24th October 2007, 19:07
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| Team-BHP Support   | A tale of 7 cars 15 days of driving 7 different machines 4200 miles. So do I qualify as a taxi wallah? Or it was the ultimate road runners dream drive on one of the best roads in the world. Was it real or a dream! 7 cars, seven different personalities, 34 F to 117F, 0 meters above MSL to 8000 feet in the midst of clouds 1. The Executive She has a very clean nose, twin headlamps which can light up the darkest road, and a very very reassuring cockpit. Esp. for someone who is driving on the "wrong" side of the road for the first time. Automatic tranny makes it easier still. Some find her plain boring, while others feel she is dignified, albeit aging. Competition has come up with sharper, more aggressive designs, but she remains among the favorite among the Desi IT guy. Many people find her cute looking too. However nobody would find her scary looking, except one guy. The guy who saw 4 halogens beaming on his face in the fast lane of a SFO street. When he went for a driving test written or otherwise, all he was told is, "Stop at stop sign, stop at red light, watch out for pedestrians blah blah". He was never told that what to do when you see 4 halogens facing you. With no driving manual or handbook telling this, all he could do was shout words, which if uttered on live TV can bring FCC regulators baying for the channels blood. When he uttered those words, I wonder what the person on the other side of the cell phone was thinking. "Why did I get abused all of a sudden?" Maybe something else? So here it is the Toyota Corolla for you. They say, familiarity breeds contempt, but on the freeways when it feels that everybody is going a little too fast and that too in the wrong direction, familiarity is what you crave for. First time driving in the USA? The corolla is a no brainer. Excellent visibility, comfortable interiors, meek engine, and wonderful brakes. For 400 miles she was our companion, and taught me how to drive in the country of cars. Her odo was at 36,000 miles. Mind you, this is 36000 miles of abuse. Rarely rental cars are driven with a gentle foot. But she still felt new, except for the potato chip crumbs under the seats.  2.The Wannabe As you cruise on the arrow straight road, the instrument cluster cheerfully tells you that its 117 F outside. However with Pink Floyd on the satellite radio, and the chiller of an AC, you would be sitting on the Pier in SFO for all you care. There is no vehicle, no house, no habitation for miles around, except for a small red dot in the front which is growing bigger. You blip the throttle a little more, and the speedo needle nonchalantly climbs to 95 and the red dot turns out to be a Hyundai Elantra, a pretty new one at that too, the flagship model, which is supposed to be the corolla beater and Civic thrasher. So what is a mere American car from a dying house worth? The Elantra starts to get smaller again. The kid in you pushes a little more and soon you are at an effortless 100mph, provided easily by 160 horses under the hood. But soon sense and sensibility take over, and you release the throttle and settle to a more sedate 80mph, with the red blob becoming a dot and then disappearing over a gentle curve. A few minute later, the BEL 940 starts chirping, indicating illumination by Ka band. You slow down further to an even more sedate 75mph. Luck has been good till now, and no use pushing it, eh? Soon you see the source of the disturbance in the force. Its a highway cruiser, with lights on, parked behind the stopped red dot(no longer a dot actually), with the officer stepped out and writing a ticket. A few hours later you realize that the poorly designed seat has made your neck stiff and you are loosing sensation in your legs, in the same way it happens in Cattle class up in the air. As you adjust your bottom at 70mph, your knee hits the key(which is again at a very silli location, esp for tall drivers), and the car turns off. You fumble for hazard lights, and unlike India, you are not greeted with a cacophony of horns, but with distance, as drivers behind you drop back, allowing you to limp to the breakdown lane. You turn the key on and even before you can juice up the starter motor, the car starts, proving, that a automatic car can be push started. So why is this car a wannabe. Well because its a dodge avenger. And it tries to look aggressive, and its not even RWD like its bigger cousin like the charger. When you have muscle car names like the Avenger or Charger, you better have 250 horses too. 160 is good, but still its no muscle car. The whole design makes the car look more aggressive and powerful than it actually is. Its agressive bordering on ugly. The engine is good, esp since the car is pretty new, but then they say "If in a dodge car check engine light comes after 50K miles, it actually is the change engine light". In other words, a good car to rent, esp if you can rent the bigger brother with RWD. Thats why most dodge cars are rental cars.   Lot of style, little substance, but neverthless, companion for 1300 miles. 