This blog is dedicated to the first car that I bought in my life - the Suzuki Baleno.
All the posts would be concerning only cars in general and the Baleno in particular. Hope car lovers would find this blog interesting and maybe useful too.
January 24, 2006
How many cars does one need ?
A few years ago, I happened to read an article about the Tamil filmstar Sarath Kumar owning 20 cars. My reaction was, this guy is either nuts or wants to show off or likes a vulgar display of wealth.
Well, now I think differently. Is it wrong to have different cars that serve different purposes ? Infact, isn't it better to have a car for a specific purpose, instead of having just one car that is used for all purposes ? Lets take a guy who owns an SUV, which in most cases is a fuel guzzler. Since he has only 1 car, he would use it for even short drives to the grocery shop when a smaller car would have served the purpose well.
This led me to draw up a list of cars that I would like to own - the rationale being only their usefulness and not snob value. Most people, when asked to name their dream car, would invariably come up with names like Benz, Rolls-Royce, Porche etc. However, as much as I admire these cars, I never have felt the need to own one of them.
My dream car list would look like below : 1. A Benz Smart-type car - For city driving for going to office etc. Can take only max 2 persons with some space for a few bags in the rear. We do not have such a car in India yet, but I am sure we will have one soon - priced around 1lac, around 400 - 500 cc and with fantastic mileage. P.S. : Please note that I do not want the Benz-Smart itself, bcos it is too pricey. Given at 1lac, I would surely take it.
2. A Maruti Omni - For weekend outings with 6-7 friends and space for a few cases of beer, food etc. Or when many relatives drop in at the same time and one car is not enough to take them out.
3. A WagonR - For outings with the family (wife & kids). Compact, yet more than enough for 3-4 people.
4. Baleno - Finally a real sedan for those highway drives when you need speed and power.
After 7 years of latent intentions and 4 months of serious thinking, I finally bought my first car - A Suzuki Baleno. However, the excitement cannot be compared to the time 10 years ago when I bought my first motorcycle.
Our first car came in 1985, a shiny new chocolate brown Maruti Suzuki 800 for the princely sum of Rs.59000/- (less than 1400$ at today's exchange rate). It served us well for around 20 years before we finally decided to sell it off in Nov'2004. Fetched us 40K, which is an incredibly good resale value. Ofcourse, the car was still in great working condition, with only 52000kms clocked and the paint still as good as new. Lot of care had gone into its maintenance, mainly periodic washing and waxing, and this was reflected in the resale price. The buyer was pretty impressed with the dent/scratch - free exteriors and mainly the fully Japanese engine under the hood. I would have liked to hold on to it for many more years, but my wife would have none of it. So finally had to let go, with a heavy heart. Occasionally, I see it zipping around in Chennai and a talk with the new owner revealed that he was quite happy with it.
Along the way, in 1999, we bought our 2nd car for my sister's use - again a Maruti800, but fitted with an aircon. After 14 years, the price was now Rs.2,40,000/- (approx 5400$), a 3-fold increase in price with a proportionate decrease in quality. Almost 95% of the car (everything except the gearbox) was now being manufactured in India and the deterioration in quality was quite glaring.
Anyway, having sold the car, the focus was now on acquiring a new one as replacement. In 1985, there were only 2 other makes of cars in the market, apart from Maruti-Suzuki. Both being vintage quality cars with ancient technology from Fiat and Hindustan motors. So, it was a no-brainer when it came to choosing Suzuki. And to make things easier, Suzuki had only one model, the Maruti800.
But the car market in 2005 was a different ballgame altogether. Now, there were more than 1o car manufacturers, each having cars in different segments (compact, sedan, MUV, SUV etc) and each segment having different variants to choose from. Having had a long and fairly good experience with Maruti-Suzuki, I decided to stick with Maruti again. Living in the city with its crawling traffic, a Maruti800 would have been the ideal choice, low price combined with the best fuel economy of all cars in India (maybe even the world). However, my wife would have none of it. She wanted a change from the Maruti800. We finally decided on the WagonR - a not-so-good looking car, resembling a loaf of bread - but with the new tall-boy design which is pretty good on ergonomics.
We had almost bought it when I happened to test drive the Baleno (a sedan from Suzuki, 1600cc, 94 bhp, 175 kms top speed) and was hooked. The aircon in the Baleno is acknowledged to be the best among all cars in India and rated even better than the one in the Benz S-class (a car that costs 10 times more than the Baleno).
What followed was an intense fight between the mind and the heart, between logic and crush. The 'car'dinal rule of city living is "The bigger the city, the smaller your car should be". The Baleno, though classy and powerful is not really a good bet for an Indian city. Being big, it is difficult to zip in and out of traffic, needs more parking space, delivers lesser kms per litre of petrol and so on. To cut a long story short, the heart won and we decided to buy the Baleno and selected a shiny black car. If looks could kill, this car would be hanged for multiple murder. Sexy looks, yet a robust exterior, fancy stuff inside, 94 horses waiting under the hood for my command and an aircon that makes mincemeat of even hot Chennai weather.
I was a little worried about the mileage that it would deliver per litre of petrol. But some quick calculations revealed that it gave atleast 12km to the litre (city driving with a/c) and 16kmpl (highways with a/c). Not bad for a 1600cc car when smaller 1100cc cars like the Santro give the same. And when compared to cars in its category, the mileage can only be said to be awesome. The Accent-1500cc & Corsa-1300cc return 10kmpl, the Getz-1300cc gives around 11kmpl and the Optra-1600cc gives a measly 8kmpl.
An interesting incident happened yesterday as I was driving back from work.
I was at the Cenotaph Road - Mount Road signal waiting for the light to go green. A guy on a bike pulled over by my side and signalled me to lower the windows. When I lowered the windows, this guy asked me how much mileage I get and about the performance of the car. Since I had done similar enquiries with many car owners before buying my car, I could understand and replied to his questions. He said he was buying the car the next day and wanted to confirm. I told him that he could go ahead without any worries.
It was then I noticed that this guy looked vaguely familiar. But I could not actually place him. So, I told him that I seem to have seen him somewhere. He replied that he was a VJ on SS Music TV channel. And then it struck me that he was VJ Craig of that channel.
For those who don't know him, see the attached snap.
