chaikidukaan.com

Tag: cars

  • CARS and the ART of Ads

    Saw this advert during a Program Management workshop recently! Had to search for it for a few minutes on youtube!

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K00RVERwaj8?rel=0&w=600&h=480]

    Some of the other absolutely phenomenal Car Ads that I remember watching are

    Honda
    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2VCfOC69jc?rel=0&w=600&h=368]

    And the super HOTT Mercedes SLS AMG advert…

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_6S4Taw0jI?rel=0&w=600&h=480]

  • Point and Beep

    I find it funny that a lot of people stretch their arms to point towards their cars while using remote locking!

  • The heart and home gets a BEAT!

    So finally after a wait of about 50 days, we got our third car!
    First White, then Red and now a Blue… my family tends to stick with the primary colors only 🙂

    Radha and Meera outside the house 🙂

    Let’s talk about the good in this car as I observed in the first 5 kilometers of my drive
    1. The front of the car is very bold, and aggressive. Makes it stand out well!
    2. The lights are smartly designed, though I would have liked a different set of headlights. GM has toned down some styling to cater to the cost conscious Indian market.
    3. The rear door handle is cleverly concealed next to the window, and does not show up on the door, giving it a two door feel in the first quick look. The original (which was first seen in Transformers 2 is a two door)
    4. The interiors are futuristic… Brilliantly designed dashboard, gives it a sports car feel, and the matte chrome three spoke steering wheel is just adequately sized.
    5. The rear lights are big and would be helpful in Delhi fog
    6. The head room is great
    7. 14″ wheels are standard and that gives the car a better fuller look, plus helps a bit of stability
    8. The LT version that I got has an integrated music system which makes for a good looking interior and plays my iPOD
    9. The seats hold the back very nicely and have a decent lumbar support too
    10. The speaker system is decent if you do not want to spend more on thump and sound volumes
    11. The paint job is nice and clean and the build quality of the vehicle is good. This is anyway expected from GM
    12. The car is extremely silent
    13. There are intelligent spaces in the car to keep things
    A few things that are not so good about the car
    1. The boot space is bad and so is the glove box. Its very small too.
    2. The tires are thin… 155/70R4 is something screams for an upgrade to atleast 170/65R14… It would take away a few previous kilometers from the mileage though…
    3. There is no left foot rest!!!! What was GM thinking? That will make long drives difficult!!!
    And now because I have been driving a FIAT… let’s talk about how BEAT feels when compared to a PALIO
    1. It feels light.. very light… has both advantages and disadvantages..
    2. Palio feels very rich in terms of its interiors as compared to the Beat…
    3. The tyre upgrade that I did for Palio makes it feel more stable… I am already waiting for my first tyre upgrade
    4. The doors of a Palio close with a THUD… and the Beat closes with a slightly subtle thud… makes me feel strange!
    5. Palio has door stoppers which stop the door from swinging open when you get out of it.. you always have to make an effort to open the door… That simple functionality has helped me a lot in the last 5 years of owning the car!
    Its great to have two good cars now.. One which is very slick, modern and smart, and the other which feels safe, strong and is still going very strong after 5.5 years of a trouble free ownership. And both bold, aggressive, and very stylish in their own worlds!!!!

  • Its about the choice I make…

    and not just at one time, but always !!!

    I can either decide to sulk over something that I don’t have or “can’t” have, or decide to be happy about what I have….

    I choose the latter for most part of my life these days and that makes me breathe easy !!! a lot easier than the times when I used to see the space around, instead of things that fill some of it !!!

    For instance, I cannot buy the cars that I see on the roads here every day ! BUT, I have an option of renting them 🙂 and in the last four weeks I enjoyed driving

    Mazda 6

    Chevrolet Impala

    Ford Fusion

    and this weekend, a huge Chrysler 300

    I will write about my personal opinion about these cars sometime later (can’t stay without driving a car and noticing a few things about it)

    But the point is,

    I choose what direction I turn my head it, I decide to turn in what is more satisfying !

    Meanwhile, enjoy a view of 4 of the 9 awesome beauties that I own here in America !!!

    Yea, I like miniature cars ! must have at least 20 of them back home in India !

  • Why, Let there be light?

    I have recently noticed (ok, not too recently) but I have noticed a unique design by Maruti Suzuki in their recent cars !

    A small red light, at the lower end of the rear bumper in the center. It does not come on with the rear or the brake lights, but apparently has a separate switch to operate!

    Now I am wondering what thought might have gone into putting a light there, just about 10 inches above the ground !!! The light at the rear top makes sense as it increases visibility from a distance, plus gives indication of applied brakes to vehicles which are relatively higher and following you at a very close distance and is a backup light just in case one of your bulbs for the brake lights is not working !

    But this light in question, is only increasing costs, but making the bumper more customized, added light (prone to damage more often, while parking, backing up etc), extra wiring and above all, a stupid look…

    Can someone help me make sense of that light please !

    Having said that, I still love to drive my first Maruti 800, Tushar’s old Zen and Aro’s really old esteem ! What brilliant engines they are! For some, Maruti might have come a long way, but from where I see it, it produces much worse cars then it used to in terms of finish, durability, and build quality ! Swift, though really strange design ( strange fattish look, and extra small windows), is a car that I like because of the work inside the car, below the hood (a bit of my liking for swift is because of the FIAT diesel engine that it uses :P) Do read about the interesting design story for the SWIFT here, and check out the two door and convertible Swifts ! they look brilliant ! I just hope they improve the paint job on the Swift ! The red one looks like years old even after a few months !