3. Liberation, American style As you take a fast right hander on the gravel road, your tail swings out, and the ESP lights on the center console flicker like a christmas tree. Opposite lock, is the next option, with a computer trying to prevent you from going off the cliff. After much drama, jiggling rear, and sweaty palms you stabilize into a straight line, and as you gently hug your own lane, a F150, with rear wheels spinning madly is coming up towards you, with the driver holding his thumb out in show of solidarity and camadrie. What you just did, he will also do shortly. Why not. A wide gravel track, a sunny day and rear wheel drive. Who cares if the computer is telling you that its getting 16mpg, or the pump numbers spin faster than the roulette at the Venetian. Its a Jeep Liberty. Its Liberation from Tarmac. 225 horses are all yours. 400 miles on the Twisty highway one, as it winds along the california coastline. Pick up a mag, and you have celebrities answering the dream drive question "To drive on coastal highway one". Be it Tarmac, or the gravel of the old coast road, the jeep holds its own. Thirsty yea, Entertaining? You bet! Want to rent this baby without burning a hole in your pocket? Well rent an economy car from the Dollar guys, and then make sweet faces at the counter.  4.Starship Enterprise The first think you notice is that there is no Key. There is a small black fob, not unlike the random number generator hsbc gives you, but no key. Since there is no key, there is no key slot too. Very obvious. So you sit inside the huge comfortable sofa like seat inside this beast, which is more of a spaceship and less of a car. Very soon you spot a big nice round button which says start. You press it once, and the accessories power up, and a million lights on the dashboard power up. The big orange display in the center tells you to press the start button again, with a funny looking graphic. you do it, and nothing happens. You look at the graphic again, and you figure out that you need to have the brake pedal pressed while doing so. You repeat, according to instructions. Nothing happens, but apparently the car has started, since the million lights reduce to a few thousand. you gently depress the accelerator, and the car moves forward. Silently. Not a sound. Very soon you may have weird sounds coming out of OEM speakers mounted on the front bumper if the Britishers have their way, but as of now, its silent. Eeerily so. Every car you have driven has made a sound, vibrated, told you that a heart is alive and beating, but this one is like a ghost. As you drive out of the rental center, you press the pedal a tad more aggressively, and soon there is thunder and a V6 starts with the power needle swinging towards 90KW, 60KW still to go till the 150 limit. 150KW, yes thats the power of this beast. Its the Nissan Altima hybrid. I would not call it a car. Its not a mere car its perfection. Did I hear Honda/Toyota? Well they better be worried. What a car. 800 miles done in a span of 36 hours. LA and back. Friday we started, reached at night. Saw LA for one full day, and started back at 11:30pm. Sleep was there, so was drowsiness, but fatigue? No ways. She wont let you feel fatigue. Its the ultimate highway mile muncher. Worried about lack of power, well 150KW is no lack of power. She will cruise silently in city, leap forward to 100mph, and return you 32mpg for all your antics. Stick to slower speeds or within the city, she will give you 35mpg even. Move over Prius, if you have to have a hybrid than Altima it is. Style substance and grace. No silly rear, no idiotic front just clean smooth car with comfort as the objective and ample power too!  5. The Asian American Is this car by an American manufacturer? Thats the first thing which comes to mind. It has 140+ horses under the hood, is smooth, comes with a Japanese power steering, and is incredibly practical. The seat is comfortable, the handling is taut, the FE is around 32mpg. This car for all practical purposes is like a Toyhonhyun. Infact its very boring too. So here it is the chevy cobalt, a totally boring practical, uninspiring practical hulk of metal, which companioned us all the way to mount rose with temp dropping to 34F and also took us to SFO and whereabouts, with 850 miles in two trips over 2 weekends.  6. Muscle Its close to midnight and the winding highway 120 is passing a little too fast underneath. There are 210 horses pushing the rear wheels and you are accelerating like a locomotive. A little too late you spot the sign which says "Old Priest Grade" and you hit the brakes on the lonely highway, and take the nightmare. Its 1500+ feet down, in 2.7 miles. All the way you drop drop and drop. Rear wheel drives are supposed to oversteer, but not on downhill free runs. Here they oversteer, and as you grip the steering tight and wrestle the convertible back to your side, you realize that being in gear D is not going to be any good for your brakes which are already cooking. you descent into low gear 2, and the engine howls in protest. 4 liter V6 was never supposed to go from 1100rpm to 4000 in blink of an eye, it was supposed to do it a tad more slowl But even 2 is not enough, so you shift down to one, with every sharp turn making your hard beat faster, and your palms sweaty. 