<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Autocar India Ford Drive 2009
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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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Silliguri - Gangtok

Today’s journey was quite exciting as we were returning to the hilly region after north India. It was raining very heavily in Silliguri as we started off. Todays journey was a short one. So we expected to reach Gangtok early and rest for the remaining day. But the day turned out to be a bit of a nightmare instead. Things started off well. The road was full of blind turns and uphill for most part of it. We were only about 50 km away from Gangtok then disaster struck. There was a huge landslide on the road and according to the locals it would atleast take 5-6 hours to clear it. They were absolutely right. We were stranded at the landslide area for 5 hours. Finally after the landslide was cleared we reached Gangtok. Which should have been a 3hour drive took us 10hours. But in the end the drive upto Gangtok was incredible. We were happy to be back in the mountains. Considering the road was narrow and uphill most of the time, we did not expect the cars to be as efficient as they turned out to be after the filling at the Gangtok pump, the first Ikon delivered 25.04kpl and the second Ikon which was running with the a/c on managed 23.83kpl.