An enjoyable drive on lovely, long winding tarmac roads in a pleasant part of India, with relatively sparse traffic, in an iconic trio of cars.
BHPian Shankar Balan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Prelude:
An Informal Gathering of Mini Cooper Owners.
The Germ of a Gem of an Idea – A Mini Cooper Drive:
Around 6-7 months ago some enthusiastic Owners came up with an idea for a Mini Cooper Drive, our own little private Mini Cooper Targa-Florio, if you will. Thoughts flew fast and furious, up and down, as to where and when. We narrowed the whole thing down to December 2023, which is roughly the holiday season and somewhere in Southern India, preferably with some nice “twisties” and enjoyable driving roads.
Purpose:
The prime motivation was just the enjoyment of being amongst nice people and the feeling of Man and Machine being one with each other, for the duration. The low growl, pops, bangs and crackles of our cars on their exhaust overruns, were what all of us most wanted to hear while roaring up and down the hills. And of course, to take lots of photographs.
There is a deep and visceral pleasure to be had, in the deep “Growl” of the engine and “Burble” of the Cooper’s exhaust, when bowling up and down a series of twisties and switchbacks/ hairpins, while sitting within the overall speed limits.
It is NOT, repeat NOT at all necessary, to Drive Fast and Furiously, to truly enjoy finely-engineered, well-tuned machines such as these. This is not to say that we don’t enjoy a bit of spirited driving too, which we did of course indulge in, but only when it was safe to do so.
For me, it was a long-time dream come true. An enjoyable drive on lovely, long winding tarmac roads in a pleasant part of India, with relatively sparse traffic, in an iconic trio of cars. It was a lot like making our little tribute as it were, in our own India, to so many evocative icons of Motoring; The various hill climbs, endurance drives, the Targa-Florio, the Mille-Miglia, Goodwood and of course one of the most iconic “Caper” movies of all time, the Italian Job. That has always been one of my favourite films. The old 1969 version with Michael Caine and Noel Coward and Raf Vallone and all. And of course the 2003 remake with Donald Sutherland and Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton and Charlize Theron and Jason Statham and all, which too was a very nice film. Can also take a cue from the lovely Disney film Cars, especially that long drive along the old winding Route 66, with Sally and Lightning McQueen.
And right on point, what better cars to do all of this in, than the diminutive and plucky little Gem of Graeco-British-American-Teutonic ancestry, the modern-day BMW Mini Coopers!
(Paying an Honest Tribute to Sir Alec Issigonis, the visionary designer-inventor-engineer, of the Oxford Mini Plant, Frank Stephenson the Designer of the New Mini, John Cooper and his legendary “Works’” for their wonderful tuning work through the ages and the good folks at BMW for having kept and nurtured this lovely iconic Marque and indeed taking it to greater and newer heights!)
Tenets:
The ground rules that we collectively established for our trip were very simple indeed.
- No more than 3 days in total
- Over a weekend preferably.
- A hill station.
- Not too far away and relatively untouched.
- Great driving roads.
- No racing, performance or endurance testing.
- Stay together in Convoy as much as possible.
The Destination:
The destination (for me anyway) was a no-brainer. Valparai, nestled at about 4000feet above mean sea level, in the clean, green hills of the Annamalai Hills, near Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu, with its delicious tarmac roads and 40 plus hairpin bend to enjoy, just simply leapt out of the Map and into my Head and luckily, my suggestion was met with a resoundingly positive response. Hence the thread title too…The Valparai Job, it was!
The Motor Cars and the Motorists;
There were originally supposed to be 8-9 Participants with their cars. In the actual event, we had several dropouts for various reasons. Finally, there were only 3 cars and 6 participants. Here they are. Spanning across 3 Generations.
(A HUGE THANK YOU to all of them for having made this Drive a most enjoyable and memorable one. Capt. Ajay! It was great to meet you in person after all these years of interacting on the Forum and owning and appreciating some of the same cars! Omer – Thank you for all the lovely photos. Vyshnav and Sravan thanks for your company. And Dad! Well, Thanks for being my Dad!)
Motor Car 1
Description, Colour and Year: Black Mini Cooper JCW (F56) with Red Roof (2022)
Engine and Gearbox: 2-litre Petrol BMW Twin Scroll Turbo engine with an 8-speed gearbox. (And some serious enhancements)
Tyres – Michelin Pilot Sports 4
Motorists A and B.
Motor Car 2.
Description, Colour and Year: Volcanic Orange Mini Cooper S (F56) with Black Roof (2016)
Engine and Gearbox: 2-litre Petrol BMW Twin Scroll Turbo engine with the 6-speed Aisin Warner gearbox. (And many other serious enhancements)
Tyres – Michelin Pilot Sports 4
Motorists C and D.
- Capt. Ajay ( ajaypjayaraj on team bhp)
- Omer Sharif (Ace Pro Photographer)
Motor Car 3
Description, Colour and Year: Chilli Red Mini Cooper S (R56) with Black Roof (2012)
Engine and Gearbox: 1.6-litre Petrol Peugeot-BMW PRINCE N18 engine with 6-speed Aisin Warner Torque Converter gearbox.
Tyres – Michelin Pilot Sports 4
Motorists E and F.
- Self
- My 80-year-old Dad a Navigator.
