<%@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 22 Shimla – New Delhi

Last night in Shimla was chilly, the heaters in our rooms struggled to keep us warm. But we had to start early the next day as we had to make it to Delhi in time for the press conference at 2.30pm.

At 5.30am, the sun rose up from the hills and it was a beautiful sight. We finally set out at 7.00am from our hotel in Kufri hills. Today was a mad dash to the capital so we were going to drive with the pedal firmly placed in the metal.

It was mostly downhill for the first 80kms and it was nice to hear the tyre squeal after so long. Third and fourth gears saw plenty of action in this leg and I think we saw more tyre wear in these 400kms than we had seen in the entire trip.

Once we passed Panchkula, the road had become flat and the mountain chill in the air had disappeared. We sped on towards the Chandigarh bypass. It was easy to maintain three digit speeds almost all the way.

This helped us and we entered Delhi at 1.00pm. But getting to Harpreet Ford at Gurgaon turned out to be a challenge. While our GPS showed one way, all the rickshaw drivers told us to go the other. In this confusion, we missed out on some very important turn-offs. Finally we reached the IGI airport and our destination was in sight. We finally pulled into the parking lot 3.00pm.

On tanking up, the figures were expectedly lower than usual.
The lead Ikon delivered 16.84kpl and the second Ikon returned 17.27kpl. But these were expected since the cars were not spared in this run.