[ShaanS]

Hello fellow forum members!

I've been an avid reader for years now, but only in the last year, did I bite the bullet and apply for membership.

I’ve finally found the time to pen down a proper introduction, and a little bit about the rides in my life so far. So, here goes!

I’m in my late 30s (nearing 40, if I’m being honest with myself), and a self-confessed car lover. I work in Analytics, and live in Bangalore. My love of cars started when I was 5 and moved from Agra (where I was born) to Cuttack. Having no friends initially (language barrier, new place etc. etc.), I befriended my landlords’ 25+ year old son, who was a subscriber to Autocar. I could barely read, but I used to spend hours in my landlord’s home, leafing through stacks of the magazine, and the meticulously preserved center-fold posters of American and European beauties!

A few years later in 1997, my father bought his first car, in Ranchi, the 2nd generation of the Maruti 800, in DX trim and white paint. When he was reasonably confident that he’d mastered driving a 4-wheeler, we took our 1st road trip to Jamshedpur, and teenage me fell in love with cars and driving all over again.

We soon shifted bases to Jamshedpur and then to Patna, and with every move the household stuff used to get loaded in to a truck, while we mounted our trusty white steed and drove to set up a new base. We did the Jamshedpur to Patna journey in 14 hours in 1999, explored Bihar via road in the early 2000s, and even drove from Patna to Dehradun and back for a month-long family vacation in April-May 2002. I used to be the designated navigator, poring over paper maps, which barely folded out in the back of the 800, and never got us lost!

When I turned 18, my father taught me how to drive both a two-wheeler (we had a LML Vespa Select then) and the car. We moved to Lucknow, later that year, and I moved away to do my bachelors and then masters, leading to spending very little time behind the wheel, or even in the car. Those days were about walking, cycling, and occasionally riding on top of buses! But, every time I came back home, I would butter my father in to handing over the keys to me.

Come 2010, I was done with my education, and starting a job, the 800 was finally bequeathed to me, when we bought the last of the pre-facelift Fabias. My 1st highway drive, was from Lucknow to Ghaziabad, and that 1 day of driving was the best I ever had, it wasn’t the car, the road, or the view, or anything else. Just the feel of driving! In the next ~6 months, I drove ~10K Kms in and around the NCR, using every little excuse to end up on the Noida-Greater Noida expressway!

I would have continued driving that wonderful 800, but life had other plans, and I moved to Bangalore, where I relied on public transport for a solid 4 years. (Bikes were never my cup of tea, but someone bring back the LML Vespa Select please!)

In 2015, I was a family man, we were expecting our kid, and that prompted the wife and I to start showroom hopping to find the car that would work for us. We were on a budget, and after looking at the Zest, the i10, the KUV 100, the Ritz, the Wagon R, the Kwid, and the Swift, we zeroed in on the Celerio in its manual Zxi garb, which was our ride till the 31st of December (i.e. till 2 days ago), and has been replaced by the facelifted Seltos in the HTX IVT variant (but more on that in a separate buying thread).

[Dippy]

Thats a wonderful introduction and loved reading about your journey. The 800 is special car for all of us and has been the first car in many households. I still miss mine. I had an 800 AT.

The Celerio is a very practical car and Im sure it must have served you well. That said congratulations on your Seltos. The IVT automatic will ensure stress free driving and commute for you and your family.

Looking forward to your ownership review. See you around in the discussions.

[ShaanS]

Originally Posted by Dippy

Thats a wonderful introduction and loved reading about your journey. The 800 is special car for all of us and has been the first car in many households. I still miss mine. I had an 800 AT.

The Celerio is a very practical car and Im sure it must have served you well. That said congratulations on your Seltos. The IVT automatic will ensure stress free driving and commute for you and your family.

Looking forward to your ownership review. See you around in the discussions.

Thank you for the welcome!

Perfectly put, with regards to all 3! The 800 will always hold a special place! I have so many stories about our experiences it, that if I ever wrote an autobiography, 1 chapter would be dedicated to it.

The Celerio was love at first sight, it wasn't even in our consideration set, but just experiencing the car in the showroom, we were sure that it was the car for us.

To me everything about the Celerio made it seem like the spiritual successor to the OG Zen (of course I've never driven one, but the experiences of those who've owned one made it seem like that to me.) It was extremely rev happy, forgiving with driver errors, ate up bad roads with ease, had a responsive and sorted steering, felt planted at highway cruising speeds of 90-100 Kmph, had an airy cabin, excellent (to my years) stock speakers, and was easy on the eyes! The only reasons we needed a replacement was space, the deteriorating quality of Bangalore roads, and the knee pain associated with Bangalore traffic in a manual. But serve us well it did. I did 53,000 Kms with it over 8 years of ownership, and it took us to Yercaud, Coorg, Vellore, Pondicherry, Hampi, Madurai, Trichy, Thanjavur, Kanyakumari, Rameshwaram (and Dhanushkodi), Udupi and several trips to sites in and around Bangalore and just before we bid it adieu to Mahabalipuram.

You can imagine the place it'll hold in our hearts

I'm still drafting my Seltos buying experience, and will post it soon, and the ownership review will come in after I get in at least a small highway drive!