    Oh, and have a great week ahead ! the next week is just a few days away !

  • Japanese American or American Japanese !!!

    A few days back I saw a car on the road here, I recognised it and smiled because I feel good if the same models are introduced in India and outside !!! For me that represents a growing India…
    Honda Accord, CRV, Civic; Toyota Camri, Corolla; The Chevrolet UVA (Aveo in the US) are exactly the same models !!! nice… Ok, back to the incident !!!
    Everything was fine till I saw the logo of the brand, and I was shocked !!!
    The car looked like the Chevrolet Optra and it was carrying a Suzuki Logo… Pretty interesting eh !!!
    Check out the following links for yourself !!!
    I don’t see much of a difference !!! Do you?
    *Listening to Don Davis – Navras (Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack) {Fantastic track; High Energy; Sanskrit ; Rock ; Instrumental; What not}

  • For the Kid in Me… ( Three of Ten 🙂





    (need to take this picture again… and the one below too)


    I got more 🙂 sometime later 🙂

  • 50000 and still going strong !!!

    A lot of people find me and my love for my car crazy… I don’t blame them for that passion is close to insanity anyway 🙂

    Li’il do they realize that this probably is the level of commitment that I set for myself 🙂

    About three and a half years after I bought my car, I still feel as great as I felt the first time I went out for a drive…


    and this Sunday, we reached a milestone of 50000 kms… a journey worth it !!!


    We met people during these years and kilometers, we lost some, we still have some… we saw people who loved us and understood us, and we also met people who did not understand the bond between the living and the non living… At one instance, I was even asked to go to hell and make babies with my car 😀 hahaha.. how I wish !!! A lot of my friends would not have to wait for the lakh rupee Nano then… I would have given them a lot of smaller cars for free !!!

    So me and her when look back saw a lot that has happened in the last 50000 kms and we smile together !!!

    It has been a life worth living !!!

    and hope it stays that way !!!

    God Bless !!!

  • and Heaven IS !!!!

    And I did not mention it before…

    Heaven is your darling (read Radha) with you… you two roaming around the roads for no apparent reason… just zipping past some traffic at times, or slowing time just to let some suckers move ahead and feel good…

    having the windows rolled up…

    listening to your favorite CDs one after the other like there was no tomorrow…

    Heaven is when you are with yourself and someone you love from the bottom of your heart… and you can’t figure out the different between the two 🙂

    all this really makes me feel that Heaven IS…

  • Of Curves and Cuts on Tyres…

    This year’s Auto Expo (one of the exbitions that I love to love) looks like one of the more practical ones in the last few years…

    Two things that I have been following and am happy about are…

    1. The cheaper Car – Nano… The claims are that it costs a lakh, however when you add things like road tax, insurance, a few accesories etc this should be around 1.25 on-road for the base model… not bad at all for a 33bhp 600 odd cc engine… I think this should be a very practical buy for city driving… The only thing that will keep me away from it would be the poor Tata build quality in cars… except the Safari, the plastics of most cars are cheap, and they can start rattling in about 6 months of regular usage… Indigo is a delight to look at, and has one of the best ACs that I know of in Sedans in India, however the sound that it starts making after a few months is something that is a big put off… Ankur now has a Safari and I am really looking forward to some first hand reviews from him…

    The sad part is after I have driven the FIAT, the build quality of almost every car that I have been into seems inferior…

    2. The new SUMO… relabelled as the Sumo Grand… though the looks seem to be coming a lot from the LandRover, minus the headlights which still have a dated feeling… the first looks at the SUV made it look impressive… again.. the TATA build quality is something that I would really like to consider before I would recommend this to anyone… Mahindra seems to be much better in their engine refinement and the quality of the vehicles when it comes to a comparision between the Sumo and the Balero and the Scorpio and the Safari…

    But with this new good looking Sumo, and the “I so want it but cannot afford it” Safari, things might be a li’il tough for Scorpio and likes…

    Another news that I have been waiting for was the launch of SKODA Fabia… Its a premium hatchback, which personally makes a lot of sense to me, and comes with the SKODA tag… needless to say the safety, reliability, build finish and quality are the things that you can assume coming with this car by default… Not sure how successful it would be though in the very cost concious Indian market… We are not too keen on paying a premium for a smaller car which comes with added benefits… If the Fabia 1.4L Diesel engine delivers like the much higher and bigger Octavia does… they already have a customer in line for the car !!!

    Honda also had on display the Honda Jazz which is a sleek looking 5 door hatchback… Another car to look forward to in terms of reliability and performance…

    Oh, and yes I also saw a few pictures of the new Suzuki Dezire… the sedan version of the SWIFT ( which is a nice car) but Dezire is one of the most stupid looking cars that I have seen in recent times… Looks like there is a competition of sorts about who makes worse car backs between Mahindra Logan and Suzuki Dezire…

    All in all, this looked like a good beginning for the potential car buyers, and people who are looking at decent upgrades for their existing vehicles…

    I am looking forward to another FIAT though 🙂