<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Autocar India Ford Drive 2009
www.india.ford.com                                
Ford India and Autocar India are on an epic 20,000km drive across the country. The 'Ikon Cross Country Drive' will pass through 26 state capitals and three union territories of India and will take a total of 46 days to cover the entire distance.

The drive was flagged off from Ford’s manufacturing facility in Chennai on 22nd April 2009. A Ford Ikon with the new 1.4-litre DuraTorq, common-rail TDCi engine under its hood, is the chosen vehicle for this pan-India drive. The car is a standard Ikon diesel, without any modifications what-so-ever. The car will be undergoing service checks at stopovers at Ford's widespread authorized service centres en-route the 20000km run.
The journey will test both man and machine as it traverses through varied and extreme conditions. From the sapping heat of Rajasthan to the numbing chill of the Himalayas; from rutted mountain trails to smooth expressways; from the gridlock of Hosur Road to the runway-like Rajpath; the drive will encounter the complete tapestry of climatic, geographical and road conditions.
The car is manned by a two person crew from Autocar India who are rotated every six days. KPMG have been appointed as independent auditors to validate the proceedings and the end result of the drive program.

The team will monitor and log every parameter of the car’s performance including fuel consumption, tyre wear, and consumables like engine oil, brake fluid etc to establish its true-world fuel efficiency and cost of ownership after 20,000km.
The drive will end on 6th June 2009 at the Ford India's manufacturing plant in Chennai.
 
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Day 13 Gandhinagar - Udaipur

Today there was a press conference at one of the Ford dealerships in Ahmedabad. So no matter what we tried, we couldn’t leave on time. We finally left the dealership at 7.00pm almost half a day behind schedule. But we knew we were taking the fabulous GQ (Golden Quadrilateral), so it was okay even if we left late.

Udaipur is about 300kms from Gandhinagar and you can easily get there in 3 hours if you want to. The GQ in this part of the country follows the NH8. Once you get out of Ahmedabad at the airport circle, you have to drive some distance on a two lane stretch up till Himmatnagar after which it opens up to wide four laner.

All though the four-laner is fast but you have to watch out for villagers and traffic coming the wrong way. And at night you have to be doubly careful. Our progress was good and we were already closing in on Udaipur at around 10pm.

We hit Udaipur at 11pm and went straight to the pump. But we didn’t expect too much as we had driven a fair bit inside Gandhinagar and also the drive to Udaipur was done hastily. On tanking up, the lead Ikon returned 24.63kpl and the second Ikon managed a marginally lower 23.56kpl. The next sector destination is the pink city – Jaipur which should also be a good drive.