Hi BHPians, It is more than a year since I started following this forum. Getting membership itself was a dream come true, now the time has come to start a thread of my own. Many of you may have followed my agony about the delay in delivery in the Figo TD thread, at last it is going to happen this afternoon ! I saw my baby last evening at the showroom, did a PDI and the car will get registered today morning. I hope there won't be any further surprises and delays.
Now a little bit about myself and my association with automobiles. Driving had been a passion for me right from early teenage, though I was not fortunate enough to own even a bike at that time..Yet it didn't stop the enthusiast in me who would yearn for every opportunity for a ride on brother's Hero Honda or my friend's Yamaha. If I ever regret missing something in teenage, it is a Yamaha bike, the rage during late eighties and early nineties..And then I graduated towards 4 wheelers, when my brother bough the good old Amby. Occasional short stints of drive under the strict surveillance of my brother or driver, was all I could manage. ( Man, how much I hate it to be told how to drive, especially from my brother whim I would recommend as the benchmark of sedate driving !). Learning driving in Amby has a big advantage - after that, all the new generation cars will feel like a breeze for you ! The first time I drove a Maruti 800, I almost felt like I am driving a toy car. My friend's dad's good old Fiat, cousin's Contessa these were all the other cars that I could try those days.
Many years of moving from one city to another, the struggle with career etc - I never had a chance to own any vehicle though I would jump at every opportunity to drive. Then comes a period of 6 years when live and worked in the island nation of Singapore where owning a car is for the rich class only. ( rich by Singaporean standards). That's when I started seeing a lot more cars, many of them I had only seen in magazines only. Things were changing rapidly back in India too. Late 2004, I made the big career decision of returning to India and I landed up in Hyderabad with a new job. Life had changed, a married man and a father now. In a city like Hyderabad where public transport is nothing to cheer about, a car became a basic necessity for me and I felt I can afford it now. With limited budget, what other choice than M800 for an Indian like me ? But I decided to stretch my budget a little more and go for an Alto which was fast replacing the aging M800. The bright yellow Alto ( choice of color is my wife's, and I always get curious questions about why this color). The "Yellow Car", as it called by my 3 year old son, has never disappointed me, faithfully served me and family for last 5+ years, moving along with us to Bangalore in 2005.
The driving enthusiast in me kept up the spirit, always looking forward to that long drive where I can hit the highways. Driving a fully loaded Alto with a/c on a highway, you might be laughing how it can satisfy a driving enthusiast ! Believe me, there is fun in that too, trying to make the best out of the limited resources you have at hand. Wife used to have a good time watching my cribbing and cursing about the lack of power, especially when I see powerful car with an "L" board, trudging along the highway. 5 years of Alto, I decided it was time to move up. And what better times - Punto and Jazz launch around the corner. Jazz pricing was shocker and immediately dropped the idea, Punto had always been the top choice, though sometimes preferring for the trusted Maruti brand again with a Ritz.
More about the reasons I finalized on Figo coming in other posts. FYI, I booked it after seeing it and verifying the space etc, no TD done at that time. ( 6 March ). Why I was so confident, you can guess it ! A review by GTO was enough for me to make my choice and book the car early, though I did a TD few days later to confirm my choice. ( Again T-BHP advice - no matter what others say, don't buy a car without doing own TD
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