

Esty, what is your right hand doing? @.@

(From L to R : Monique Low, <insert name>, Arystle, Esty, Hanie, Paul Tan, Harve Singh, Smashpop, Rames, Myjayz, Ellie.
Photo courtesy of Eric Yong

Honda very smartly ended the day in true blogger style…a photoshoot contest, using Polaroids! The best polaroids in Individual and Group categories win prizes!

A real. Polaroid. In my hand. I can’t remember if I ever played with any of these in my entire life. That’s how much digital photography has spoiled me. LOL.

And the prizes did not come in the form of vouchers, snacks or promotional items.. these guys won iPods and Garmin GPS wei. Shiok.

It’s kinda strange how the fun factor at event tends to takes your focus away from the actual product i.e. the car. It becomes an ‘item on my blog’ rather than ‘an item I would buy’. But after leaving the event and giving some thought, it does feel like a great car!

Having said that, when the day actually comes where I need to purchase a Mini-MPV, Honda Freed would quite definitely make it to the top of my list Check out the Honda site for more details.

Cheers!
EVo