Ok, all the talk of ethics evaporated when the Ford executive brought the TD car to my office doorstep
. The TD car was the Aquaris Blue one and boy she looked hot! Could not take my eyes off for a few minutes. The spoiler, the body kit, the neat looking OE alloys combined with the striking color is simply too much to resist.
Initial impression is simply wow!
I jumped on to the driver seat in a jiffy, adjusted the steering wheel to my liking and off she goes! There is no way you will want to drive this car in a sedate manner. Now I know why people rate the Fiesta 1.6 S so high on driver involvement. The motor is happy to be revved to the limit and inspite of pedal-to-metal action, it maintains the rev-happy nature without breaking any sweat. Drove it to the nearby VIP road (leading to the Pune airport) and in no time the speedo needle was hovering around the 120 kph mark! Stability at that speed is top notch, no questions about it. A zippy drive on that road and then we hit Nagar road which is fairly busy all day. In third gear at 1000 rpm or so, step on the pedal and she obliges without any fuss, I like. This particular TD car was in healthy state having run just over 20k kms. It must have seen a lot of abuse all this while but the motor, the AC worked perfectly alright. I was smiling all the way and wishing if I had the moolah rightaway to tag along with the person to 'Talera Ford' and do a booking
.
The interiors are pretty good too, I'd take that quite comfortably as I am not too fussy about the interiors, what matters to me is whats under the hood. An integrated audio system that sounds okie dokie, nothing much to write about. The seats are fabric (how I wish it was leather) not too bad, can be changed to Art-leather at a later stage and will look stupendous to match the interior color. The dashboard is a shade of black (don't know what color do I call it), looks well finished too.
Differences between the 1.6 SXI and the 1.6 S as told by the TD chap:
1. No leather seats in 1.6S
2. No turn-indicators on the RVMs
3. The S has 15 inch tyres as against 14 inchers for the SXi
4. Beige interiors in SXi, a shade of black in the S
5. No body-kit, spoiler on the SXi
6. S sports a stiffer suspension setting for better cornering ability
There could be more, but these are the ones that came from the sales person.
I'm wondering what to do next! Getting my Ikon this weekend from Mumbai. I'm thinking I should go to the dealership sometime next week and see what price he offers for the Ikon and if the price is fair, go in for an exchange. If the price is not too good, I'll try to sell the car via some other medium. With the festive season on, with all discounts considered (corporate, insurance, loyalty et al.) the OTR price might be approx. 7.6 L. Can I wait for 5-6 months? Highly unlikely! The saga continues.
Mods, please ignore my erstwhile request of closing this thread. I'd like to keep this open for now. Many thanks in advance. My sincere apologies for the cranky and flip-flop behavior on the thread so far, but that's me!