Poster up the wall

For months, I had an engineering drawing of a simple I.C. Engine as my PC desktop wallpaper. Starting my PC up almost invariably instilled a colossal sense of being in me, the moment the wallpaper appeared on the screen, in all its B/W glory. The sense of being a mechanical engineer in the making! Losing your virginity comes a close second to this feeling!

My romantic liaison with anything on four wheels started since my dear mother’s recollection of my childhood memories. My first 1:18 scale model, die cast metal and the works, was the Padmini 118NE. I loved it to bits and drove it on surfaces that would turn out to be the real thing’s worst nightmares! Here’s an example.

This might be the exact reason why she won’t mind when I gleefully give away my academic books as junk and turn positively territorial as her gaze shifts towards my 40 issue strong (yeah, I am proud of that!!) auto-mag collection. This might be the reason why she won’t mind when I cover the perfect, beautifully painted wall of my room (her house!) with a million dusty posters, each of which has a story behind it.

The Fisker Karma:

The newbie from the lot. Fresh out of an April issue of TopGear, this thing got pasted for the following reasons-

• -      403 bhp hybrid, 1330 torques. ‘Nuff said!
• -      If the Joker and Harley Quinn had a couple of kids and a dog, this four door(!) would be their weekend runabout!
• -      Madness never dies!

The BMW Concept 6:

I’ve got a thing, a soft spot, an Apple’s eye for everything Italian! Ducati, Aprilia and MV Agusta are the only bike manufacturers that I love (up yours, you Japs!). This German comes up trumps because-

• -      The single LED strip of a headlamp, that insane exhaust, the ‘ribcage’ beside the logo, the paint job….how could you not love this thing?
• -      There’s no visible side stand in the pic, which reaffirms my convictions about it being a Transformer, the mad Decepticon version!

The Porsche GT3:

I would have traded the Fisker in for an acid green GT3RS, such is my lust for this porn-on-wheels! The ‘ultimate version of the ultimate version of the ultimate version’ of the ultimate road going supercar (courtesy Richard Hammond, BBC TopGear.) is pure narcotic! I settled for an equally lethal looking white one…so what if it isn’t RS? It’s a GT3. And apart from the Carrera GT and the 918, the only Porsche I like.

Reasons why it ended up on my wall-

• -      This one’s beyond cool, being the only identifiable Porsche amongst the variants.
• -      Just look at it! Doesn’t it make you want to kiss the person responsible?

The McLaren Mercedes SLR Roadster:

The mighty three pointed German showed the world its funny side with the SLR Roadster. That they have a very wicked sense of humour is evident fodder for another article! It’s there because-

• -      It’s legendary!
• -      You get a feeling someone threw a truckload of molten metal on the road and the aerodynamic drag did the rest of the work!

The Lamborghini Reventon:

You thought the Murcielago was the most fearsome looking thing on road this side of an army tank, when they came up with the Reventon! Named after the bull that felled the legendary Felix Guzman, this thing is masculinity redefined. Reasons why its sits proud-

• -      It’s a Lamborghini, reason enough!
• -      They forgot to add the wings and gun turrets and made us believe it’s an F-22 Raptor.
• -      The slanting Lamborghini script, the gunmetal green paintjob, those million surfaces, that little logo on the bottom right corner…

The Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione:

If cars were literature, this one would be the most erotic page-turner ever! Reasons are passé, she’s spawned a queue of metaphors-

• -      Take your fantasy woman (mine’s Monica Bellucci) and imagine her in a figure hugging red dress (already did!). Now open your eyes, look at this pic and spot the similarities.
• -      Return to the above reason as and when you feel like.
• -      I quote myself the first thing every morning as I look at her- “If she were any more stunning, I’d have babies with her!”

