[BackstraightBoy]

RaghuVis's thought-provoking post (Cars that you regret NOT buying!) led me on a much more spirited charge down memory lane to pre-pubescence.

If you're anything like me, which I imagine a majority of TBHP members are, car crushes are a reality, 'crush' defined as an inordinate pining for the manifestly present but clearly unattainable.

So let's hear your most profound and heartbreaking car crushes, when you were growing up as a piston-pulsed kid, with petrol vapour respirating through your pulmonary valves and clouding your common sense – cars you totally doted on but could never buy yourself because you weren't earning and nor could convince your parents to buy ((let's hear the happy endings too, if you actually did!).

All cars seen in India (either sold locally or imported) at the time are eligible, until you were eighteen (older ages are acceptable too if your heart has not aged beyond eighteen in synchrony with the rest of your body!). We'll have to leave out the poster cars that could never be bought here (maybe for another post?), since that would widen the scope to fantasy and dilute the spirit of crushing on something (again, remember: available but not attainable).

Let me start with my bittersweet ones.

The earliest car for which I pined much without the moolah to afford it was the Maruti 1000 (yes, before it even became the Esteem), particularly in dark grey. This was in the late 90s. I remember a friend of my father who would visit us sometimes had one, and I was utterly starstruck by it. To me then, in that state of stunted tune, even a Merc didn't have the charm of that Maruti! And that metallic grey – boy, I'd have even my football painted in that colour if I could. But afford the car we couldn't. I wouldn't complain unduly, because we had a Premier Padmini and an eminently collectible Standard Herald (two-door coupe version) in that same metallic grey, eventually. Not a complete heartbreak then.



Then for a while it was the Daewoo Cielo. At the height of this inanity, I don't think I'd ever before or have since been in more love with the front end of a car (the BMW E46 included). When a white copy was hired for a cousin's wedding sometime in the early 2000s, I simply lost it! I spent more time on its white seat covers than in the wedding hall those two days. And at the end of all the pomp and revelry, more tears were shed by me over parting with the rental car than by the bride's father at the separation from his daughter. Looking back at the front end of the Cielo now, I find it hard to think of something more absurd than my crush on it. Thank god they don't let teens run for president! (I'm not talking of course about the US, where they clearly are.)



Since the Cielo became a relic very quickly, my infatuation technology swiftly tracked down the next car for the big crash (no; that wasn't a typo): the Fiat Palio (ideally with the 1.6 but I was okay even if it didn't come with an engine!), particularly in green. My first European love, it left my heart in more pieces than the parts in its taut proportions. And another sordid chapter had been penned with petrol in the book of unrequited love.



Then as a parting gift to pre-puberty came the BMW E46 3 Series. Not sold here directly, admittedly, but I couldn't unsee Bond driving in the back seat of one several floors high up a building (in Tomorrow Never Dies), and then a few imports here and there in staggered stabbery. In silver. With those E46 eyes. It was a level of torture that scarred the tender linings of my heart, for the proverbial crush had peaked, unattainability wise, as C.C. Baxter might say.

Which is why, perhaps, even today when I see a pristine E46 in silver or blue, with those heavy eyes and the perfectly proportioned kidney grille squatting on short overhangs primed for an ambush, my heart skips a beat in the anguish of a crush that never died.



Now if you will excuse me, I shall grab several rolls of tissue paper in anticipation of hearing all about your car-crushes.

[rajesh1868]

There were not much. But from the time I saw it it was always a Maruti Gypsy.
Later while in college Black Lancer too.

[Darkviper]

2004 Skoda Octavia VRS

[condor]

The Premier Padmini ! I thought it was sleeker, cuter as compared to the Ambassador. The Standards were around too - but it was the Padmini

[Kosfactor]

Standard 2000! It looked like a spaceship in comparison to other vehicles on the road at that time.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...85-1988-a.html (The story of the Standard 2000. 1985-1988)

[NaXal]

Tata Safari & Mitsubishi Lancer !!

Nothing else attracted such attention & lust !!

[Engine_Roars]

It was Tata Safari for me. Always, imagined myself getting out of it, looking all M-A-C-H-O. Girls falling over the handsome hunk with a Ray Ban on. Why Ray Ban? well, that was most common expensive brand which used to be sold as cheaper "Ray Ban". If you know what I mean.

I thankfully could live the dream of owning actual Ray Bans at the least.

What simple days!! Thanks for the thread. All aboard Nostalgia train.

[Keeleri_Achu]

8th gen Honda Civic. Used to drool at a 2007 registered white model while waiting for my school bus. IMHO it's still a head turner.

[//M]

Back in my early teens, I had a massive crush on the Chevrolet Forester and Opel Vectra.

While all magazines and experts mentioned how the design on both the cars were a little bland and boring and how the Forester looks more like a station wagon than a SUV, but I was completely smitten by these two vehicle - Forester for its frameless doors and that low, wide stance and Vectra for its classy understated styling.

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by Darkviper

2004 Skoda Octavia VRS

+1. This is still a crush for me. Never miss a chance to tail behind whenever I spot one on the road. A car that was way ahead of time and with it's looks, style and proportion still give all the contemporary lulus a run for its money. Timeless !!



Another crush, the old X5.

[aargee]

As a kid (and still) nothing was beautiful as this car is to me; wish Tata launches same car with at least Varicor 400 engine.

What do you all think? Ain't she beautiful?

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by Darkviper

2004 Skoda Octavia VRS

Not just the VRS, the regular versions with the dark green/ blue colour were a feast to my eyes! Simple yet sophisticated!

[saikarthik]

My crush back in the college days was the Swift. There were no other stylish hatchbacks that could even come close to the Swift with wide and lower stance.

But, I was in serious love with the Honda Civic, again with the great proportions.

[Sreesh1009]

This is it. I became an adult quite recently, so this should count

[Nav-i-gator]

1. The Old CRV (grew up on a dream to own one once I would start earning)
2. Contessa Classic (as a Kid)