[jithin23]

Hey Bhpians,

It has been quite a while since I've been active on the forum(my Umling La trip is yet to be completed and I've been super busy with travel and mods).

2 weeks before the event(event was scheduled for November 29,2024), I receive a call from Noufal Ikka(EcosTvm admin) that I'll need to bring the Red Dragon to showcase my car for the event. I had another request too, I had asked him if we can showcase one EcoSport Storm too. He happily agreed.

We decided to start on Nov 28 so that we can get some rest beofre the event. My dad too wanted to tag along as he has never gotten to experience such car meets. I told him yes and we took 3 cars to Trivandrum from Bangalore. The Red Dragon( Dad and me), Storm(Mad4bhp) with his family and Blue Raven(by bhpian epvineesh aka vineeshettan).



The drive from Bangalore to Trivandrum on a saturday morning is filled with traffic till Salem. Before we could stop at Murugan Idly for breakfast, my car's spoiler had some invisible wings and flew off from the car(basically it fell down while I was driving fast). After a while when I stopped at Murugan Idly is when I realised I'm driving a car with a semi- bald boot. However the template in the spoiler complemented the aesthetics by giving that transformers'ish look.

Post Salem the road till Nagercoil is one arrow straight road where you can easily get bored within minutes. The scenery gets interesting only between Dindigul-Madurai stretch.

By the time we could reach Tirunelveli, it was about sunset and we wanted to visit Cafe Panama. Why Cafe Panama was because we could get to witness the trail track , the Godzilla(Nissan GT-R) and the Patrol(OG one) owned by Akram Malik. The ambiance of the cafe too was quite in lines with a petrol head with silencers hung on the wall and a superbike for display near the table.

At Cafe Panama


By 2100 hrs we reach Trivandrum and our stay for the night was already sorted by the admin panel in Trivandrum.

The day which went into the history books: 29 Nov 2024

The first half of the day, we all were busy in getting the cars washed for the event, plus helping a few club members with a few features which were supposed to be added in their cars.

By noon, we were all set for the event and we took our cars a bit early as all our cars were supposed to be kept on display.

All of them at the event venue(Venue: Al-Saj Convention hall, Kazhakootam) were happy to see all three cars which exhibit a unique persona. Plus I happened to connect with a few folks who were my ex colleagues as well. Even Kairali Ford, the local media offered excellent support for this event.

The EcoSwome 2k24 event in a nutshell:

This is one of the largest single car meetups ever held in India(about 393 Ecosports were present) and except EcosClubKerala and Ecosport Club Bangalore, I do not see much camaraderie in other groups and the enthusiasm which is present with the Kerala folks. The other groups will cite excuses or reasons but these guys get the job done no matter what! Plus I was amazed to see that a car club having their own turf which is known as The Oval.

Viper and Pathfinder, Trivandrum's most sought after EcoSports!


From going to showroms to check out car specs to keeping our own cars with our own spec sheet for display! The Storm wheel cover will come soon as well. I just need to find a way to ship it from Brazil to India


A small peek into the lineup


Each registered member who visits the venue with their car is given a welcome gift which contains a voucher and a car accessory which is functional(this time it was front windshield sunshades).

The event was fun filled with activities for families and kids, along with a few more events as well as stalls for accessories and remaps. The vibe and energy levels were quite high akin to a music concert and people were engaged till the end of the event.

The event was concluded by the India Book of Records wherein one personeel from India book of records came to the event venue and verified the total count of EcoSports. It was a staggering 393 EcoSports of all ages, colors and transmissions. This is the third time I've seen such a lineup after the Ecostvm & EcosClub Kerala event in 2022 as well as my visit to the Ford Factory in SP Koil.

Finally recorded in the India book of records!


Till date, not even OEM's have managed to reach this scale and level of engagements whenever any OEM conducts an event. Surprisingly, my dad was spellbound with the number of cars at one place and each car is customized in such a unique manner which brings out the identity of the owner!

