Buying a new car is a mentally tortuous process - especially when you have choice and the lack of it in your budget!
Wanting to upgrade from my 5-year old Zen VXi to a C/C+ sedan, I started the shortlisting process... my range was from Esteem VXi to Honda City GXi (didn’t mind selling my shirt for an Optra 1.6 Base). Like every normal Indian, I believed in SSTM theory (Sundar, Sasta, Tikao, Majboot) and also like every normal human being, I started with a bias (or should I say love affair?) - the classic left brain - right brain conflict!
At least 6 months before D-Day, I had ’made up my mind’ that I would want to be seen driving a Honda City and nothing else. I took a test drive in my suburb in Mulund, and wow, how impressive! The car was big but nimble as a mouse. Beautiful interiors complemented a generous rear-seat leg space and an extra large boot. The promise of unparalleled fuel efficiency and legendary Honda quality sent me to a world of dreams. I wondered: Why do people buy any other car? So I ’decided’ City it will be and dreamt through the colours. Finally I visited the dealer with my wife to put a ’stamp’ on ’our choice’. The dealer offered to give another test drive so that my wife would also be stumped by its feel of luxury. What a mistake he made!
I drove the ’beauty’ around narrow market streets of Chembur, then told the sales executive that I wanted to head to the Eastern Express Highway. He was alarmed... ’No, no... our policies don’t allow that’, he protested. ’What do you mean?’, I wondered. He explained that City was for city driving. How logical! So, I turned around and headed for Govandi road as a surrogate for the highway. Night ended, dawn broke, my dreams shattered, my eyes opened! What a wimp my ’dream girl’ turned out to be on the surrogate highway!
Now that the clouds had cleared, I could see other stars in the firmament. So, I courted the josh of Ikon, compared the fluency of Accent and sank into the luxury of Optra. The sales executives at GM were a pretty persuasive lot! They bombarded me with data, followed me with PowerPoint presentations in my office, rationalised with value propositions, offered unbelievable discounts and enticed with the mother of all test drives- an offer to keep the test drive car ’for as long as necessary till I was convinced of what they promised’! Now I started wondering if it was wise ’to keep the car for as long as I wanted’. If I didn’t like the car, how would I have the face to tell them that? So, I just test drove all around town and highway and came back ’quite impressed’.
I was all ready to sign on the dotted line the next day till a good old friend of mine spotted me that evening having an affair with the Optra. He caught me by the scruff, tweaked my ear, dragged me to the nearest showroom, pushed me into the cockpit of a Baleno and ordered ’Drive’! And, boy, how Baleno’s 94 stallions galloped! A light tap with my right foot took the needle past 120, still climbing. The steering and handling were accurate and obeyed the jockey at every corner. The vacuum assisted brakes were one hell of a grabber. I stopped, my heart still thumping, and said to myself: ’Here’s the horse of battle, here’s the horse of ballet - here’s my Lipizzaner stallion’! I was ready for the nuptials.
Today I am happily married to my Baleno VXi for the last 2½ months and done over 2000 kms over terrain rough and smooth. It returns a decent 10.9- 11.5 kmpl in the city and 15.5 kmpl when combined on Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Its independent struts on all four wheels gives a ride quality over Mumbai’s (in)famous craters that can only be described as ’ride it to believe it’! The power delivery is phenomenal and its 94 stallions beg to be driven responsibly and gracefully. You can show all your dignity and grace to other cars on the road. But when you want to overtake, you don’t beg to them - you just go past!
This car has everything I want (well, almost!), yet looks so unassuming, dignified and graceful like Amitabh Bachchan! I have floored the accelerator and it climbs effortlessly to the red line. But I particularly like its sweet music of engine rev at ~3000 rpm when it does ~120 kmph. My only complaint is that it doesn’t come with ABS/EBD and Electronic Stability Control (ESC), which it very badly deserves. Never go beyond 120 while doing the curves near Lonavla/ Khandala on the Expressway. At about 140+, without ABS/EBD and ESC, the ballerina gets skittish and tends to lose control at the curves. Stay within 120 and you’ll rule the road!