The Lamborghini Gallardo:

My relationship with the Italian marque started seven years ago with this poster. The oldest and by a long shot, the best one I possess, it set a milestone regarding the way wallpaper stuff is made. Everything about it is perfect-

• -      It’s a Lamborghini, reason enough!
• -      Mad yellow on black is dream-like, and respects to the photographer!
• -      The visible A-pillar fades into oblivion, the Zorro ‘Z’ on the side, the insane yellowness which I cannot get enough of!
• -      It’s a gift from my cousin, that’s what makes it more special!

What would go on your wall? 

-Abhishek Joshi
 Revrange

Driving In India

Imagine sitting in a dark room, on a comfy couch. Now close your eyes, and think of the most basic car you have ever seen; now just imagine driving it….and that’s about it you are now officially a participant in the greatest and probably the scariest reality show in the world, Driving in INDIA. With a license validity of about 20 years and the kind of “rigorous” training that has gone into teaching you to drive and add to the equation that a BILLION other “highly-trained” drivers on the same road, there could be quite a possibility that your license might just outlive you... this I feel is a much easier and shorter way of getting a ‘license to kill’. Don’t know why Mr. Bond was making such a fuzz about his “license to kill” almost every resident Indian above 18 seems to have one of those here, and in some case even younger.

Driving in India is not about precision it’s not entirely about how well you control the car and its certainly not about how well you and others follow traffic rules ‘cause there’s virtually non-present, but it is about your Karma, if you kissed a cow’s arse in the morning, you’ll live to kiss it again, and if you did not…I hope you have a good insurance.

Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Nelson PQ. Jr., Lewis Hamilton, Adrian Sutil are a few names of the greatest drivers alive, they possess the ability to change directions in split seconds at un-imaginable speed…they can defy laws of physics and get through places and corner where normal logic would say otherwise, but there is one thing that binds all F1 drivers alike; none of them ever dared to drive on Indian roads. Agreed  they can change direction in split seconds, great, but the old fiat 1100 in front of you can will inevitable change directions at least twice or thrice in the same time. And forget unimaginable speeds; try doing….err 30 km/hr here. There is a reason why India hasn’t really gone with the speed cams you know.

 In a country where size matters (well, atleast in car-size) and the right of way is dictated by the number of political flags and stickers you have on your number-plate, there comes a ‘oasis in desert’ like moment when someone signal’s before changing lanes, and let’s a faster car pass by, so rare is this event that every time someone does this deed, you’d be tempted to stop them, kiss them and part with half your fortune. And this happens in the cities, don’t even get me started on what happens when you leave behind say the luxury of traffic signals and road-dividers, and as you may have guessed by now ‘all hell breaks loose’.

Over the years I have seen shows like ‘TopGear’ where in a man resembling a giant white gorilla by the name Mr.Jeremy Clarskon and his chimp-mates go on long 1000 mile(1600km) drives on their pre-historic cars bought for less then what they might use in fuel cost, and all throughout they have a rather smooth drive on smooth roads, yet cribbing about the transport authorities and how the power windows don’t work, but I have a feeling and a strong one at that, Mr.’jezza’ would not even dream of trying that here; and if at all he does go ahead by saying “how hard could it be”, he would be in a hospital before crossing the half way mark and his car would have been sold in bits, and ya he can’t even blame the authorities ‘cause then he’d be killed.

I have a dream and I say this from the bottom of my heart, I want a Anna hazare for the Indian automotive scene, only difference is he/she’d  should burn  more fuel for each day the demands are not met, anyway the point being I want a law to be passed empowering; if not me, every traffic cop to rip the horns out of any car found honking unnecessarily and engrave “I GOT MY _____ RIPPED OF” at the back of the car, trust me if this can’t stop the unnecessary honking nothing can, if you live in Mumbai you know what I am on about. it’s just the tip of the iceberg and we have a very long way before queuing is a norm and respecting other drivers and road-users won’t have to be forced upon.

The greatest driver the world has ever known, Mr.Rajni

I know I might sound and show a bad image here, but it isn’t all downhill as it may sound, driving here is like ‘chaos theory’ personified. It’s all wrong it’s all messed up…but somehow in a miraculous way everything just fits in right. Indian automotive scene has come a very long way since the economic flood gates opened up about two decades back, and we have the cars and the bling to be a respected automotive country, now all we need is some good drivers to drive them.