3 hours and 30 minutes is all it takes to go from yosemite valley to pavilion. Thats including fuel and food breaks. Google says it should take you 3:53, but if you obey google in a Mustang, then whats the point of a Mustang! 500 miles was the companionship this convertible gave us. She did 22mpg too! And entertained on the way too. Parking lot drifting is sure fun in a mustang. But its not all roses and wine. 4 liters V6 and 210 ten horses is a tad disappointing. To add to your misery, every idiot on the road wants to race with you, every second SUV driver sticks 2 inches from your tail egging you on. You can give in to the temptation, and let the V6 do the talking, or you can do what I did, move to the center lain, and enjoy the drive, and keep the fun for the winding roads, where it belongs!   7.The Boy racer who grew up "I'm really impressed you did not cross the speed limit even once" said the driving invigilator, as she put the "Passed" score. 2 minor mistakes out of 15 allowed. At that time I did not tell her that it was the digital speedo which enabled me to do this feat. Add to that the precision sharp controls and great visiblity, and near perfect egronomics, this is the ideal car to take a driving test in. Its the Honda Civic. The erstwhile famed steed of midnight illegal street racing. This is the car in which I "learnt driving" i.e. took a driving lesson. Its no longer a street racers car, its grown up, with the wild days far behind. She was not the companion on any long drives, but a mere teacher, and a good one too. If you want to back up against the curb without touching it(you fail the test if you do), this is one of the best cars to do so. No wonder Honda and Toyota rule the roost in the country thats crazy about cars. So there you have 4200 miles+ in 7 different cars. From the Ocean, to the desert, to the peaks to the winding off road tracks. Arrow straight highway 5 which is as boring as you can get, and the crazy descent of Old priest grade. What next? To drive in the Alps, hopefully in this lifetime! Last edited by tsk1979 : 24th October 2007 at 19:09. |
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24th October 2007, 19:22
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| BHPian  Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Pune/Mumbai
Posts: 107
Thanked: 3 Times
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24th October 2007, 21:06
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| Team-BHP Support  | |
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24th October 2007, 21:55
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| BHPian  | Can we have a picture of the civic too? There are some minor styling changes in the American Civic right? A snap of the lady invigilator too, if possible?!  |
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24th October 2007, 22:12
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| Senior - BHPian  |  Way to go,Tanveer!! Another thread with a mix of info & experience..You've summed up each vehicle's details really well. Guess you need to be in the US,to be able to try out so many cars in such a short span of time. |
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24th October 2007, 22:20
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24th October 2007, 23:30
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| Team-BHP Support  | |
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24th October 2007, 23:30
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25th October 2007, 00:27
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| Team-BHP Support | Quote:
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25th October 2007, 11:57
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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25th October 2007, 13:41
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| Team-BHP Support | |
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25th October 2007, 15:50
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| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: GTA
Posts: 14,815
Thanked: 2,702 Times
| Superb Write up Tanveer & nice pics  What is the next car\s in your mind if you go there again ? |
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25th October 2007, 16:12
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| Team-BHP Support | |
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25th October 2007, 16:18
| #14 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Bombay
Posts: 2,756
Thanked: 135 Times
| Hi tsk, which magazine have you taken the write-up from? Do post the name and issue. Kidding, splendid write-up. |
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25th October 2007, 16:27
| #15 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: GTA
Posts: 14,815
Thanked: 2,702 Times
| My Brother is in US & once rented a Pontiac V12(dont remeber exact details) & was going ga ga over it & next weeknd he & his friends hired a nissan & he was sad  |
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