[Aditya]

2023 is coming to an end, so here's a chance to reflect on the year that's been.

From my point of view, as an automotive enthusiast, 2023 was quite a happening year. While I did not go out on any noteworthy personal / family road trips, attended many media drives and some of them were really fun. The most memorable one would have to be the Toyota Hilux drive, which happened in Uttarakhand in March. The drive involved driving along a river, driving on gravel tracks through a national park and even proper off-roading.



The off-roading bit was organised by an old friend and long-time BHPian, which made it great fun. The beauty of the location made it truly unforgettable. I was happy to be back in Uttarakhand after more than a decade and I must say, this was one of the best media drives I have ever attended.





A little later in the year, I got a chance to test what is likely to be my next car purchase . Once again, the location was Uttarakhand.



Plenty more exciting cars like the Maruti Fronx 1.0 turbo-petrol, the Hyundai Verna turbo-petrol and the Maruti Jimny were launched in the Indian market. Higher up the ladder, there was the Volvo C40 Recharge which blew my mind with its performance. Make sure you check out the full list of Best Enthusiast Cars in India, 2023.



Now let's have a look at some of the big developments in the Indian car scene during 2023.

Return of the Delhi Auto Expo

January saw the return of the Delhi Auto Expo after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted proceedings over the past few years.



While not quite as exciting as the previous editions of the Expo, enthusiasts still had an opportunity to get up close with some of the most eagerly awaited products in the industry. Hyundai, Kia, Maruti and Tata among others had huge line-ups of cars.

BS 6.2 emission norms implemented

The Bharat Stage 6.2 (or BS 6.2) emission norms were implemented in April 2023. The transition to BS 6.2 meant that Real Driving Emissions (RDE) came into effect. This in turn meant the death of some more engines. While petrol engines were easier to upgrade, upgrading diesel engines was not economically viable for some companies. Hence, diesel variants of cars like the Honda City and Hyundai Verna among others, were axed.

E20 Fuel rolled out

India started the rollout of 20% ethanol-blended petrol this year. This was supposed to make fuel more affordable, but the price remains similar to that of regular petrol.



While some manufacturers are making E20-compliant engines, people are still on the fence about using the E20 fuel with their old E10-compliant engines (Related Thread).

Launch of Bharat NCAP

India got its own New Car Assessment Programme called the Bharat NCAP. In fact, the Tata Harrier and Safari have become the first cars in India to receive a Bharat-NCAP 5-star rating for adult and child occupant protection. The focus on safety has also led to manufacturers adding more and more safety features to their cars. Some started offering 6 airbags as standard while some mainstream cars also got ADAS features.

Looking forward to reading what BHPians think of the developments in the Indian Car Scene as well as some of their personal highlights!

[Omkar]

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

[GTO]

Damn good year for me as an enthusiast:

- Completed all my Thar modifications - Thread Link (My Modified Mahindra Thar 4x4 Review | Red Turbo-Petrol AT Convertible)

- Decided to hold onto my 10-year old 530d for another year or two, and put the car funds into investments instead. She is still in very good shape (BMW 530d M-Sport (F10) : My pre-worshipped beast)

- Drove some amazing cars on the highway & road-trips: Jimny, Elevate, Seltos 1.5L Turbo, GLC, Innova Hycross, Fronx 1.0L Turbo MT, Hilux & many more.

- Witnessed a month where all previous car sales records of India were smashed. God bless our country

- Witnessed 3 months where Team-BHP broke its all-time high traffic records. In one particular month of 2023, we had 51-lakh monthly visitors & over 2-crore pageviews !

- Started moving out of home without my wallet (oh, the convenience), thanks to FASTag, UPI, Digilocker & MParivahan Apps (have my driving licence, RC Book with insurance PUC etc. all in there)

- Hosted some extremely talented people from the auto industry at my terrace lounge, including the CEO of a car company (or two). Truly crazy car conversations with these overachievers & geniuses.

- Have the EQE parked down my house right now, so stepping out for a spin

[gauravdgr8]

2023 for me was a blast. Drove crazy kms from Jan to Nov on some of the best highways. Did criss crossing across the country literally. From Ooty to Mohali to Bombay to Pune to Ooty to Hyderabad with a ton of Mysore - Bangalore in between. Tried some of the best cuisines on the way.

And finally to end the year, booked the facelifted Harrier.

Eagerly waiting for 2024

[nagarjun]

I got myself a VW Tiguan in March 2023 and absolutely loving it. 2023 has been a big driving year with both holidays and personal work. Have driven almost 25k KMs with 16k of them on the new Tiguan after letting go off my beloved Vento.
On the overall car scene in India, I see that the car prices are going up and up like everything else and the choice is getting limited in a given budget range, especially in the 20L to 40L range. Wish more players come in to this market.

