<%@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 15 Jaipur - Bikaner

Today we continued our journey from Jaipur to Bikaner. It was an unknown road to us and frankly we didn’t expect it to be a smooth ride. So after the press conference at Ford’s dealership in Jaipur (K S Ford) we left for Bikaner at about 2:30pm. Before leaving we asked some of the locals about the route and the road condition and to our surprise, they said that the roads will be good but you have to be careful of the wild animals.

So we started towards Bikaner on highway NH 11 with a bit of traffic to start with. As we drove away from Jaipur the traffic lightened and we were able to maintain a constant speed with ease. Road till Bikaner is a two laner, but wide enough to fit three cars and because of the sparse traffic overtaking was just a breeze. Visibility is also superb as most of the roads sections are dead straight for kilometres. The road is well paved and we don’t remember even a single pothole on our way.

The scenery on the way is breathtaking. With desert on both sides we never got tired of driving on this road. The 333km drive from Jaipur to Bikaner took us about eight hours which included stop for a bite and lot of photos because of the beautiful scenery. Like the last leg, we wanted to test the car’s fuel efficiency with AC and without. So we ran one of our cars with AC and another without and the difference in economy wasn’t as bad as we expected. The Ikon with AC delivered 25.04kpl and without AC it gave an impressive 29.21kpl. These impressive figures were also because of the superb road conditions and sparse traffic. But like we’ve said before, a little patience and the ability to read the traffic can go a long way as far as fuel efficiency is concerned.