Flamboyance GT

 On the 14th of December, 1983, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi personally handed over the keys of a 'Francoise white' Maruti 800, then known as the SS80, to Mr. Harpal Singh at the Maruti Gurgaon plant. Since then, a staggering 2.87 million were produced within those same walls over a period of 31 years, scaling three generations! This makes it, the second longest produced car in India, next to the Hindustan Ambassador. Out of that 2.87 million, 2.66 were sold domestically in India with the others exported to all over the world. Many don't know this, but our humble 800 wrote stories not just in our country, but also in Europe including England, France, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Other markets included Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The concept behind the 800 was simplicity, reliability, practicality and cost effectiveness. All 3 generations weighed around the super light figure of 650 Kgs, were small enough to fit into tight space...

 'DS' isn't really an abbreviation of any sort. It actually is a pun for the French word, 'Déesse.' Do you know what that means? Goddess! When a car is given such a name, that on its own is enough to create rather large shoes to fill, let alone those of a predecessor. And a proper predecessor at that. The Citroën Traction Avant. For reference, that car was once called, "Reine de la route", or as can be said in English, "Queen of the road." When the DS was unveiled on the 5th of October, 1955 at the Paris Motor Show, it had undergone 18 years of development! The DS also had another responsibility. It was one of the earlier new luxury cars to come out after World War II in France. Automobiles have traditionally and historically been symbols. Symbols, representing multiple aspects. Status, innovation, daring, breaking boundaries, etc, etc, etc just to name a few. So the new Citroën had to be one that showed that France was on the road to recovery, i...

" The 'Insert car name....' is 'Insert country or brand name....' s' answer to the 'Insert benchmark's name'. " This is a certain line we are all quite familiar with. Magazines do it, journalists do it, but I have a certain problem with this. It fails to capture the individual soul of the 'answer' and always requires elaboration, without which, the essence is absolutely not delivered. They said that the Mark I Toyota Celica is Japan's "answer" to America's pony car, the Mustang. This is quite evident. Why? You can notice the styling similarities between this sporty coupe and the massive V8 engines monsters churning down the American highways, almost instantaneously. At first, I would have felt this would be a recipe for disaster since Toyota was not innovating, but rather recreating. Worse, it was not even their own brainchild. But in this situation, things most certainly took a turn for the better. The Celica ...

Finally I can forget that the word, 'serious' exists in the dictionary before I write about a car. And yes, the word, "car" may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one sees the Peel P50. This little piece of history looks like it may be a little child's dream, more than reality.  But by no means is this a child's car or a toy. This was conceived by the Peel Engineering Company of Peel, in the west coast of the Isle of Man. And this was in the very early 1960s! It was actually produced from 1962 to 1965, with only 50 or so ever being built. I say "50 or so" because while doing some research, I'm seeing that it says 47 were sold. So I assume the other 3 were prototypes possibly. It also says only 26 are remaining. Rare factor? Check. In 2010, this was listed in the Guinness World Records as the smallest production car ever. In 2016, one example surfaced at the Sotheby's Auction where it went under the hammer for a whopping $176,000. ...

Since 2009 to the present day, Rolls-Royce has had 2 main models in its lineup (excluding the Cullinan SUV, which was a more recent addition) ; The flagship Phantom and The Ghost, with cars like the Wraith, Coupe, Drophead Coupe and the Dawn being derivatives of them. But I have always felt that the Ghost is a car that is quite misunderstood. And this goes all the way back to the beginnings of Rolls-Royce itself. When Sir Henry Royce had the original Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost built between 1906 and 1907 to 1926, it was named so not by the company, but by the press and all those who experienced it, because the official demonstrator car happened to be silver in colour and the engine was so quiet and refined in comparison to its contemporaries that it felt like a ghost was transporting them on a 'Magic carpet'. In fact, this was the car that put Rolls-Royce on the map when it was entered in the Scottish Reliability Trials of 1907, where even after crossing 11,000 Km, the car showed...

  Today is the official 30th anniversary of the Lamborghini Diablo. This calls for a celebration, Lamborghini style! But what was the Diablo all about? For starters, it was to become the successor to the Countach and the Miura. When the Miura was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show of 1966, it was revolutionary for introducing the rear mid mounted engine layout (Used to this day as a standard for a lot of high performance cars), for being the fastest production car in the world at that time and for simply being drop dead gorgeous. When the Countach was unveiled in 1971, it was even more revolutionary for simply looking out of the earth with its lifting scissor doors and wedge shape, and again, for being the fastest car in the world for its time. Now we must keep in mind that these are just damn big shoes to fill for a successor to really make its mark as a successor. Like the Countach, the Diablo is one car that seems to almost be born into a cursed life. The Miura saw itself through...

  When I titled this post, "A Special One", I did so with 2 reasons in mind. For starters, I'm writing a new post after a mad 2 years of absence. But as it can be said, one can only deviate from one's path so far. As for the car itself, It certainly is special on its own. I'll explain. It was just this morning that I received a message from a dear friend of mine, who is as obsessed with the automotive world as I am. It was a video made by The Autocar India Magazine, he kindly forwarded to me, where they drove a Lamborghini Huracán Evo in Calicut, or Kozhikode as its known today, a city close to my heart as that's where I was born, that's where my roots originate from, and that's the one coastal city that changed the destiny of India, my country as well as Europe, through centuries of international trade and important historical events. Now having said all this, I tend to write here about anything automotive that's fascinating generally, so getting ...