This review is not meant to praise or insult any of these cars, ’’Perfection’’ is too heavy a word to use for the kind of cars we are speaking here. I will restrict myselves to comparing my Opel to the cars that I own, I’ve owned, I’ve driven or raced with.
A) To-Do and Not-To-Do List:
1) Stop comparing Sail with with Zen’s and Santro’s: Common sense says they are not in the same category. All things that run on two wheels are not motorbikes.
2) Plaster the mouth’s of people who call it a flop: GM service is as good an experience as with any other car maker. Realise that issues are there with every car, only difference being some people have time to speak about it and others don’t.
I remember this guy who used to tell me that his ’’______’’ car gave him 28Kmpl. He later told me that it was not true but he surely enjoyed elevating the image of his Supercar. All that is spoken is not true and yeah, Keanu Reeves dates Malayali heroines only in gossip magazines.
3) Stop comparing Corsa’s with Esteem’s: Esteem is as good as light weight tin, even a kid on a bicycle can scare you. Don’t trust me? Ask any Esteem owner how many times he has got his fenders dented. You can ask me too, since I had an esteem earlier. Same thing goes about the Zen too, I have one too.
The good thing about these Japanese cars is you get a lot of mileage for little fuel, but you end up spending double that amount on denting and painting. To avoid that, you either got to drive your car in no-man’s land or keep it in the garage forever boasting to others about its fuel efficiency. Come on Maruti, can’t you make stronger cars?
I don’t have anything to say about Hyundai because I never owned one and never felt like driving one. Koreans started making cars too? When did that happen?
B) Lets get this straight:
1) Rock Solid: Unlike the above mentioned tin-stuff, this one is just as good as any block of granite. You can scare auto’s, chase them, nudge them and even bulldoze them out of the road if your anger is out-of-control, particularly helpful if yo are in Hyderabad with so many maniac auto drivers around, surely an Opel is as good as an Amby but in a metallic shade disguise.
Its got the thickest guage of metal and glass on an Indian car, WOW, surely all that sums to its amazing weight of 1000+Kgs, but, again, as I told you, its more like Rugby rather than Chess in our traffic and Rugby players are well built and consume more food.
2) Potholes: Forget them, Opel has the best suspension settings, this one was originally designed for the no-roads of South America, so, should feel like riding on double cream here.
3) Weight: There is a certain degree of satisfaction in getting more metal for every rupee spent, don’t you think so, well, surely when you scrap it in 2030 it will fetch you more. You feel safe when put inside that guage of metal, that guage of metal adds to weight, now that you have a very heavy car you need more power to propel it, now that you have made a cannon ball you need big brakes to stop it, bigger servos, bigger motors, bigger fans, bigger tires, bigger radiators, bigger fuel tank, bigger..... Surely, there must be some relation between weight and safety, why does a Merc weigh close to 2000Kgs? Carbon fibre and Aircraft aluminium are the light weight options that are pocket heavy, surely you can hire a helicopter and airlift your car for an year’s length to your destinations with that kind of money.
4) Power: 88Bhp is sufficient enough to impress some girls, how many have used all the 88 horses and how many times, I do that a lot, of course, only when my pocket is full and there is a petrol bunk close by. Its not a free revving engine, but once in the gear, push the needle all the way to 6000RPM and you will know what fun means. 2nd gear at that rpm will be good enough for a close 100Kmph. I have clocked 170Kmph on the Mumbai-Pune express and it was very comfortable and lizard like sure footed at that speed, although it drunk like a dinosaur averaging 6Kmpl.
But that wasen’t much fun either, I was surely missing Hyderabadi auto’s on the express, sometimes you never know what fun is unless you have friends to meet and enemies to beat. Back to the battle field then.
There was this guy who told me that you can beat any vehicle with a Luna as long as you know where to shout the challenge. Same goes about the Corsa too, when you find a Ford in the rear view mirror, step down on the gas, wait for him to overtake, silently peep at the badge on the rear of the ford,if it says 1.6xxx, showoff like you are not interested in racing and console yourselves by saying that you are less by 200cc, but if it shows 1.3xxx, floor the accelerator, kill him and eat him before he is completely dead.
5) Milage: It gives a good 11 in the city with Ac on, 15 on highways for normal driving. If you are cautious it can give you 14 and 20. Now how to be cautious? Have you ever played with the program on the ECU? Don’t worry, you need not be a hacker. The trick is to keep it in the best gear with the rpm needle just above the 1000. Try this---Get into gear and keep the vehicle on the move, then step off the accelerator, you will find your corsa doing the same speed forever. This is because the electronics does not let the engine to die out and it keeps kicking little fuel as soon as it senses that. The speeds are 1st-15, 2nd-25, 3rd-30, 4th-35, 5th-38. The good thing would be to keep it just above that rpm so that your electronics don’t over work, heard they are quite expensive.
But who the hell wants to go 40 when you got 88Bhp on tap, rev it up to 6000Rpm in each gear and it will return you 6Kmpl, in city and on highways. The good thing is you will never find smoke come out of the tail pipe, God knows where all the unburnt fuel goes.
6) AC and the inside: Ac is very good, it does not chill that fast as it sounds. On the turbo mode it sounds like a jet fighter flying inches above you. The good thing would be to distribute it to all vents when in that mode. Careful if you are not wearing shoes, because it will chill your feet to an extent that you cannot brake, anyways, always remember ’’There is a Hand-Brake too’’.
Plastics are very good and steering is a lot big, exchange that with a Ashok-Leyland lorry and you won’t regret. Interior space is good as long as your wife is not tall, else there is the 60/40 split seats so that you can dump half of her into the boot. Put foam seat covers in the car if you travel a lot by bus, once they are in you are out anyway.
So, thats all friends, after a long time I felt like writing about something, although long I hope you found it interesting and useful to read, and more than everything ’’Entertaining’’. I have been thinking and typing for two straight hours. My hands are paining and I cannot drive now. Think I will stop this one and go to a movie in a Hyderabadi Auto.