However, the admin and member panel have put in a lot of efforts and in certain instances, the admins had to shell out funds from their pocket to make this event a successful one!

Here are few glimpses of the event with photographs and videos:

The other highlighted cars on display


The memento from India Book of Records






The Man instrumental for such a monumental feat!












The whole crowd can give some music concerts a tough competition


EcosTvm Admin Panel






Event Video(please turn on subtitles as it is in Malayalam):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDXIzm-nRM

After the event, we went to Kanyakumari the next day and visited the Vivekananda Memorial via boat. I hope the visitors learn to respect the land and keep the surroundings clean! We stayed there overnight and set back to Bangalore the next day. The return drive was plain jane except for traffic between Salem-Thoppur section and attibele.

My Key Takeaways: The level this event was organized was nothing short of amazing. All the admins and volunteers worked day and night regardless of their job profile or community or religion and they have proven all odds for one common goal:- To grow the car community and ensure brotherhood! Slowly the car community scene is catching up with events like Generation Speed, Amby Valley races and so on. I had shared this eventful trip mainly to showcase the community centric effort we showcase for our cars and motorcycles!

Ford, We still love your cars and we wish you make a comeback soon!

On a sidenote, we were crazy enough to drive to Calicut the next week to pick a Figo and the week after that we flew to Chandigarh from Chennai to pick an EcoSport S Diesel for a friend in Chennai as there are no well kept Titanium+ or S in South India or the prices are too high. We flew in the morning and next day, we picked the car up!

The EcoSport S which we picked up from Chandigarh(totally an unplanned yet a structured buy)


The Figo which we traveled across KL and found one in Calicut


Somehow, I'm not quite a fan of the new unlaunched facelift bumper


I'm yet to finish my Umling La travelogue. Will somehow sit for a day or two and try finishing that too :P.

[Omkar]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[anoopGTkrish]

Nice post. On a sidenote, any idea where to source the raptor bumper in Bangalore?

[Piston_head]

Is it a KL specific event or was open to all Eco owners from India?

[KI07]

Ecosport was the very first car I knew was a cult-classic.
Glad to see proud owners

[thoma]

Originally Posted by Piston_head

Is it a KL specific event or was open to all Eco owners from India?

EcosTVM is a club of Ecosport owners based out of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram). They have a good comradeship among themselves on topics even outside of their common connect i.e, their Ford Ecosport. They organize meetups, drives and even have a sports turf to themselves. Read more at https://www.ecostvm.com/

There are also similar clubs based out of Kerala (Ecos Club Kerala who is about to conduct a similar event on April 12th, named MANIAC2.0) and Bangalore.

Ford should actually take pride in such staunch followers of thier cars outside of their home country.

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by anoopGTkrish

Nice post. On a sidenote, any idea where to source the raptor bumper in Bangalore?

Raptor grill you mean. Yes we can get it sourced from Javed who runs JN RIDERS CAR ACCESSORIES in JC road

Originally Posted by Piston_head

Is it a KL specific event or was open to all Eco owners from India?

This is an event only for ecosport owners in Trivandrum. However, since we have several members in the bangalore group who are based in Kerala and Vice versa, members from these groups are allowed. It was an invite only event.

Originally Posted by KI07

Ecosport was the very first car I knew was a cult-classic.
Glad to see proud owners

Indeed, it remains a cult classic even till today. The used car market is a testament to that!

Originally Posted by thoma

EcosTVM is a club of Ecosport owners based out of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram). They have a good comradeship among themselves on topics even outside of their common connect i.e, their Ford Ecosport. They organize meetups, drives and even have a sports turf to themselves. Read more at https://www.ecostvm.com/

There are also similar clubs based out of Kerala (Ecos Club Kerala who is about to conduct a similar event on April 12th, named MANIAC2.0) and Bangalore.

Ford should actually take pride in such staunch followers of thier cars outside of their home country.

Indeed, but their lackluster attitude towards the Indian market is saddening to say the least. I don't think any other car or brand has this kind of Frenzy even after the company's exit. Like I mentioned, this is the Yamaha RX/RD series of the car world.

