The Drive Route

Abhishek Nigam      3 Nov 2009

1400 km to traverse, 4 Fiat Multijet equipped cars to be piloted and your very own colleagues for company. Sounds like a whole lot of fun doesn't it? Well it sure was.

Spoilt for choice we were already having a spat about who would drive what, but our arguments were quickly laid to rest by our bossman. After an exhaustive plant visit, press conference and lunch we were finally flagged off Fiat's Ranjangaon plant near Pune. By the time we kicked off our drive it was already five in the evening and thanks to our enthusiastic camera crew who wanted to capture every km of the drive, progress was pretty slow. Our first destination was Chiplun and that meant we would have to pass Pune in rush hour traffic. And beginning a long journey with traffic wasn't exactly what we were looking forward to. However all was well once we hit the NH4 via Katraj. The roads were pretty good and the Punto's brilliant headlights literally turned night into day. A million toll-booth's later we finally hit NH17. Excellent tarmac coupled with even better twisties. Nobody held back and some pretty hard pedal to metal driving followed. We finally hit Chiplun at around 2:30 am with the odo hovering around the 300 km mark.

It was an early start the next day and we barely managed to catch forty winks. Destination next was Panaji, Goa. With beaches firmly in our sights and not to mention our favorite snaky NH17 being the route all throughout we were literally itching to get into our cars. The roads were simply brilliant and we must have laid every ounce of rubber on those corners. A nice long lunch just before Sawantwadi meant getting some yummy fish curry in our long starved tummies. We finally hit Goa and after a press conference we finally got into the ultra luxurious Vivanta by Taj. That was an end to a brilliant 350 km drive.

After a good nights rest we were finally off to our last and final leg to Bangalore. While we knew it was going to be a long journey, nothing really prepared us for what lay in front of us. The roads for the initial part was brilliant but once near Hubli, it just kept deteriorating further and further. And to make things worse we were hit by heavy showers which made visibility a big pain. We finally passed Chitradurga and entered Bangalore. By the time we reached our Hotel it was 4:30 am. It was marathon 700 km, nineteen hour drive hit by rains, bad roads and very poor visibility. But it was also the most challenging and satisfying run, especially since I was driving the Fiat 500 and had to babyfoot it over the rough stuff which made quick progress even more difficult. The last leg was the perfect route to end Fiats Multijet drive for the Zigwheels bunch and we certainly look forward to a lot more.