- JD

Revrange

Is there a point, really?

 Someone very great once said, “Common sense is so uncommon”, giggled at his own smart-assed punchline and promptly forwarded it to a couple of dozen of his buddies. All his creativity went down the stinking flush as he watched people buying stuff mentioned later here. He realized he had uttered something which people already knew and practiced. He realized it was all a bit pointless.

This got him really worked up. He gathered an army of like-minded aristocrats (which were two, on the last count!), had a deep, verbose two minute long conference about some of the most pointless things in the automotive world, spent the rest of his time chick spotting with them and got pig-drunk later.

He hated the recently launched Ford Figo. He hated the ersatz aura around the thing. He couldn’t really understand why autojocks fawned all over it, parking tons of awards up its understandably cavernous ass!  He had an overwhelming feeling that this car was like that kid in your class who was programmed to top every damn subject there was, but who wet his unmentionables at the first sight of the arena- the playground, where they rip your character down to who you really are. Apart from the irritating pretense, it looked plain ugly to his eyes (Upen Patel, according to him, had seen better days when he was about a month old!). He drove it and found it was about as involving as buttering toast and as much fun as chemotherapy! 

'Look Ma....I got an award for the cutest tire tread in my class!!!'

His hatred stemmed partially from the fact that he couldn’t stand the sight of whatever facelift they had done to the Endeavour: they could as well have painted it pink, put little flowers on the dash, teddies in the boot and called it Barbie! The makeover in this case and the whole car in the earlier one was what he regarded pointless. 

'HIS'

'HERS'

This brought him to the Volkswagen Beetle- widely regarded by a handful of people as second only to a certain George Bush, in terms of stupidity! He just couldn’t get his head round the fact that VW chose to drag an icon out of retirement and snatch away whatever semblance of dignity and masculinity it had only to replace it with a wuss of a machine! Charging 20 big ones for it just sealed its fate. Rich girl’s toy? No, he mused- If he ever had that sort of money to blow, he’d rather get himself the Chevrolet Cruze and spend the remainder on a snazzy paintjob and more beer!

He could not stop only at the cars. A couple of pints down, he ranted about the ridiculous technologies introduced in the recent history. “Why should there be a thing such as dual-zone climate control?” he bawled. He justified his outrage by explaining that he’d never come across a case where one person wanted to be in the Tundra while the other preferred the Gobi desert climate in the same damn vehicle! “There exists a temperature where everybody is comfortable. The tech for achieving this is called air conditioning. We get in the most basic of cars and guess what? It works!!! And we are all perfectly happy that the world is a better place!” 

Another example of techno-buffoonery gone wrong is ‘Night Vision’. It involves thermal sensors which project images to the screen on the center console enabling you to see in the dark. “You’ve got headlights”, four pints of beer screamed from within him,” put them ON!” In case you’ve damaged your headlights in a crash, they very thoughtfully provide a phone in the vehicle for you to dial help. There’s no question of zero network as you won’t be scaling the Himalayas in your Rs. 80 lakh uber saloon anytime soon. Ironically enough, this tech refuses to work until you’ve got your headlights on- as a safety measure! This was where the whole pack of cards tumbled. Conversely, he thought, it would be fun to cover the windshield and drive the thing using just the night vision- video game style!!

 “Why the LEDs?” our man slurred as the sixth pint disappeared down his throat. They look classy on an Audi because it’s got a point to prove; a point which says that you’ve arrived in life bigtime! Putting them on your Innova, coupled with that equally ridiculous blue neon lighting, doesn’t make you go any faster apart from making the poor vehicle look like a mobile brothel. “There’s a reason for making cars the way they are sold!!!” he banged his fists on every solid surface he could reach, “Why mess around with them?” Finally, the decals bothered him a bit. ‘Sportz’, ‘NOS’, ‘Racing’ et all look jarringly out of place beside ‘Sonu’, ‘Monu’, ‘Preeti’ and ‘Aai Babancha Ashirvaad’. On a car as family oriented as the Alto.

