Ten years have gone by since Volume 1, Issue 1, of Car India appeared on the news stands. What could be a more fitting tribute to our achievements than yet another achievement — the biggest of them all? That is the story of how we clocked 10,000 kilometres in just 10 days in the Mercedes-Benz CLA 200CDI
Story and Driving: Team Car India
Achievement: A thing done successfully with effort, skill or courage
— The Oxford Dictionary
Would you say that a 1,000-km drive is an achievement? Probably. It requires stamina, determination and definitely effort and courage. And if you were to attempt it on our very own Indian roads, then it is probably a bigger achievement, given our varied road conditions and even more mercurial nature of the road-users. But to imagine doing a daily average of 1,000 km for 10 consecutive days? Some would say the very idea is ludicrous. It’s certainly not free of risks, not on Indian roads. Yet equally undeniable is the fact that the dream of clocking 10,000 kilometres —mileage that people put on their cars mostly over a year of ownership — in the span of just 10 days is the mother of all challenges.
At Car India, we completed 10 years of existence in August, this year. This, to say the least, is a significant milestone for India’s only magazine dedicated solely to passenger cars, and, of course, the team that works hard to put out issue after issue, month after month. A worthy celebration was, therefore, necessary for our 10th anniversary issue. Needless to say, being the adventurer each of us is, we chose to undertake the mother of all challenges and conduct a 10,000-km run around the country and complete it in 10 days!
The team that made this epic journey possible
In spite of the team’s enthusiasm (which threatened to infect even the most hard-core pragmatists among us) over being given a shot at this phenomenal challenge, things were easier said than done. To begin with, the route had to be mapped meticulously, taking into account the most recent reports of road conditions, weather forecasts and so on. Then there was the task of choosing the team, probably a bigger challenge given the fact that pretty much the entire team volunteered. So it was decided that there would be a change of drivers at around the mid-way point so that no member of the team was left out as also to ensure a fresh supply of drivers.
The choice of vehicle was another major consideration. Mercedes-Benz rose gracefully to the occasion and provided us with their most recent product, a top-of-the-line CLA 200CDI, in which to attempt this incredible feat.
On the chosen date the team was flagged off from the Mercedes factory at Chakan by none other than Herr Eberhard Kern, MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India. And in a cloud of dry summer dust we left on what was undoubtedly the biggest challenge undertaken by any Indian automotive magazine. In hindsight, a lot of the thanks for achieving this go to the Car India editorial team that physically clocked those kilometres and completed the challenge in the stipulated time, and to the Car India marketing team for organising the resources required to pull this off and, of course, to Mercedes-Benz India for providing us with the vehicle.
