Off-roading in the Western ghats with my Toyota Fortuner

The Fortuner made short work of the terrain - just flicked the dial to 4L and it glided over everything without breaking a sweat!

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So, Toyota does it again - price hike on the Fortuner has become more or less a quarterly affair now. And folks in my circles were talking about Fortuner feeling the heat from the launch of incredibly VFM Scorpio-N  It is as if the big bosses at TKM are underscoring the unchallenged dominance enjoyed by the Fortuner, and being snobbish about it. To put things in perspective, the 4x4 variants of the Fortuner have become costlier by ₹ 3,40,000 since the launch of the facelift in Jan 2021, barely 18 months back - that's a ~10% increase in 18 months for a 30-plus lac car!!

That being said, the Fortuner is one incredible machine! Made a trip to Western Ghats last week, with the approach to our homestay being more of an off-road trail than a road/track. It involved 6 km of steep climb, of which 3 km was a mix of rocks, slush, steep hairpin bends, and a couple of water crossings! The Fortuner made short work of the terrain - just flicked the dial to 4L and it glided over everything without breaking a sweat! And all this with the factory-fitted H/T tires. Given the terrain, could not stop midway to take pictures from outside but attaching a few pictures/screen-grabs taken from inside the car, as well as a picture clicked later when we went hiking on the same trail that we had driven up. Apologies in advance for poor quality but should give you an idea of the terrain that the Fortuner took us over.

Now, there are other SUVs that can do this, but there are very few that can do this AND cruise us back home at triple-digit speeds!

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