<%@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.
 
Home Gallery   
Day 9 Hyderabad – Pune

Today’s journey was going to be a long one. So as usual we made a resolve to leave early. But having a press conference and doing 600kms in one day generally don’t go together. So we finally left at 3.40pm. We were going to take NH9 which though not a four lane is still a fast road thanks to generous width. Overtaking is a breeze even with moderate truck traffic. The smooth surface also means you can easily maintain decent speeds throughout your journey.

Progress was good, but we were still running very late and expected to make it to Pune only around 2.30am. We sighted Solapur at 10pm and found a decent place for dinner. Dinner took unusually long and we finally hit the road again only around midnight. Knowing we weren’t going to make it in time, we decided to pick up the pace a little. But all this was shortlived. All the drivers were now fighting sleep and red bull was flowing freely to keep us on track.

Around 4am, we finally hit the outskirts of Pune and we couldn’t be happier. We headed straight to a fuel station and tanked up the cars. We were particularly anxious about the figures of this leg as we had run faster than usual with a lot of downshifting and also on this particular leg, we had the aircon running throughout on the second Ikon. So after the fill up, the lead Ikon returned 24.57kpl while the second Ikon with full time AC returned 22.69kpl. Our support Fiesta managed an improved 15.04kpl.