［Unit Project 1］：My Old Brother ALPHARD

 

Yugo UP1

 

   My artifact is TOYOTA ALPHARD. This is TOYOTA's luxury car.

 It’s a 2003 model, so it’s older than me, 20 years old.

This car’s color is white pearl mica, so this car shines compared to other cars.

The power unit is 2.4L Inline 4-cylinder natural aspiration engine, so the horsepower is enough to move.

It’s an 8-seater car, and more than spaces enough for family to travel around.

This car has a mileage of 98000km, which means it has circumnavigated the earth more than twice.

   One day in 2021, I spoke to my father "I want to go for a drive with ALPHARD. Please take me. " My father agreed. At first, I didn’t even understand why I suddenly wanted to go for a drive. But as the time went on, a year later, I finally understood. This was because I realized that the time to say goodbye to ALPHARD was approaching.

   In 2021, my older brother entered Chiba university and started living alone, and I became a second-year high school student and became busy with my studies. And ALPHARD just like my brother is 19 years old.  Not only is it too long to own the same car for 19 years, but we almost no longer go out as a family. In other words, the ALPHARD at that time was just a lump of iron that required maintenance costs. There couldn't have been a more appropriate time to say goodbye.

   Based on this experience, I thought that the maintenance cost of a car should be cheaper as it gets older. The primary reason my family sold the Alphard was because of the high maintenance costs. As cars get older, the number of vehicle inspections increases and taxes increase for the sake of the car's eco-friendliness and safety. And it will be cheaper to buy a new car. However, I thought it would be much more eco-friendly and safer not to switch. This is because you are more accustomed to driving when you don't switch than when you switch, and you can save resources to build a car. Therefore, I thought that the number of car inspections should be reduced and taxes should be reduced so that people can continue to drive the same car for a long time.

   In addition to those, I learned the wonderful culture of Japan from this car. That is, Japan's manufacturing is serious and solid.　Because this Alphard has never broken in 20 years. For a long time, I heard that Japan cars were more fuel efficient than foreign cars and did not break, but it was true. I'm proud of this.