“Seriously”, he said, as the lights went out from his eyes,” is there really a point to it all?”

Great guy. True story. Respects.

-Abhishek Joshi

    Revrange

Back to the Future

Before the founder of this blog MR.JAIDEEP SHETTY fires me off my post for not having contributed at all I thought I should rather take up some writing. Being my first blog I wondered, for a long time now, what should I come up with? I browsed through the list of cars that I have driven and I couldn’t avoid writing on the best of them all. The HONDA CIVIC.

Honda Civic

The car carries a legacy of its own; the very first generation of civic was launched in America way back in the year 1972. Since then there have been millions sold, and numerous face lifts some of them bizarre while a few of them you would be tempted to have. The one I am referring to is no different.

The eighth generation Honda civic was launched in INDIA in the year 2006. The largest selling car by the Japanese company was launched to target its section of cars and it did storm into the market and in no time was the segment leader!!This eighth gen Civic drives a 1.8 famous i-vtec engine. Loaded with features the c

ar does appear to be very appealing. It carried then, now mandatory features like air bag, abs, automatic operated mirrors and what not. You get inside the car and you wouldn’t stop admiring.

Enormously spacious at the front and the back. Very stylish dual shaded dashboard, the operating panel with easy accessible knobs , unconventionally placed hand brake all just seem to add up to the amazement . And if you think that’s all, there is some more to it. The luminescent blue digital speedometer and the taco display, the funky looking steering all very impressive, stylish and quite sporty I must say. It has a massive boot, so big that you can actually fit in a family or 2 inside, if you are on a trip you won’t have to leave that mango tree you came across. A lot being admired, let’s get down to what we are meant to do over here in this blog…. REVVVVVV!!

The 1.8 L i-vtec, though very quite, produces a good 130 bhp that would definitely let you rev pass most of its rivals. What amazes the most is its composure. Speed up at the corners you will notice the car to be pretty stable. Body roll is evident to some extent but satisfactorily stable. Being a low slung car it just sticks to the ground; 6500 rpm 181 kmph still you will be no close to death experience. A very comfortable drive good seats and driving position that will let you drive for hours without being tired. A very low ride, so low that it would go Cushing and thumping on most of the bumps. It’s being justified as to have made for better road grip and aerodynamic advantage. Well something that your girl friend won’t understand when she is trying to hold your hand while you are driving and u hit another…… bump!!!

What I don’t like about Honda is that you look at their cars and you will feel they have been launched what... around 5 decades too early. The city, the jazz all of them too futuristic and that’s not bad but there is a constant fear of Honda going the “tomorrows world” way. They do tend to emphasize that they are way ahead of the world by putting up in the market something which is everything but impressive..

But this is a fantastic car, though a bit futuristic but very sporty and stylish ,amazingly comfortable and absolutely worth the money!! Emphasizing on being too futuristic the new Honda civic will be there in the market by 2012.. look at it.. do u believe we are really looking in the future………?

Rohan Swamy

-Revrange

Xbox'd Sx4

So the news is out, there’s a new Suzuki on the block. With its exciting body shell from 2008 with a mind numbing 1.3 diesel engine from 2009, it’s called the amazing ‘NEW SX4 Diesel’. And that’s about it, end of news, nothing here will get you that tingling feeling in your pants and to add to the misery by the time you read the above lines the news is going to be so old that it would make a month old loaf of bread seem fresh.

I own a SX4,but thankfully I own the 1.6 petrol, it’s not one of the most exciting things to happen to me, but yes it did get me to 180+kmph,the fastest I every have driven a car (and I am required to say that I did that speed “on a closed stretch of road”:P).  the diesel brother, however will never make it that far and I believe it will run out of steam before it even reaches 150, the acceleration is bad and god save the person behind the wheel if you want to talk driving experience, it is the cheapest to buy in that segment and Suzuki assures you a complete peace of mind in terms of future maintenance experience, nothing path breaking, good for point A to point B transportation in a slightly bigger car….period.

