The Bavarian Beckoning

Count my abs!

Men have been making fires, sharpening spears and tightening bowstrings since the Stone Age. When they went hunting it must have got their adrenaline racing, their heightened senses poised to detect the presence of the most surreptitious prey. While the joy of having conquered all barriers in having made the kill must have reigned supreme, the thought of the subsequent lip-smacking food would surely have been a powerful motivator. Life was simple then, and living was not really an art. You needed to have incredible sword-fighting and spear-throwing skills along with great abs. And if you also managed to kill the big bad neighborhood wolf, there was the added incentive that you would be crowned king.

It is trying to take off !

Present day man lives in the petrol age. An age where making fires at random places is frowned upon, for a reduced carbon footprint defines your social acceptance and brandishing spears and bow-arrows would certainly entail a dire predicament. Modern-day men have very less avenues to experience the thrill of the adventure that they seek. And out of this long-standing zest for unbridled excitement was born a ravenous hunger for fast cars. Men finally found a way to release their pent up energy. While the more gifted of men were able to seek fulfillment by guiding surface-to-surface missiles on the racetrack, the lesser ones had nothing much to do than gaze in rapt admiration, but mostly envy. And thus came to be the Ferraris, the Porsches, the Jaguars, the Aston Martins, the Lamborghinis and the daddies of them all, the Nissan GTR and the Bugatti Veyron.

Lamborghini Aventador Jota. Batman can get this painted in black.

However as every juicy apple does not fall in the hands of the eager seeker, these sizzling machines were again accessible only to a breed of rich men who were willing to spend a fortune. But the car-gods had an answer to the fervent prayers of the (relatively) lesser man in the form of the Audis, the BMWs and more recently the Volvos.

While the luxury car market and per-capita incomes have evolved considerably in India, to the extent where premium hatchbacks and entry-level sedans are actually being considered by most buyers, as opposed to the Maruti-mania that had gripped the country for ages; the performance car market has not yet caught on. While this has a lot to do with the fact that most of these cars are shipped pre-assembled (the industry jargon being CBUs - Completely Built Units), and that the absence of competition ensures that the prices remain sky-high; it is primarily also because our import regulations and duties are ridiculous at best. This results in an extremely unfair market wherein car-makers who make great stuff have to set extremely high price points for their line-up whereas established car-makers manage to sell their not-so-great cars at a very cheap price. And in the end we have to drive some of the most mediocre cars ever built and sold, just because we cannot afford the truly great ones.

I ventured to do a case-study on this great divide by picking one dream-car which was relatively not-so-expensive and evaluating it’s features. The objective was to discover exactly what it was that I would be missing out on were I to (hypothetically) purchase a BMW or an Audi that was on offer in our country as opposed to a Maruti, Hyundai, Nissan, Honda, Tata, Ford, Chevrolet (General Motors), Toyota, Skoda/Volkswagon (VW Group). BMW and Audi (also a part of the VW Group) are presently the only brands that actually build some models of their line-up in India while they import the rest. BMW has a plant in Chennai, Tamilnadu while Audi has one in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. All other '10-second' car-makers of the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar and Ferrari offer only imported pre-assembled units, the prices of which are beyond the realm of imagination.

I love BMWs. While Audi raves and rants about the beauty of their cars, BMW has only one mantra; the joy of driving. It is in the hands of the driver that a BMW is truly complete, and I have been captivated by this philosophy. And amongst all the great cars that they have built, the one that I truly love is the BMW X1; the most buyable BMW in India. Or is it?

I walked into Bavaria Motors one evening, a BMW showroom near MG Road, with a sense of royal entitlement. I had the presence of mind to commit to trousers for this adventure, as opposed to the shorts that are my apparel of choice. Both measures not only prevented me from being kicked out within the first two minutes, but one of them also protected me from the severely cold air-conditioning. A BMW showroom can be extremely intimidating, not because of the ambience or the sheer monstrosity of the place itself, but because of the jaw-dropping machines that greet you the moment you step inside. I walked in to find a 6-series convertible plopped right in front of the door. I felt the blood vanishing from my arteries but I mustered enough courage to continue the journey to the sales counter to ask for the brochure and price-chart of the BMW X1. Had I let my eyes stray to any of the cars before I got to the chair at the table, I am certain that I would have unabashedly knelt down before one in reverence. The sales consultant proved to be extremely polite and treated me with more-than-deserved courtesy in explaining the various financing options that were available for the car. After having confessed that it would be a miracle if I were to buy the car in even a couple of decades from then, I proceeded to get a feel of the car.

Joy is what you make of it.

A BMW X1 is not just a car. It is one of the most breathtaking machines ever made. Every inch of the machine is finely crafted. It falls into the category of a crossover, not exactly an SUV but not really a sedan either. And the most beautiful part of the car is it’s expansive bonnet. The arched aerodynamic lines that start from the left and right wings flow gracefully to meet the traditional BMW front grill. If Da Vinci had seen the X1, he would have painted the X1’s smiling front grill instead of the Mona Lisa.

Joy always travels in style.

Opening the door to the driver’s cabin felt like opening the door to a top-quality safe, strong and yet light to the touch. The driver's seat was electronically adjustable and I played around with the settings to get it right. I then looked around and drank in the view. It felt like I was sitting in the cockpit of an aircraft, but only less confusing. The beautifully arranged center console was eye-catching with the speedometer calling it a day at 160 mph. The switch for the ‘sports’ mode was lit up in a bright white back-light which reminded me that this baby could go from 0 - 100 kph in 10.4 seconds. Everything in the interior was built with the finest materials you can lay your eyes on in a car. The seats were soft, yet not couch-soft and the center console was mated with wooden finishing. The infotainment console was bright and huge. The front Xenon head-lamps were incredible with automatic head-lamp leveling as a standard feature. I had sat in the driver’s seat of a Rolls Royce Phantom and it was nowhere close to the feeling that I had in the BMW. It was simply majestic.

The price of the basic variant of the car is 28.66 lacs. BMW has a finance option with which you can buy the car with an EMI of 16K if you do a down-payment of 15 lacs. Which means that one can buy this car if one goes car-less for the next 25 years and manages to save 15 lacs. The cost of the same model in the US is $30,000. Miracles are known to happen and if this car were to be sold in India at the US price someday, even a decade later, it will decimate established car-makers.

Patience is said to be a virtue and in the case of the BMW X1, the pot of gold is already there at the end of the rainbow..