BHPian Mystic recently shared this with other enthusiasts:Throwback To My College Days With A Bajaj ChetakIn my case, I don’t have an experience of buying a car from a show room in India. In early 80s, My father sent me back to India from Nigeria to study engineering. He bought a Bajaj Chetak scooter for me as a gift for getting an engineering seat on merit in a Govt college. This particular scooter had a waiting list of decades if booked in INR. My father booked it in British pounds and I took delivery of it in 6 month waiting time. I still remember going to the Andhra University college of engineering everyday on the scooter. It used to draw a lot of attention as I had modified the scooter with working indicator lights and stickers all over the scooter and removed the stepney to make it look cool. The pickup was so good because of direct drive and the front tyre used to jump in air if clutch is released quickly like a horse. No wonder it was named Chetak (name of great King Prithviraj’s stallion).Those were the days of no Japanese bikes in India yet.My Experience With Various Cars In NigeriaWhen it comes to cars, I can vividly remember experience of early 70s in Nigeria (my father was sent on deputation by Indian Govt to Nigerian Govt to build their roads infrastructure as both countries were common wealth countries). One Naira was around 2 USD. It was a wealthy OPEC country with all car models in the world for sale. My father had multiple Government cars with drivers at his disposal including a Mercedes but he is very principled that he never used a Government car for personal use. Hence the need to buy a personal car which can be driven by my mom also. We are a family of 4 children and I am the only son. All are petrolheads at such young age. We used to bet on identifying the car model by looking at the tail lights. I used to fail in the game to my elder sister. She is around 70 years now and still drives BMW in Hyderabad. We went to dozens of showrooms for test drives with all family sitting in the car and my father driving. This ritual goes on for a lot of weekends as my father was busy on working days as he is government employee. Also there are too many budding petrolheads in the family that to come to a consensus was difficult. Finally we bought a Plymouth Avenger, a British car and not an American car. Unfortunately we met with an accident with all 6 members in the car after a few days of delivery when going in a long drive to celebrate Indian Republic Day celebrations where my 2 elder sisters had a Bharatanatyam dance performance. All the family were in the car. Luckily we all came out without a scratch from the windscreen and the car was totalled by insurance. We bought another car Morris Marina, another British car but this was a station wagon as we felt a sedan was small for 4 children to sit in backseat. We really were exited that we will again go to all showrooms to see cars inspite of the accident that just happened. We pushed our father to take us to Volvo and Mercedes showrooms also even though it was out of our budget. I remember talking to my father to buy a safe car like Volvo as we met with an accident. He laughed that I had no idea of how much it costs.Car Buying As An AdultBelow are the pictures of those good old days of buying cars. As an adult I bought Scorpio VLX, Crysta Z and Jimny alpha. These modern days, nobody is interested to go to show rooms to take delivery. All 3 cars were delivered at home and the handing of the keys and photo session happened at home. For Jimny, nobody was at home in Visakhapatnam as I was in Bangalore. My friend took the car keys when it was delivered at home by Jayabheri NEXA. I did all payments from Bangalore online without ever seeing Jimny (I was planning to relocate to Visakhapatnam in one month from Bangalore and want a car as I land in the city with number plates. In AP, it takes more than a month for number plates for whatever reasons). For Crysta Z, I booked on line for a dark maroon colour on Toyota portal. I got a call from Ravindu Bangalore and asked me if I want a super white colour ready for delivery on that day itself and the dark maroon colour may take at least 3 months. I grabbed the opportunity and said YES as Toyota is stopping automatic diesel production and mine was one of the last vehicles before they are all sold out. I transferred the money in one transaction and the car was delivered in heavy rain without number plates on the same day. Coming to Scorpio VLX, I was in USA and did all the payments by wire transfer. We came to India for vacation and the dealer India Garage in Chennai was kind enough to deliver the car at my Chennai home. I have one more experience of buying a Mercedes in USA. We went in our Toyota for vegetables shopping in Cupertino, California and on the way back, went to Mercedes showroom to look at their cars with no intention of buying. It so happened that, I ended up driving home in the Mercedes and left Toyota at dealer to dispose it off. May be in future, people will buy cars by swiping credit cards at show room or buy at Amazon for a very competitive billion dollar sale discount and get it delivered at home.Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