We were the oldest amongst the gang and were driving the oldest car amongst the gang too!
The Broad Plan.
- We did not really ‘plan’ this like an expedition. We kind of just ‘winged it’.
- Bangalore to Coimbatore on 15 Dec.
- Visit the Gedee Car Museum where Suresh the friendly GM and Curator was keen to welcome us. (I’ve been visiting off and on and am in regular correspondence with him. In the event of fact it was only me and my Dad who ended up going because the other two cars clocked in much later.)
- Check in to our Hotel – the Taj Vivanta where we got some very good prices from Booking.com.
- Coimbatore to Valparai via Pollachi, Aliyar, Attakatti and all on 16 Dec.
- Lunch and a bit of rest at the Stanmore Bungalows. (Again one of my good old friends and classmate from School, knows the present owners very well and had made arrangements there for a sumptuous lunch for us itinerant motorists!)
- After lunch, some photography and drove around Valparai.
- Back to Coimbatore by night.
- Coimbatore to Bangalore on 17 Dec.
Preparing the vehicles:
As I have written elsewhere on some other thread I had carried out a comprehensive servicing just a week or so ago, with all fluids changed and all before the trip. Also had installed brand new Brake Disc Rotors and Brake Pads and Wear Sensors from Brembo. Fuelled up the Car added its Green Kryptonite Jamba Juice and made it ready to make off!
The other two cars had a much later start since it was one of the Boys’ birthdays and they had been out with friends the previous evening. Anyway, Dad and I reached Coimbatore after an enjoyable drive and checked in. All the while we were exchanging messages with Ajay, who had hung back to “shepherd” the other car along. The Black Car went to its home in Palakkad to spend the night while Ajay checked in to the Hotel in Coimbatore. His friend Omer joined us in Coimbatore. He is an Ace Photographer whose work on Automobile Photography has appeared over the years in EVO Autocar and other magazines. A real talent. And because he is Ajay’s friend, and loves cars, he came along with us for the ride and gave us his photographs as a gift.
Dad and I visited the Gedee Car Museum which is now completely re-designed with a classy new facade and comprises a world-class collection of cars. And they have even opened a whole new section upstairs, on the Automobile in India! That is truly lovely. Some real classic gems are sitting there and thankfully they are carefully preserved and cared for. And of course, no visit to Coimbatore is complete without at least one meal each at Annalakshmi and Annapoorna, which my Dad and I enjoyed. (Saw some eye candy too, in the form of an Aston DBX)
The Heart and Soul of the Trip!
On the 16th, it was time to DRIVE!
That was a nice quick drive on good roads which were pretty empty (surprising because it was a Saturday after all).
We stopped at Pollachi to rendezvous with the Black Car and then we were all together, ready to roar up the hills and enjoy the trip.
As can be seen, we took plenty of rest and photo stops. Reaching Valparai at about 1230 we took some more time to take photos and then made our way to Injiparai Bungalow – Stanmore Gardens for our lunch and more photos. The Stanmore Staff deserve a special mention here – Abhishek the Manager, Ramakrishnan the Chef and Prabhu the Catering Supervisor. They looked after us very well. And they loved it when Dad talked to them about his days in Valparai.
My 80-year-old Dad is a retired Tea Planter who spent his entire career from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and 90’s to the year 2000, planting Tea, Coffee, Cardamom and Pepper and managing various Company Estates, in various Plantation districts around Southern India. Munnar, Valparai, Nilgiris, Coorg, Chikmagalur and all. A good portion of the 1970’s and 1980s were spent in Valparai and even my own earliest memories are of Valparai since I arrived on the scene when the folks were based there. So there are a lot of old nostalgic memories involved here as well. Indeed, we visited the Old Valparai/ Varattuparai Bungalow, in which they lived, when I appeared for the first time in the early 1970s. And that Bungalow has a circular driveway all around it. Even the Garage and its Green Gate have remained the same. Dad used to park his Battleship Grey Fiat 1100D there and his Black Royal Enfield Bullet too. I remember all that quite clearly. The parents had gifted me a little Red Pedal + Electric Car which came from India’s Hobby Centre or Paragon Toys in Calcutta (a British Import), when we were in that Bungalow and I vividly remember careening around and around the driveway, pedalling furiously, at what seemed to me at the time, to be a rather high speed, in that little red car. It had lovely rubber white wall tyres and working headlamps and a little “paarp paarp” horn like Noddy’s car. I LOVED it and cared for it until I outgrew it. My lifelong love for all things related to Automobilia must have been born right then.
An uneventful drive back, a brief stop at Pollachi to bid goodbye to our friends from Palakkad in their Black Cooper and the rest of us in our Orange and Red Cars drove back to Coimbatore to rest before going our separate ways the next morning.
The EndGame.
December 17th, Dad and I left for Bangalore and there was sparse traffic which was pretty disciplined so we made good time back to Bangalore. Later, exchanging messages and photos with the others, I decided that I would pen down this experience, as one of those records of “Life’s Happy Memories.”
Farewell, but Not Goodbye.
I have received several Photos of our trip from Ajay – all taken by Omer. And while I am certainly no “Cartier-Bresson”, I have added some of my own too. I shall also invite Ajay to add his contribution and comments as well to this thread.
I have tried to curate the small stack of Photos topically: Hope you Enjoy them and Thank you for reading this.
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