That done I had this friend who asked me the other day if I was kicking myself in the rear for not waiting for the diesel version ,after all my car has stacked up near about 40k in 2years and some months, it’s not like I travelled to the moon and back, but a considerable mileage none the less. But no, my feet are still firm on the ground and my rear still a perfect round; however I am tempted to kick the bosses at Suzuki for not giving us this, the ‘SX4 XBOX360’

Just look at it!!! This car is every man-child's dream come true, you might get various optional extras to your car, I got a reverse sensor and that was a big deal then, my friend got a billion watts stereo, but an Xbox!! Suzuki has taken a éclair and made it into a Hershey Bar. Worrying about a car not having steering controls is so passé…. You get an entire gaming controller here  :D. And don’t think this is done by one of those pimp’s, pimping your ride thing, this is the real deal. It was made by Suzuki along with Microsoft. Why don’t you make this for the masses Suzuki!!! I don’t want a diesel engine that everyone has; I want this, which no one else has. Dare to dream Mr. Suzuki!!!

This car dares and in my honest opinion dose what  we have come to accept and appreciate about Japanese cars. They are a bit of a giggle to look at and a whole lot fun when playing around with its electronics.lets faces it japs don’t make good looking cars but what they are good at is making tall structures and filling ‘em up to the brim with cutting edge electronics, and this sx4 does just that.i would really ask Suzuki to play around with such concepts,  the world is a mad-mad place,and trust me madness gets you farther,in one piece than total logic and sense would.

and ya Just one more thing the controller on the wheel is NICE,but just wait till the driver's airbag's deploy.
- JD
Revrange

The Thumper Ride's On.

I am no biker, and untill very recently wondered why on god’s beautiful earth would anyone even bother to ride a bike. To start with they are horridly unsafe, annoyingly impractical, extremely irritating when that biker thinks that he can fit into that microscopic gap next to you, and all hell breaks loose when that inconsiderate jackass just ride’s  of at a toll gate, riding something thats much more expensive than your car. I used to crib about the government being stupid for this, but I guess; now I know the reason. Maybe and this is only a calculated hunch, Maybe the government is trying to keep the ‘biker’ happy during the short shelf-life he’s inevitably going to have.

But things change,  and trust me change is inevitable, ask your dad how he was when he was young, and pat then comes the reply…”I was smart, handsome, very very active ,prankster, a player and most importantly Happy… but then I got married”. No matter what you do you will change, hell Mr. Barney Stinson is changing what more a proof do you want! The seeds of change were sown into me when I was a kid. I have always liked a bike, bare with me on this, I am not talking about bikes,  I mean A BIKE. The Royal Enfield Bullet.

The bike in question, to be precise, is a Royal Enfield Bullet Std 350.its not like I had a direct access to this marvel on wheels, it belonged to a uncle of mine whom I met twice at the most thrice in a year, and as bad as it was I met him mostly just to sit on his bike. Even at that age when a rx100, rx135, rd350   all seemed the same there was something about the std350 that simply dint escape me. The japs were really good(they still are). Went like a rocket and were the tidiest off the lot, way advanced at that time. But the oil leaking, squeaking, high maintenance, fuel guzzling Enfield was the one that somehow defied all logic and made a hot iron mark in my budding automotive heart.

An alternative to the controversial military green(olive green)

  This British bike seems to have taken the “highway to India” and forgotten its route back home, and in a way it’s quite fortunate that happened;  am quite sure if it would have continued operations in UK the legacy would have died out long, long ago.

in a era where everything is uncertain, keeps changing and most probably wont be the way you left it, its a nice feeling to have a bike, a machine that has hardly changed since the time your grandfather rode it to his marriage. Think about it, your ideal, beloved, together for eternity boyfriend/girlfriend might have changed a couple of times in the past year or two (the competition is pretty high you know) and then you come across this machine that never changed its basics for over FIVE decades! 

the machine does not pretend to be someone else. It knows it’s not a Harley and it knows its not as good (in tech specs) as even the rather mundane commuter bikes around, and it knows it’s the least practical and probably the most high maintenance bike around, but that’s the beauty of it and that’s what RE loyalist admire about it. Being true to yourself.

