[samaspire]

"All for the best" - that's my motto and this thought has kept me happy all my life.

Hi people. I'm Samarth Shetty from Manipal (it's not in the North East ) - a software engineer by education, a graphic designer / commercial artist by profession (and interest, and genetics), a son, a brother, a husband and father to a 3-year old hyperactive son. I'm also a Beta Tester for CorelDRAW - one of 3 in India, out of just 200 from across the world. I was born in Manipal, did my schooling at Bombay and am now settled back in Manipal with my design studio at Udupi.

I come from a family of creative people with artists, architects, home designers and creative writers in the family. I'm not that good with freehand art but I can create magic with a computer. I see design, or the lack of it, in everything, and something badly designed or not aligned properly, will drive me nuts.

I'm very well known for my bad memory; I have very little first hand memory of my school, college or anything from that time. I only remember the important things - or like my wife says 'the things that are important to me' lol. Maybe that's true, because after I got into team-bhp, I remembered something that I had done when I was 11 years old. It was my first stint at designing something, and I guess this is the ideal place for me to share it. So I have been searching for it for the past 2 days and I just found it.









It looks very childish now but it was my idea for my dream car.

Vehicular history

Dad had an Amby and a Rajdoot when I was small but then sold it on moving to Bombay. Later we bought a yellow Dolphin and it was a fun car to travel in. I had learnt to drive (in theory) by the time I was 14 but only got my hands on our M800 after I turned 18. Come 1996, the M800 gave way to a 1974 premier padmini with steering mounted stick shift and it was a lovely car. It was older than me but what fun to drive. It dismissed potholes with ease and could seat 6 with comfort. I just loved that car. The talk then started of getting me married and 'who would give you a girl if you have a Fiat'. Lol. So in 2008, we exchanged it for my Alto for just 14,000. (If anybody sees a MEN 9552 moss green Fiat, please let me know. I'd love to buy it back). My Alto Lx has been a workhorse and has done duties through a new house construction, my marriage, my honeymoon and generally carrying the family around. Last year I bought a used 2003 tvs scooty and then learnt to ride it. Should have done this long ago - would have saved me a lot of fuel.

Now about the Aspire'ation

A year back a thought arose of changing the car but the process really caught steam about 6 months ago. So I went from a Datsun go plus to a Tata Nano AMT to a Micra Active to an Xcent to finally settling on the Aspire. A huge thanks to t-bhp here as you all were very instrumental in my final decision. In the process I got access to a huge repetoire of knowledge to satisfy my insatiable curiosity and I became a big fan of T-bhp.
Finally, this month my 2 aspirations got fulfilled - I booked my car and then I got accepted into team-bhp.

The passion of the members for their vehicles here is so great that it has got me to love my car, and take care of it. I hope to be part of interesting debates and increase my love for all things motorised.

PS: I see a lot of 'I's in my intro, but hey this is an 'I'ntroduction

[SamarthMehrotra]

Welcome to Team-BHP. You are in good company, Samarth.

[Full_Minchingu]

Hi Samaspire, Welcome and Congrats! Wish you have great miles with loads of smiles ahead with your new car.

Was very impressed with the design you created that too at such a young age. I guess you would have already implemented few of these in your new Aspire.

Originally Posted by samaspire

The passion of the members for their vehicles here is so great that it has got me to love my car, and take care of it. I hope to be part of interesting debates and increase my love for all things motorised.

This is so true, implies a lot to me as well!

[S2!!!]

Welcome aboard samaspire. Good to have you on board

Originally Posted by samaspire

It looks very childish now but it was my idea for my dream car.

It's quite commendable that you still have your designs preserved. The sketches you posted just made me nostalgic. My teachers and classmates at school always thought that I'd be an automobile designer, especially because most of my text and notebooks had car sketches all over. They were quite fed up with this habit of mine really . Until recently, whenever I used to clean my room, I used to find some drawing or another. It always brought back a lot of memories.

[Rehaan]

Hi Samaspire,


Super intro! There's a few similarities between us. Gotta dig up my old drawings...

Originally Posted by samaspire

a software engineer by education, a graphic designer / commercial artist by profession (and interest, and genetics)

Do link to some of your work, if it's available online.

See you around,
R

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by SamarthMehrotra

Welcome to Team-BHP. You are in good company, Samarth.

I would say great company!

Originally Posted by Full_Minchingu

...in your new Aspire.

Thank you - but my new Aspire is yet to come.

Originally Posted by S2!!!

It's quite commendable that you still have your designs preserved.

I have to confess that I am a hoarder - so I have lot of stuff that I might have use for 'someday'. While building our new house, I even built in a storeroom that only I can access.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Do link to some of your work, if it's available online.

