Southern Bluster

Oooh! Is the Indian automotive market finally coming of age? How'd that happen? image credit: autos.ndtv.com | The 2017 Suzuki Dzire I only had to take one look at the 2017 Suzuki Swift Dzire to realise that something had changed in the Indian automotive market. On the one hand,  manufacturers are becoming more conscious of design beyond functionality. Intangibles such as aesthetics and street presence are increasingly coming into play. It may be that research has led them to believe that their customers are becoming more and more design conscious. You know what I think? I think that for both the Indian consumer and the manufacturer, the definition of value has changed. And that’s a good thing: A very, very good thing.  It all started with Tata, mind you. When they took the ageing and slow-selling Aria and updated it into the brilliant Hexa , when they updated the Indica V2 and launched the Zest and Bolt , Tata showed the Indian market something no Indian manufacturer

Time To Read: 5-7 minutes Image Credit: RoadRunner.Travel Back in the day, long rides were not for the faint of heart. The only bikes available then were thrummy 100ccs and the occasional 150. Of course, there were Royal Enfields, but the old girls were notoriously unreliable, and very harsh beyond 65 kilo-meters per hour. Not just that, the clutch became harder on the damned things as the hours went by in continuous riding. It wasn’t really a choice. In theory at least, the great thing about cubic capacity is that the more you have, the more relaxed the engine is. By that logic, bigger bikes can not only reach and maintain higher cruising speeds, they can do it more easily and are therefore better suited to cover large distances. But how much cubic capacity do you need? Your Bike’s Power Band Explained Things get a bit technical here, but for all practical purposes the usable power of a bike or car is in what is called the power band. This is usually from a certain RP