If the late Pocholo Ramirez (Racing legend and celebrity endorser for our local fuel company) had been sitting next to me, he would have been ashamed. Scratch that, he would have been downright disgusted and would have probably dragged me out of the car by my heavy right foot and let me walk the rest of the way home, just to teach me a thing or two about economy.

But this was no ordinary fuel economy run. While every man and his Jazz are out there trying to break a new record and run on the fumes of the car they're slipstreaming, we set out to achieve the worst possible figure out of the most popular vehicle we could find on the road, using our very own local brand of fuel. And just to spice things up a bit, we planned on doing this across four islands, eight cities and a hundred little provincial towns while chasing down the Manila Sports Car Club in their ozone-depleting V8s.

Welcome to the real world. Out here, there are only two types of people: the quick and the where-the-hell-did-they-go? It all began at the professionally corrupt port of Cebu, where it took almost half of our week's food budget to grease the wheels that would eventually let our grey, 2.0 liter, gasoline-engined, 5-speed manual Innova roll off the boat. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw Mari Ugarte, my counterpart in evo magazine, walking back from the container-type offices looking like he had just been raped. To top it off, on the way out, he said, “I accidentally tripped over a dead rat the size of a beaver!” I said, “I don't think that was a rat, I think he might work here.”

Thank God we still had those glorious Petron fuel vouchers, which with a little smooth talking, could probably be converted to siomai at some of the bigger service stations.

The Innova hit the ground running, so to speak. As soon as it landed, it was go, go, go! All the way until we got to Boracay. Racing through the tight and chaotic streets of Cebu, up the mountainside to a place they call Tops, that overlooks the entire city, we had to wring out every last drop of power this 2 liter could muster up just to keep pace. “At this rate, we will probably burn so much fuel that it will force the war in Iraq to go into overtime.” I said through clenched teeth, as I pinned that throttle to the firewall and turned my foot like I was putting out a cigarette, and held on to the wheel as if it were the only thing keeping me from flying out the side window.

Toyota had generously left a full tank in there, but we topped it off with some Petron Xtra unleaded after the port just to be square, and surprisingly, it had barely moved after almost 60 tire shredding kilometers up a steep mountain. There were no idle moments on the way down, either. One by one, these classic sports cars tore off from the parking lot of Tops, making their way down the mountain like kids lining up to go down a giant water slide. We could hear them through our insulated, air-conditioned cabin as they opened up their big, fat, Webber carbs that swallowed fuel like it was some kind of beer drinking contest.

“Are you sure a story like this is going to sell?”, Mari asked, as I almost lost the rear end of the Innova around a tight hairpin. “I mean, who wants to read about our appalling fuel consumption during a time of a fuel crisis,” he continued as if we had just scraped the bottom of the barrel for car stories. “Mari.” I explained in my calmest tone, “Everyone is doing the how-much-you-can-get-out-of-a-tank-thing. They represent the absolute best that man and machine can unrealistically achieve if he is willing to deprive himself of air-conditioning and an overnight bag.” I continued. “How many people do you know drive to work like that? We want to do the opposite.” It's as if to say, I guarantee you that you will get better mileage than this. And no matter how badly you drive, this is the absolute worse case scenario that you can expect. Innova buyers are very sensible people. They would appreciate it, I'm sure. Sort of like when you ask for a quote and someone says, “Well, prices start at... rather than, the most you will pay is...” Get my drift?

Mari didn't seem altogether convinced as we headed out of Cebu – which seems to be the traffic capital of the free world – en route to the port of Santander, where we would load the exotic cars and the abused Innova on to the RORO that would take us to Dumaguete. The contrast in landscape was amazing. From tight, snarled, chaotic roads, that crawled its' way through a built up metropolis that was designed for about half the warm bodies that currently populate it, to perfectly smooth, sweeping ribbons of asphalt that follow the breathtaking shoreline of one of the most beautiful places on earth. Almost two hundred kilometers into our first stack of fuel vouchers, and amazingly, the Toyota was still showing over half a tank – even considering that the tormented 2-liter had to dig deep just to keep within a shout of the convoy.

But whatever we lost on the straights, we would pick up on the corners, as the more modern and vastly superior rack and pinion steering of the Toyota hammered it over the recirculating ball type affairs of the classic cars ahead – which had so much free play, it needed a travel agent just to help it around a tight corner. Finally, a levelling factor.

“We may be in with a shot here, Mari!” I said excitedly as I hung on to the end of the convoy coming into the tighter portions of the winding beach-side roads. “They may have the grunt, but even with our higher center of gravity, we own these corners!” I finished off, while watching the sloppy rear end of the big American muscle car in front squirm across the tortured asphalt.

We maintained a blistering pace from Cebu, through Dumagute and Bacolod, and up to Pontevedra to have lunch with the Cojuangcos in their sprawling provincial home. There were already a couple of casualties in our convoy on the way, but the Innova had not missed a beat. The aircon was cold, the gear changes smooth and the MP3 compatible player well used. It may lack the outright acceleration and dexterity of a sedan, but heck, the Innova was making light work of some very heavy duty requests. The Revo it replaces was always a willing companion – rough and ready – but its commercial roots would begin to seep through and dampen the experience; it lacked the finesse that the Innova seems to deliver without even trying.

We jumped from RORO to RORO, trying to break the land speed record in between. Most of it was a blur, but certain things stick out, like good food and bad hotels. We stayed in one hotel so bad, housekeeping actually stole my towel and soap! This was the same hotel in Dumaguete with a broken air conditioner that blew warm, stale air, and had a leaky roof that dripped right on Mari's forehead while he was sleeping – like Chinese water torture with a provincial twist.