I'm working on my website since 2 years and I also have a facebook page that gets updated about once in a year. www.fb.com\springsdesign

[HolyDriver]

Hi samaspire,
Welcome to Team Bhp from a fellow T-BHP "Newbie" :-)

Those designs look detailed for an 11 year old ! Kudos!
Also, am looking forward to your Aspire Ownership Review. By the way, which variant have you booked?

[samaspire]

I think the designs were inspired by Knight Rider. I have booked the petrol Ambiente variant. I have detailed my choice a little further up in this thread

[famman33]

Originally Posted by samaspire

So I went from a Datsun go plus to a Tata Nano AMT to a Micra Active to an Xcent to finally settling on the Aspire.

Hey Mate!


Interesting to note that you had considered buying the Datsun Go+ (which I possess) before settling upon the Ford Figo Aspire!

I have been having a jolly good time with the Go+ driving it around for a thousand kilometers in the past month.

Hope you enjoy the experience with Aspire too!


Regards,

Venky

[samaspire]

Hey Venky - I had decided on the Go+, in theory, after reading about it and even though T-BHP did got recommend it, I was willing to go for it. It is a very practical car for our family (4 + 1 kid, and 6 + 3 kids during vacations), and it looked great.

But then I took the test drive and the suspension setup did not do it for me. I had read that it has good ride quality but maybe it was problem with the test drive car. I asked for a different car but they were not interested. So I just let it go.

How is the actual ride quality in your experience?

[famman33]

Originally Posted by samaspire

Hey Venky - I had decided on the Go+, in theory, after reading about it and even though T-BHP did got recommend it, I was willing to go for it. It is a very practical car for our family (4 + 1 kid, and 6 + 3 kids during vacations), and it looked great.

But then I took the test drive and the suspension setup did not do it for me. I had read that it has good ride quality but maybe it was problem with the test drive car. I asked for a different car but they were not interested. So I just let it go.

How is the actual ride quality in your experience?

Dear samaspire,


I was also puzzled a bit as to why such a knowledgeable community as Team-BHP did not give the Go+ the thumbs up.


I made my Go+ a complete package by having functional accessories included (shall post info in my ownership thread soon) and had already read up on Indonesian car magazines the huge hit (and fan drivers clubs in various Indonesian cities) that the Datsun Go+ had become.

Well I tend to agree with you that the test drive car does not faithfully represent the actual feel you get with your specific model that has come off the factory floor.

In my case, the test drive Go+ handled with a huge boost (as if on turbo) while driving in the second gear. And perhaps that (sportier tuning) could also be ascribed to a stiffer suspension set up in your test drive car which accounted for the different ride quality.

Actually in my case, the suspension has behaved properly including on the long drive on muddy stretches from Delhi to Alwar. Btw: The suspension with damping has been modeled/tweaked on the Infiniti (upmarket brand of Nissan) actually.


Cheers!

Venky

[ALTIMAed]

Welcome, its nice to see a fellow Manipalite on the forum. I did my Mechanical Engineering at Manipal (1988 - 1992). Observed a sea of change when I visited Manipal / Udipi in 2011 with my wife. I have treasured memories of my KAWASAKI BAJAJ RTZ DELTA - KA20E1341

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by ALTIMAed

Welcome, its nice to see a fellow Manipalite on the forum. I did my Mechanical Engineering at Manipal (1988 - 1992). Observed a sea of change when I visited Manipal / Udipi in 2011 with my wife. I have treasured memories of my KAWASAKI BAJAJ RTZ DELTA - KA20E1341

So you're an MITian.
Manipal keeps growing by the day (and the skirts keep getting shorter ), and you'll find that it has changed even more since 2011 - especially the MIT campus. New hostel blocks and food courts keep coming up every year.
Your bike might still be doing the rounds of manipal with another student carrying around his / her girlfriend.

[Samurai]

Welcome to TeamBHP Samarth. We do have an active Team-BHP community in Udupi area. We will have another meet soon, do join us then. You can see the report of our meet from earlier this year.

[ALTIMAed]

Originally Posted by samaspire

So you're an MITian.
Manipal keeps growing by the day (and the skirts keep getting shorter ), and you'll find that it has changed even more since 2011 - especially the MIT campus. New hostel blocks and food courts keep coming up every year.
Your bike might still be doing the rounds of manipal with another student carrying around his / her girlfriend.

Well, after passing out, I loaded the bike on a train and took it to Satna (M.P). My father used to work there. Got a lot of stares on the number plate, many a times stopped by cops just to ask me the KA20 is from which town. In a small place like Satna, it was the only KA20 bike. Soon enough it was to be joined by another Kawasaki Bajaj (a CRQ registration) which belonged to a senior who took up a job at Satna Cement. The bike then moved with me to Gandhidham, Baroda, Gurgaon and then Delhi - finally my father disposed it off to a kabari wala (sad)