I wish the entire team-bhp family a happy new year and season's greetings. Hoping for a new year with more new car launches.

Tiguan during various duties






Vento before it was driven out by the new owner

And a parting shot


And a small collage of a few pictures from the various trips the beloved machines have made possible.

[GForceEnjoyer]

For me personally, it was an absolutely wonderful year I'd say, jam packed with 5 road trips:

• Hyderabad-Aurangabad-Shirdi-Pench
• Delhi-Kurukshetra
• Chandigarh-Manali
• Hyderabad-Pandharpur-Tuljapur
• Hyderabad-Horsley Hills-Bangalore

Two other highlights deserve a mention. The Maruti Jimmy offroad event that was organised near Hyderabad, which I attended with my dad and also ended up meeting a BHPian too!


The second was an early Sunday morning breakfast at True Black Coffee (road number 45), which literally turned into an impromptu car meet:



Other than that, a good year for our cars too, with our Superb getting full body PPF in January, and the Fiesta seeing an uptick in driving, especially highway runs (and of course, lots of photos!).

In other news, unexpectedly running into a BHPian with the same car as you at a petrol station, spending some quality time with both cars and of course, being able to tell people about it on Team-BHP definitely made for a fulfilling year!

In general, 2023 was certainly a happening year with many, many new launches and some interesting new trends appearing in the market, such as the sudden resurgence of the C-segment sedans. However, there was a constant sombre overtone in the form of the ever-increasing ethanol blending. The effects have started showing up in our cars, with very noticeable drops in fuel efficiency. Performance drops are not as noticeable, but they're unfortunately here to stay.

[Genie]

Much of the year was spent working from home and not so much driving. But every drive whether in city or out is an enjoyable experience for me. A drive with family to spouse's place during a festival and a couple of long solo drives to home town and back on some work were opportunities cherished. Also spent a lot of time dreaming about and test riding a few super bikes trying to figure out what suits me best. Yet to figure out where to get the moolah from.

[sachin_cs]

Not the best year for me in terms of my car ownership:

The bad bits:

• My right ORVM was smashed by drunken man in Jan 2023
• A stone came flying from under the wheels of a rashly driven Jeep Compass and it left a dent on the RHS front door
• Ongoing road construction in Raipur left a heavy dent on the floor board of my car
• Just a week back, an underaged biker crashed his bike on the left ORVM while I was waiting at a signal
• Some moron decided to park his XUV300 very close to my car in my gym parking and he left a dent on the front right fender. Again on a parked car!
• As of now, my car is sitting in the service centre from last one week and despite buying the most expensive insurance with all the addons, Acko is not approving my insurance claim. It’s been a frustrating experience to deal with them (story for some another day).

The good bits:

• Went on a road trip with my mom. We did Raipur-Jhansi-Lucknow-Ayodhya-Varanasi, it was 3000km road trip and every km was worth it
• I did 30,000kms this year because my daily commute has become close to 100kms and there has not been a single day when I hated driving the car.
• Bought service pack for next 2 years at 18k.

My Rapid is the workhorse now, I love driving my machine. Despite nearing 90k kms, the DSG is holding really well and there’s not a single rattle in my car.

[rakesh_r]

2023 has been game changer for me, hectic, jam packed yet very rewarding:

1- Fulfilled my dream of owning a Gurkha
2- Bought a preowned Wagon R
3- Finally witnessed the Aero show at Bengaluru, been trying to attend since quite some time
4- Bought my own house, again was a long term dream.
5- Got blessed with a baby boy: This will always be the most important event of my lifetime, where we got blessed with a charming prince.

In a nutshell, our lives drastically changed (in a good way), for which 2023 will always be a special one.

[Rajeevraj]

From a driving perspective was a regular year with a bunch of highway trips. Highlight was my Vento TSI completing 10 years. Had a good time looking back and summarizing the 10 years of ownership which I documented in this thread

The other highlight was getting a new bike-The KTM Adventure 390 which has now rekindled the joy of longer highway rides. Over the last 10 years was just using the bike as a commuter. Less than 2 months with the KTM Adventure, have covered 2000km including a 3 day 800km round trip. The first time in my riding career of maybe 60-70,000km that I am doing this kind of a trip. Just today me and my wife did a 120km breakfast ride for no real reason. That is the kind of change that the new bike has caused. Ownership review detailed here.

