Happy Bday Swifty!

Jan 14^th 2011 a landmark day indeed. I completed two years in TCS and so did my new car Swift complete spending two years with me. Time flies! It indeed does. It was as if only yesterday that I was researching a lot on cars. A well laid out research which had been on the backburner for sometime as we already had a family car – FIAT Uno. The Uno ofcourse was out of circulation in the market and was being a “White Elephant” in terms of reliability and expenses.  The Uno was a used car when we got her in 2001 and served us well for the 8 years she was with us. In the later years, she was high on maintenance and low on reliability – a disastrous combination. So we thought – ok lets plan for a new car.

Mom-dad - doing car-pooja on Jan 14 2009

On the wheels

So there began the research – over internet, talking to friends and relatives to gain feedback on the models they owned and that were of interest to us. Ultimately, it was a close tie between Zen Estilo, Chevy U-VA, Hyundai i10 and Maruti Swift. Zen Estilo and Chevy U-VA were stricken down due to un-popularity and the problems GM had. The buying decision now centered around low maintenance, high availability of service stations pan India and low cost of spares. In all these parameters the Hyundai i10 and Swift were close, and even though interiors of Hyundai i10 were better than Swift, we chose the Swift. Swift won hands down for the looks, low maintenance of Maruti cars, space and demonstrated performance. I have no regrets to this date. So far, it has been a smooth spin with her and I wish I had my arms around her steering as I type these words!

Top View of her

In the first 10 months that I had Swift, clocked close to 10k kms effortlessly. Thanks to the drive from CBD Belapur to Andheri Seepz each day – to my office. Me and my wife used the car almost 3-4 days a week and somedays the whole week and commute together, excitedly celebrating each rollover of the odometer to a 100,200….1000…1100…10,000 mark. The celebrations were by punching our fists jointly up in the air and shouting an excited “ye”! Kind of kiddish, but we enjoyed doing that. Remember those days, when we used to switch on the radio in the car and surf through various FM channels listening to loud music, silly jokes of the radio jockeys and laughing our ass out. The traffic jams looked effortless with such fun, comfort and high quality AC of the car.

I had a secret wish (one of the last ones in the list of long wishes!) to drive down to my marriage in my own car. This was kinda granted. Though I did not drive and we arranged a chauffer, still it was worthwhile to “Swift” down my way to the marriage hall to take wedding vows. Also remember the time me and my sis spent before marriage – literally spending all our time together in the car – shopping from one mall/ shop to another and inviting one set of relatives to the other. Lot of memories with the Swift.

Always enjoy discovering times with her

There has been no long drive except for the trip to Lonavla on Valentines day in 2009 and then my official trip to Pune in November 2010 . It was a pleasure ride all the way along.So its kinda remarkable that the with just the office trips and family rides the car clocked 10k kms in the traffic of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai within 10 months ! During these long drives, I barely realized that I was clocking more than the permissible speed limit by about 20-30% unless I saw the speedometer. 

Prior to the Swift, i have owned and spent my life driving the Fiat Uno, Toyota Corolla and couple of Nissan Ultima’s in India and US. I can say without any hesitation that the Swift is miles ahead. Maybe because we remember only the most recent things in our life or because the Swifty was a brand new car (all others were used cars), she will always have a special place in my heart.

Here's wishing you - my deary Swift, many long years of good service, low maintenance - after all you had the luxury of a good pooja from Mom, Dad and I when we took delivery two years back. Miss driving you here. Raring to drive you, once am back in India! Long live Swifty, we need to clock a lot of kms together!