We had filled up sporadically, topping off here and there, as the greedy big block V8s drank through export quantities of fuel in between stops. You could almost hear grunts while they were being filled up, like the cars were licking their chops in delight. There were ten high performance, vintage muscle cars in total. Rumour has it that when we finished our week long nautical romp through the Visayas, Petron had to lay off the night shift at the refinery. I didn't want to put a concrete figure on our consumption until we got to the end of the run, but I could already see by our figures that we were doing better than expected, so I treated Mari and myself to three varieties of siomai with the change.

The Innova was turning out to be a real gem. It was perfectly composed on the highways, remarkably compliant over uneven surfaces and tackled some of the broken patches with incredible ease. The gasoline engine was very responsive and churned out a tidy 140 horsepower with good pull at just about every notch of the tacho. It was the kind of vehicle you felt was bulletproof and could survive just about anything; we couldn't kill it with a stick. Although there was this one time... But it is totally my fault.

While this trip may have been planned well in advance, the truth is, the car wasn't. I'm letting you in on some inside info here, but what really happened was, I had just arrived from a long trip overseas. Mari thought I had already organized the car; I thought Mari would have already done it, while our marketing girls thought that between the two of us – both executive editors of car magazines, for crying out loud – it shouldn't be that hard to pull together a simple car. And so on. After a lot of finger pointing, I was left to call Toyota.

It may seem like we can just pull a test car out of a hat, but the truth is, these things take time and need to be booked like anything else. So I picked up the phone and said, “Listen, a simple yes or no would be fine. But please, no lengthy lectures about protocol and proper procedure. I don't have time. I need an Innova for a story. I plan to take it to Cebu, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo, Caticlan, Mindoro, Batangas and then back to Manila. I want to see how badly it will do in a fuel economy run. I need it yesterday. (Pause) Hello? Are you still there?” “You want fries with that?” our trusty contact at TMP said. “Give me five minutes, dammit”

Two minutes later, my phone rang. “Its like this.”, the voice on the other end said. I have a manual, gasoline Innova G here I can spare.” “Perfect!!” I interrupted. “Hang on, sloopy.” TMP continued. “It has a weak battery. I just need to source a new one out. It should take only an hour or so.” “No! Its okay!” I said, like my hide had just been spared. I'll take it as is! Just send it straight to the port. It needs to be loaded onto the boat now. I'll take care of the battery once I get to Cebu. Really, it'll be fine! Trust me.”

So there we were. Somewhere in a place where seven Air Supply songs are still on the top ten music charts, wondering why the car wasn't turning over. It had gotten pretty far already, so I had completely forgot about my end of the bargain. Mari lost the plot because we had already lost the convoy even before we made this untimely pit stop so I could find a way how to send my Philippine STAR article that was now holding up print. “What the!?” Mari was about to let loose. “Wait!” I cut him off. “I remember something about a dead battery...”

But while a new battery could save us the hassle of always having to park on a hill just in case, it could also do some serious damage to what was left of our already humble food budget. Without another word, Mari and I stuck our heads out the window and said at exactly the same time, almost in harmony, “Bay, paki push lang!” to the small group of professional bystanders that had gathered.

Combing through the provincial roads of Dumaguete and the incredible countryside around Bacolod, passing through the picturesque towns that peppered the living landscape that Mari was able to sum up perfectly when he said, “It looks like the masterful oil paintings of Fernando Amorsolo himself had suddenly come alive.” had me thinking about how much we don't know about our own backyard. Being a staunch Renault supporter, too, I was also surprised to know that the World Champion had a knack for painting. Guess you learn something everyday. I was very impressed.

Mari shook his head as if to say I had as much culture as yoghurt, before tossing a glance at the fuel gauge - “Better juice up, or you will have a how-far-can-you-push-an-Innova-around-the-Visayas-on-an-empty-stomach story coming out in the following issues.” We had done pretty well since our last full fill, which was over 330 kilometers ago, but we were about to find out just how deeply we were going to offend tito Poch and Petron and the rest of their crusade to get the Philippines to drive sensibly.

We piled in over 53 liters into the starved tank which meant we had been running with a two liter buffer of fuel left, unless you count what was in the pipes of course. I pulled out my trusty Nokia and started crunching the numbers. All in all, we had covered over 652 kilometers and used 103 liters, which worked out to 6.3 kilometers to a liter. Not bad, considering that a responsibly driven 10-year old, 2 liter sedan can do about that on the way to work. We had 8 seats, plenty of luggage, the aircon blasting, plus the empty Bonamine wrappers scattered on the floor to prove that we had driven the wheels off our test unit and squeezed out the worst possible consumption possible.

We continued through to Iloilo, Caticlan, Boracay, Mindoro, Batangas and eventually made our way back to Manila. Bravado had started to wear thin, though, as did testosterone, which left just enough room for fatigue to begin to creep in and take its toll. So much so, that one of our team, Senior Editor of evo magazine, Edrich Santos, who had spent his time charming the owners of sports cars to let him drive them, came over to the real-world comforts of the Innova and drove us the rest of the way home. We had achieved what we set out to do, so we could afford to already temper our pace, allowing the landscape to unfold a lot slower, helping us to appreciate the enormous beauty that still surrounds us on this wonderful Archipelago that God himself is believed to have a soft spot for.

There's a lot of hype surrounding fuels right now, but I've always believed that the driver was the single biggest factor in fuel economy. This shouldn't take anything away from Petron– I think that Xtra unleaded is a great fuel, but if you drive like we just did, not even Saddam's personal supply of the black label stuff could get you any further on a full tank. What impressed me the most was not the lubricity of the fuel or its combustion characteristics, but the convenience and just the sheer number of service stations Petron has littered throughout the country. I think they stopped counting at 1200. That alone should be worth more to any motorist than any other claim out there. After all, its no point being loyal to a great fuel that is a four-hour walk from where you are stranded.