[Turbolove]

2023 was quite a roller coaster for me:

1. Some nice long drives in the Thar - Hyderabad to Mumbai, Gurgaon, Indore and Udaipur.
2. Switched the Thar for the Jimny 2 weeks ago, enjoying it every bit.
3. The startup I was working for went into losses so started freelancing, got some much needed break, however I'm still not sure if this is for me longterm so thinking about going back into the workforce.
4. Might have met my future wife.
5. Moved from Hyderabad to Gurgaon.

[RGK]

What I noticed in 2023,

The market for used cars is as healthy as the market for new cars.

Vehicle documentation has become completely digitalized.

Seeing parcel of Delhi/Haryana Vehicles being sold in South India and there are generally excellent ones also.

........................

On the personal front, customary trips to my native place went well in this year, and I changed my beloved Ecosport to a dependable Crysta offcourse a used one.

Need to tweak a few things to make it my own. Presently, enjoying the beast and anticipate scheduling lengthy drives in the forthcoming months.

Some homework was done to learn about Toyota service schedules, spare parts and other things. Established a new connection with dealership personnel in order to understand their way of working.

[Dr.AD]

On cars and driving front, this was a good year for me. Nothing extraordinary or special this year, but at least I kept on doing many road trips weekend after weekend, and also managed a couple of longer travels, and that makes it a good enough year for me.

I love solo drives and I started the year with a 3,000km solo drive in my BMW 320d. I also drove on Samruddhi Mahamarg in that trip, and that was a memorable drive to start off the year.

Starting the year with a solo drive on Samruddhi Mahamarg:



The other highlight of the year for me was my Thar Petrol AT 4x4 that I bought in May 2023! My first-ever hard-core 4X4 SUV, and my first step in the world of exploring off-roads and paths beyond the tarmac! So far I am loving this car and I am sure I will have more Thar stories to tell in in the future. Just a week after I bought the Thar, which I named my new "Dusty", I said goodbye to my "original Dusty", my 2010 Maruti SX4.

My new Dusty:



On travel fronts, I continued doing regular weekend drives throughout the year. So it was a good year on that front. But more than that, I am happy that I managed to take a week off and spent time exploring Landscapes of Ladakh, something I always dreamed about! This Ladakh trip was surely the highlight of the year for me, on personal travel front.

Enjoyed exploring Landscapes of Ladakh:



And finally, talking about my "travel related" hobbies, I became much more serious about my photography, and I managed to take some good photos (by my own basic standards, as I am still learning this art), and got involved in some photography forums too. Now I consider myself somewhat of a serious photographer. And I also acquired a new full-frame mirrorless camera (Nikon Z5) this year, something that I use a lot now!

A couple of photographs this year that I loved:








And then something that is not a major highlight but still a memorable drive , I took my BMW 320d to Goa after a gap of a few years, and crossed 90,000km on my 320d in that Goa drive.

My beloved ride in my beloved land, Goa:


So that was it. Nothing extraordinary, but a good year nevertheless!

[gischethans]

I upgraded from an Alto 800 to a Tata Punch and recently hit the 5000 km mark with our first long road trip.

My Orcus White Tata Punch Creative DT | Ownership Review

I truly enjoy the drives and looking forward to an even brighter 2024.

[sinharishi]

2023 was much better than 2022 for me!

• Travel: Road trips - 5 to Mumbai from NCR. Numerous to UK - Pauri Garhwal, Devprayag, Kausani, Ranikhet. 3 to Sissu. Countless short drives to Chandigarh, lucknow and Doon. Flew to Goa twice this year. Trek to Kedarnath was the highlight of the year!
  
  
• New Car: Slavia 1.5 Style MT came home on 28th April, it has clocked 18k. This replaced our 7 year old Scross 1.3 which had done some 192K kms.
  
  
• SUV dream: It had come down to Thar vs Slavia. I wanted to sell the Polo and buy the Thar, keeping the Scross till the 10th year. We are a family of 4, I lost the vote 3-1 and Slavia it was. Although Slavia has served us well, there is a part of me that still wants a SUV. To top it all, most of the trips I do are in a group, me being the only one with a sedan.
  
  
• First Bike: Booked Himalayan 452 in Slate Blue on 7th Nov and awaiting delivery. Bought new gear and I never had so much fun shopping - Helmet, Jacket, Pants, Gloves, boots. All geared up for 2024.
  
  
• On the Personal front all is well. I am looking forward to 2024 and hoping I will clock more KMs on 2-wheels than 4!
  

Polo @ Pauri. Last long drive in the Scross to Mumbai. A quick dash to LKO.



4 days apart. From the beach to the himalayas.



Our tourer



Slavia @ Kullu. Polo @ Guptkashi.



To sum up 2023