Hello Everyone!
I came across Team-BHP a while back, quite accidentally, has been browsing and thought it is high time I joined up. I was absolutely amazed by the sheer variety of discussions and the depth of expertise and passion shown. I would like to congratulate the people who kicked off this forum and thank the moderators for a stellar job in keeping the passion ongoing.
I have been crazy about cars & bikes ever since I can remember and so, when I thought about a username, I thought the one that best expresses me is a simple “LTAutoMad”, “LT” as in “Long Term”!
I am no spring chicken (boohoo!), spending the best time of one’s life (late teens - early twenties, at least in my opinion!) during the times of Michael Jackson, yes, the 80s! That was the time the auto revolution kicked off in India and it was a thrill to move from heavy, lumbering 50s Euro tech to sleek, 80s Jap tech.
Born & brought up in our southernmost capital city (yes, Trivandrum as it used to be called), I discovered the local British Council library (alas, it is no more there) at the age of 10 and I can categorically state that from then on I did not miss a single issue of Autocar, Motor or Motorcycle News until I left TVM at the age of 21! In those pre-internet days, I was lucky to live in a city that had a means for me to indulge in my passion for automobiles.
During my college days doing mechanical engineering (what else would an auto-mad person do?!), I had a Vijay scooter which I had extensively modified & subsequently a RE Bullet. Then, I booked, and got one of the first batches of Yamaha RX100s that were released - it was almost 100% Japanese. I always thought I will ride it for a couple of years before I upgraded to The King, yes, the RD350, but funnily enough, that little bike was so good I couldn’t bear to part with it. In fact, in my opinion, it was far more fun to ride the RX100 than the RD350 for the simple reason that, on the RD350, you could treat the rest of the 1980s traffic with absolute contempt, dispatching them with a tiny flick of the wrist while, on the RX100, you had to really use your riding skills and smartly use the gears and the accelerator to achieve the same effect.
I worked for a few years in Bangalore; have lots of fond memories of the time, ok, ok, ok of the RX100 kind, mostly to do with being flat out, throttle pegged open, late night on a deserted Airport Road. Except the RD350, nothing could catch up with that little fellow on the roads then.
I then emigrated to Australia 20 years back. Imagine coming from a country with 3 types of cars to one with 100s - I maniacally used every opportunity and then some to drive different cars and within a few months, had literally lost count of the number of cars I had driven (I think I gave up after 50!).
If you look at car ownership here, like different iterations of the Ford Falcon (4000cc, 6 cylinder), Holden Commodore (3600cc, 6 cylinder) etc, you can see a pattern - yes, large cars with big engines, rear wheel drive and massive amounts of torque that provide spacious family transport while satisfying the driver’s right foot needs & wants! I had a toy, a Jeep Wrangler (4000cc, 6 cylinder) for a while when the kids were young.
Currently, I am driving my first diesel ever (blame it on middle age!), a Mitsubishi Pajero (or Montero as it called in India). Luckily, my better half does not mind driving large, powerful cars and so "her" current car (selected by me, of course!) is a Commodore.
My current toy has been the realisation of a long held dream, a Harley Davidson Fatboy, with lots of mods. One funny thing before I sign off: my teenage children just cannot fathom why their dad who rides a Fatboy gets all nostalgic when he talks of his old RX100, which in their eyes (being born & brought up here, in this wide open country where anything up to 650cc is a learner legal bike) is a tiny, toy bike with a 100cc engine HALF the size of the lawnmower in the shed!
Warm regards,
LTAutoMad