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| This classifies as the one dealership in Rarotonga- a small corner lot selling used rental cars. This thing is front is the Daihatsu Copen, a 2 door roadster. You may remember that James May called it “toy-ish” in the Top Gear top convertible car competition. It was originally designed with a 660cc turbocharged engine which was never available in most markets due to emissions standards. This is the 1.3L 86 horsepower engine that does 0-62 mph in 9.5 seconds. |
The rental agreement is about as formal as an IOU on a cocktail napkin. The rental fee seems a little steep for something that you usually see being pursued on Cops, but there are two buses on Rarotonga, aptly named “Clockwise” and “Anti Clockwise”. ”Anti Clockwise” gets nights off and even “Clockwise” has a part time schedule. There is no Sunday night bus service and they even take off 2 hours during the day for church services. Tickets cost $7 every time you get on/off (one-way) making a short drive from the resort to a supermarket, the liquor store, and back to the resort or hostel cost $28 per person. It's worth the splurge to just rent a beater.
Amazingly, Rent-Our-Piece-Of-Crap asks if I want the extra coverage. It would only bring your financial responsibility in case of an accident down from $2000 to $0, either of which was already pushing on the upper echelon of this car's worth. I did agree to pay an extra $10 in order to drop it off at the airport before the red-eye flight back to LA. This service included these instructions: “Park it at the terminal. Place the key under the floor mat and leave it unlocked.” By the way, when I did that a few days later, there were already 3 other March's with Island Rental stickers parked there. If you catch yourself in a bind when arriving late in Rarotonga, just look for one and try the doors.
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| You don't have to know Japanese to read the manual but it definitely lends itself to an interesting caption contest. | Birds may poop on you when driving near a nuclear power station? |
“Rattlebox” (its new nickname) is equipped with a 1 Liter engine under the hood. I've seen motorized barstools with more horsepower. I know it says March, but the name is a bit of an oxymoron as an aggressive stomp on the throttle yields more of a Crawl. I threw a map in the glove compartment and am greeted with what appears to be the missing suspension bolts for the car. This isn't the DRC (Congo) or anything but the combination of the sunburned pavement (scarred and pockmarked) and the zip-tied suspension and rock hard tires makes for a teeth chattering ride. Anyways, I was just thankful for a roof as an afternoon rainstorm left any tourists on scooters looking like soggy cocker spaniels.
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| The backseat likes to hum along to the music? | Don't park your car in a cardboard box when it's enjoying a doobie? |
But it gets good gas mileage and given the price of fuel ($NZD), that's a necessity. That goes without saying for all goods- meat, liquor, packaged foods all have some sort of surcharge on top after being imported from New Zealand. There is also a VAT (Value Added Tax) of 12.5% assessed on most goods and services. There are also import levies on many goods from pork, liquor, and pearls to tobacco, motor vehicles, and fuel, which is why you don't see a single sports car on the island.
Most locals purchase a motor scooter- they are affordable at around $1,200-$1,800 for a used one, $3,000-$4,000 for a new one. You can also fill one up for about $5. Bigger families or those that transport things like landscaping tools buy used cars, which will run you between $6,000 and $20,000. With gas hovering north of $2 per liter, filling up a 41 liter Nissan March gas tank is a pretty expensive fill.
There is one other option- Rarotonga is probably one of the safest places to thumb a ride. Don't go looking for the seat belt though- it's most likely jammed down the back cushion from lack of use. Hop in the back (or on the back) of whatever stops and learn some Maori curse words.