[5252rpm]

What a feat. India leadership should be ashamed to have lost such a market that has this level customer advocacy. Old Ford marketing team should also be concered for not realising the enthusiasm of this forum.

In any case, kudos to entire team for pulling out something like this.

[itsbaman]

Ford India, are you watching??

Happy to see such a fan following of EcoSport and proud to be an owner of the car.
Do such events happen in North India as well?

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by 5252rpm

What a feat. India leadership should be ashamed to have lost such a market that has this level customer advocacy. Old Ford marketing team should also be concered for not realising the enthusiasm of this forum.

In any case, kudos to entire team for pulling out something like this.

I had literally asked the ford social media team, communication head and the Erstwhile MD Mr. Anurag back in 2020 regarding all these and Mr. Mehrotra had given a sarcastic reply to me by stating please give your resume and you can run this company while we were on a virtual connect. I wish I had done that in reality!

With regard to Ford social media and customer care they're only focused on preset answers or posts, take content from owners or groups to post on their Instagram feed and do not think out of the box or listen to customer feedback on social media platforms. That team needs to be replaced ASAP with better marketing and social media advertising teams or else they will dilute the brand's legacy and prowess.

Originally Posted by itsbaman

Ford India, are you watching??

Happy to see such a fan following of EcoSport and proud to be an owner of the car.
Do such events happen in North India as well?

Yes indeed! There is a group on Facebook known as Ford EcoSport owners India official but too much of groups is involved and there is no holistic camaraderie as well as the general perception of Fords up north has mixed reactions. However they do conduct small scale meetups in a quarterly or bi annual basis.

[Geo_Ipe]

What a sight! 393 Ecosports is a monumental feat. Manufacturers should be organising these events, unfortunately, such a culture hardly exists in India. Special congratulations to the car culture in Kerala as well! Mods' Own Country indeed!

I'm part of an Ambassador owners group based out of Kottayam, Kerala. Leaving a link to a write up about them here:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...rs-kerala.html (Ambrockz - HM Ambassador lovers from Kerala)

[W.A.G.7]

That is one big event! I miss my brown Ecosport (1.5L Petrol manual) for it's bulletproof build quality, reliability, cheap maintenance and the ability to pull nicely till 120kmph without breaking into a sweat. The Ecosport is a fantastic car even today, no doubt about it. It feels so nice to see so many Ecosports together for such an event! Ford leadership should seriously rue their exit from India. This just goes on to prove that there were and are; enough Ford fans in the country!

[BlueGod]

Instead of innovating and adapting to the market Ford simply said we quit. Mahindra is eating ford’s cake.

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by W.A.G.7

That is one big event! I miss my brown Ecosport (1.5L Petrol manual) for it's bulletproof build quality, reliability, cheap maintenance and the ability to pull nicely till 120kmph without breaking into a sweat. The Ecosport is a fantastic car even today, no doubt about it. It feels so nice to see so many Ecosports together for such an event! Ford leadership should seriously rue their exit from India. This just goes on to prove that there were and are; enough Ford fans in the country!

Indeed and I hope that wish comes true soon this year!

Originally Posted by BlueGod

Instead of innovating and adapting to the market Ford simply said we quit. Mahindra is eating ford’s cake.

Can't agree more to this, however I can't divulge more insights on this topic as it might not bode well with some readers. I wish people realise this someday!

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

What a sight! 393 Ecosports is a monumental feat. Manufacturers should be organising these events, unfortunately, such a culture hardly exists in India. Special congratulations to the car culture in Kerala as well! Mods' Own Country indeed!

I'm part of an Ambassador owners group based out of Kottayam, Kerala. Leaving a link to a write up about them here:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...rs-kerala.html (Ambrockz - HM Ambassador lovers from Kerala)

Indeed and you rightly mentioned about mods own country! Also, the old restored ambassadors are a vibe to look at. I was amazed by the thread you had shared!