 I still maintain the headaches that a bikes gives you, pointed out at the start of the article. But this British beauty does things a bit different. The joy of riding a Royal Enfield is at lower speeds and at lower rpm’s so you are never going to fast to hit Anything, you never in a hurry when on a Bullet,so never even bother to squeeze into that microscopic gap .but yes RE never ran away from the problem that plagued bikes since the Adam and eve of  bikes were created, practicality. It’s the least practical bike ever made, but boy do I love it

- JD

Revrange


PS check out this "Royal Enfield, Handcrafted in Chennai" ad

A Tribute

Take a Computer engineer and tell him about the phenomenon called Google, and you can pretty much expect a straight face, as straight as the "Bonneville Salt Flats". Similarly when I get down with my bloggers friends and announce with utmost pride that "I WROTE MY FIRST BLOG EVER"... all I expect to get is simple "cool!" (Not even a capital ‘C’L)... seriously I have come into the phenomenon of blogging so late that it makes evolution seem like a jiffy.

But this being my first blog I wanted to start it of with a tribute, a royal tribute to the car that really got my heart behind the wheel, to the car that under-steered so bad that, when ever I took speed into the corners (at an amateur level) it showed me a glimpse of death and got me safely back on the road, as though it wanted to tell me "confidence is good kid, but too much of it will kill you" or shall I say it made me look heroic and not let me crash... the car that got me and my mates to our destination while serious just sipping on fuel and maintenance so low I could have covered it in my pocket money...and no I don’t get much there. I am addressing my handed-down-to-me-from-dad-car...my beloved MS-Wagon R.

It’s Been almost an year or maybe more since she moved out, but damn I can’t think of one thing I miss more from my past year then this machine, makes you think is a car just bits and pieces of metal put together.

Over the years automotive giants try to sell a car under the pretext of it having a certain "soul" a certain pedigree, though I would not comment on the pedigree aspect of it, yet I will debate the soul part of it. "SOUL" is not a electronic feed that u can download on to a cars ECU, but is the bond the driver feels and shares with the car, it’s what the car or machine makes u feel every time you get behind the wheel ... it’s the trust you have on the car, that even thought you might go like a teenage boy trying his luck to impress that pretty lady on the side-walk, yet execute it with a certain level of ease, let’s just say you should be able to do a waltz with your car.

If u spent a million on your car or let’s say it looks like a million, it is not necessary that the beauty parked in your garage has a thumping heart...chances are the Italians and Germans have fallen of their chairs laughing  “wze made zee fool of zis idioot,soul in hiss Porsche wad was he tshinking!!”, if u are jumping with joy saying "my car looks like shit so it surely has soul and pedigree of a stallion"...I am sorry to be in-your-face on this but...your car-BRO- seriously won’t cut it. it’s not what it costs, it's not how it looks and to a certain degree it’s not even how it drives it’s how it makes you feel every time you get into it or walk towards it... my wagon was not a looker as per the normal standards but I loved the way she looked, I drove cars that drove better, looked better, had more power and felt solid, but till date I don’t remember a single boy-race I had with the guys, that I lost, dint ever-EVER have a accident on road and damn NEVER -EVER was worried about the fuel gauge dipping too low... I mean for me that’s what a soul is all about, the car to do its job and plainly keep me at peace...it’s like you going to your school reunion when your 40,with your wife who takes care of you, your family, cooks you a great meal and always puts a smile on your face. And your best-buddy turns up with Kim kardashian, you might envy him for sometime but rest assured he isn't at peace.

My whole point being this car, like many others, has been a silent butler, served hard and had a dignified end. This is my tribute to my work horse, the beloved Wagon-r.

- JD
Revrange