About the machinery which accompanied us
The Audi A6 and the Q5
The German gentlemen we are talking about here are the Audi A6 and the Audi Q5 with a 3.0L TDI engine under their hoods. The motor produces an identical 241 bhp in both the cars, while torque figures are on the higher side for the taller Audi at 580 Nm, 80 more than the A6. Both the cars had the capability to push the occupants back in their seats, if things got too patriotic in the cabin. When the traffic eased out on the Mumbai-Pune expressway, the cars kept leaping like they were shot out of a canon, but the occupants never could tell the actual speed, unless someone noticed the smile on the drivers face and glanced at the speedometer. Both the Germans cornered as if on rails and the ‘Quattro’ system made us feel the tyres were glued to the tarmac. It was surprisingly the A6 though, which was the car to be seated in, even on broken roads, where the air-suspension simply flattened everything that came in its way. However, the machine of choice to drive on those roads had to be the Q5.
The A6 and the Q5 both came with sun roofs, the one on the Q5 though was large enough to open a planetarium inside the car. Quad-zone air-conditioning ensured we were all supremely comfortable in our own individual atmospheres. The LED headlights on the A6 were at the centre of all attention, wherever the car went, whereas for the Q5, the fact that it was an Audi and an SUV, was enough for people to put their thumbs up. Both the cars came equipped with driving modes, which changed the character of the cars completely, from being a gentleman’s express to a gentleman’s racer.
As we were making our way back into the city, the subtle ambient lighting in the cabin, the crisp sounding Bose audio system and the supremely comfortable leather seats made us sit back and appreciate the serenity and the calm of the night through the transparent roof. By the end of the journey, all of us agreed in unison, to conclude that the cars were indeed catalysts in heightening our feeling of Independence that day.
The Kawasaki Z 1000
If we at Motoroids were asked to find the alien predator hiding in the Amazon jungle, this is the machine we would take with us, to make the alien feel at home and not start shooting at us. The Kawasaki Z1000 doesn’t look like it has been designed by a human; computers aren’t as advanced to design such stuff either. This outlandish and outstanding motorcycle turned so many heads; people made us stop and clicked pictures of the bike. We aren’t making this up, but a driver of an SUV got so distracted clicking the motorcycle, the car ended up in a ditch, while it was doing 5 kmph inching forward in traffic.
The Z 1000 puts down all of its 140 bhp on the tarmac, without any electronic aids cutting in, it doesn’t have them, doesn’t need them. As we dumped the clutch to leave the traffic behind, the growl from the exhaust made some of the folks search the sky for an unidentified object. The upright stance and the refined engine meant the Martian could keep up with the Germans quite comfortably. People expected to see a hairy chested, heavily built, known face to be behind the handlebar, but they were rather surprised to see one of our jovial colleagues when the helmet came off. The motorcycle looks intimidating and sounds like a ‘Cumulonimbus’ bursting all at once, but the way it puts the power down, has to be experienced to be believed.
We’d like to thank Audi and Kawasaki India with all our hearts for making this Independence day special and memorable for all of us and all those who were overawed just witnessing three examples of exemplary engineering pass them by.