[rusticadventure]

Hi to all team BHP members! After more than a decade of applying for team bhp membership, it is nearly unbelievable that my membership has been approved.

I have always been made about machines since a kid and by chance or by design, mostly I had hold of not so popular but quite unique vehicles. Starting with a cycle - Hero Hansa, which was unique in itself, if anyone recalls, he/she can agree.
As I belong to rural area in Punjab, the first vehicle that I ever drove was a tractor in farm when I was in Grade VI. It was a Mahindra B-295, though I was not even strong enough then to shift its gears and my brother used to do that for me. Well Massey-Ferguson challenged this tractor's engine design as a copy and soon this tractor was discontinued.

Then came 1999, when after many persuasions my parents agreed to get me my own bike. We had shortlisted Hero Honda Splendour, but after test riding many bikes, ended up buying Suzuki Shaolin, India's first 5 speed bike and friends what a great ride it was. Enjoyed it for 6 long years in and around Chandigarh, took many short rides as well as longer ones in Himalayas.

Shaolin was replaced by Royal Enfield Bullet Standard 350 in 2005, when I had completed my education of being a Mechanical Engineer and got placement in Hero Honda.

Enjoyed Std 350 in erstwhile Gurgaon/ New Delhi areas and then took it wherever I was posted be it Dehradun, Shimla, Sangrur and now Chandigarh. It is still in my stable and continues to be the most prized possession.

From a production engineer shifted profession to Finance and joined a financial sector regulator with an MBA degree. I continued to had few drives on family owned vehicles - Bolero, 1st gen Scorpio, Indica V2 DLE, Swift Diesel and i20 diesel, before having my own four wheeler - Tata Nano in 2009. Again this cutie is still in my garage, well against all the negatives generally associated with this car, I still enjoy this raw car and it is great ride in cramped city environments.

For longer rides, purchased Hyundai Verna fluidic CRDi in 2011. This car had a great engine, gadgets and good interiors however, it lacked character as was evident in suspension. Further, as I had to shift to Shimla, low GC proved to be Achilles heel and had to find an alternative.

Here comes Gurkha! as I handed over Verna to my father and purchased a BS 3 Gurkha Hard Top in March 2015. Well it was more of an enigma as a vehicle then any real feedback available, opinions had stark contrasts, but still took a leap of faith and decided to go for Gurkha as it met most of my requirements, biggest being hard top for family. The iniital change was tremendous from a butter smooth crdi of Verna to agricultural Di engine of Gurkha, but just like old wine, Gurkha went on to be smooth and smoother with time. I have covered more than 1.50 lakh km on this in last 8+ years of ownership and love affair continues to be strong.

As you would have realized by now, that I have quite an itch for owning unique vehicle and with the progress in forums/ apps over internet, there was an ever increasing fodder/fuel for the same. After searching a lot, I got hand over a beautifully maintained Porsche Cayenne 955 model, manufactured in 2008, during 2018 with little over 50k on oddo. This came with a VR6 3.0 l petrol engine and man this was a pure contrast over Verna (linear performance) and Gurkha (low end torque maestro). Porsche is quite a heavy car weighing more than Gurkha, so even with 3 L V6 engine, the petrol characteristic of lack of low end torque coupled with automatic transmission, made it quite slow at low rpms and then it became a monster when engine crossed 4k rpm mark. Over last 5 years, have driven it over 40k kms, oddo is now at 90k mark, it had been a great journey and absolutely loved it through out. This car helped me to learn a lot, as to save upon Vitamin M did a lot of jobs required on Porsche with my own hands including change of engine mounts!

Fortuitously for me, one of my cousins shifted to Dubai in March '23 and he had a beautiful 2021 model BMW 520D luxuryline. As he was looking for someone to take care of his beautifully maintained 2 year old beamer, so I was the one who immediately came to his rescue and have been running it since last 9 months. Now I can enjoy luxury without burning hole in pocket through fuel costs.

Meanwhile, I am also an avid cyclist and purchased a Trek 3700 in 2009, people literally used to go in coma when they got to know its price back then. As my place of posting was in hills - Dehradun and Shimla, so rode this beautiful bike to many climbs and enjoyed the beauty of hills at slow pace.
Adding more to the cycle collection, I have a carbon frame Cannondale city bike and a MTB from Scott as well.

Currently I am based in Mohali, next to Chandigarh, and my garage is having Porsche Cayenne, BMW 520d, Gurkha BS3, Sonnet (my wife's drive), Interceptor 650 (forgot to mention this earlier, may be for next time) and a 2005 Bullet besides Cannondale and Scott cycles.
Verna and Nano are with my father in our ancestral place.

I really hope to add to my learnings related to automobiles and life from this form and wish that I could contribute to the value addition as well!

[ChiragM]

Welcome to the forum rusticadventure, that's quite a varied garage you have. Please please make sure to share pics and ownership reviews of your garage, I am sure many would love to read it, why not start with the Cayenne and the Gurkha, I am sure you have loads of stories to share with so many kms covered with them. We also have a forum for cyclists, I am sure you could contribute there as well and many would love to hear about the carbon Cannondale.