Our friend and lens man Nitin Gupta recently spent a few days behind the wheel of a Tata Aria for the Tata Motors Full Throttle Konkan Experience. Here is a summary of all the fun the lucky guy had during the drive-
Day 1: The event was flagged off at Panvel on October 5. Soon after leaving Panvel, the cars hit a traffic jam and had to take a detour which involved about 10 kms of ‘soft roading.’ The vehicles stopped for lunch at the end of Kohlapur. Thereafter, the drive was smooth and the convoy re-entered the ghat section, where the handling prowess of Aria was put to test.
The participants then reached Goa and were greeted by heavy thundershowers. All the cars reached Panaji with the sun setting in the backdrop.
Day 2: The Second day was a stay in Goa and the participants spent the day relaxing at the picturesque beaches and sampling the local cuisine that the tourist hot-spot is famous for. The second day of the Konkan Experience was basically a day to rest after the hours of driving on Day 1.
Day 3: The participants started for Mangalore on the third day. While the destination was only about 200kms from the participants, the roads to Mangalore could be best described as horrible. However, this again gave a good opportunity to sample the ride quality of the Tata flagship. Luckily for everyone’s spines, the Aria handled the craters and humps with quite an aplomb and the participants soldiered on in reasonable comfort. The convoy of Tata cars reached Mangalore around 10:00PM.
Day 4: The agenda for the 4th day was to reach Coorg, a good 400kms drive consisting of poor traffic and poorer roads. The speed junkies did have some fun as the cars traversed a part of Manglore-Bangaluru highway. The plantation trails started around 20kms before Coorg and the drivers decided to give the cars a rest and have a walk in the coffee plantations.
Soon after reaching the hotel, the participants had a bonfire session and had dinner before hitting their beds.
Day 5: The drive to Jogfalls was some 360kms long. The participants grabbed a bite at Hassan and the day was marked with plenty of rainfall and the usual bad roads.
Day 6: The cars left Jogfalls at 6 in the morning and took the same route back to Goa.
Nitin says that the the Konkan Experience has to be one of the most fun-filled car trips of his career and the Aria crossover turned out to be a good companion during the drive. The Aria surely has some serious mile munching ability and is high on comfort and reliability.