BHPian Brar350 recently shared this with other enthusiasts: It’s a 2015 Rocky Beige Thar crde that came with the original black interiors & a curve in the rear of the hood. I drove 68k kms on stock rims & tyres thereafter shifted to the 32″x10.50Maxxis Big horns & 15″ steel rims in 2018. I always loved the way the old school army vehicles/jeeps & civilian jeeps looked & how they have been designed to be such practical vehicles & tried to replicate the feel in my thar. I have installed the front bumper of the Cj & mounted 2 Tatra hooks & One-ton hook on the bumper along with a set of Hella rallye 3000 lights, which I only use during fogs, & a set of Hella rallye 700ff on the windshield with custom mounts. I have also installed the rear Tow hook from MM550 alongwith the plate in the 1st week of ownership & removed the mudflaps & rear bumpers exposing the chassis. There is a jerry can that sits on a custom made stand on the rear wheel. Insect mesh indicator/parking light grills & headlight grills from MM550. I have installed a custom longer diff breather pipe. Overtime I switched the stock rotors with rotors from T8 performance & have been running the thar on just the headers & stock downpipe & have got rid of the rest of the exhaust system for the past 7/8years. So sounds pretty good when the turbo kicks in & the engine is @ 3-4k rpm. The turbo whistle is pretty prominent when it idles. In 2018 when I switched tyres, I also installed the front windshield pillar frame of a MM550 alongwith a new windshield & it’s outer bracket + the opening mechanism with apt sun visors from a Thar DI. So like the old school jeeps i could open the front windshield when I wanted. Helped much during off road days. In the same year I upgraded the front seats with innova seats with arm rests on stock mounting brackets & deleted the rear seats & got made a custom seat frame ,like that of a Cj,& used the foam from the original rear seat,the door hinges from a jeep to use as mounting brackets that are bolted on the floor, it can be folded & can be easily removed as & when needed.for 5-6 years I had a farm jack sitting on custom mounts screwed on in the bonnet hinges. This year I have switched back to the fixed windshield glass that came with the thar & new set of 32″ Big Horns. So it’s march 2022 & after the Covid thing we needed a trip. Dabwali boys(Harnoor & Dhillon )were up for it & we decided to get it done. I had a friend of mine from school days staying over in Leh for 6-7months, had a word with him & it was on. The only motto is vehicle should be leh/spiti ready, always. I was tired of having the transparent plastic window of the stock hood tear on 3 different trips in sub zero temperatures & in the same week had the semi hard top installed with the exact dimensions of the windows & the curve at the end of the stock hood. Thar has done Abt 1.33lakh kms till date. We were pretty lucky that year as the roads to Leh usually open in May/june & it’s the Zoji La that first leads the way. Manali route takes longer to clear.BRO Slay. & Slay they did, they opened the Zoji La on March 25th.in then record 71/2 days which usually takes about 120-40 days. I had a word with my friend in Leh on the 23rd & after stacking up the recovery equipment, tools, bar b que, food, coal, luggage etc ,we (Harnoor & Dhillon from Dabwali)leave from Bathinda after having the bright idea of removing the rear seat & instead placing a camping chair in the back on the 27th of March at about 4/5pm & drive through out the night into the next day & reach Leh at about 9pm. Dhillon & I took care of the driving part. Plan was to reach Leh & take it from there. From Kargil the traffic was only allowed to move from one side at about 5-6am then & turn was decided using the odd even system with the date concerned. But we got there at the correct date & correct time, this,was highly unplanned. Waited for an hour or so,brushed our teeth & stuff, off we go. Since the pass had just opened therefore all the check posts were unmanned through out the trip. Leh had no tourists , market & hotels were hibernating, there was no traffic apart from few tucks & pickups till leh. There is no record in the entry registers that we were in & around the area at that time. Free we felt. We reach Leh & get a Steal deal on a hotel room, book it for a week, rest for a day & 3 of us head towards Tso Moriri which is about 250kms from Leh,Changthang Plateau of Ladakh ,not a soul aside from the 3 of us on the Thar which was roaring on the open roads(no muffler), we were doing triple digit speeds for the 1st 100kms, road so good,only one pick up & a gurkha accompanied by a bike crossed us through out the stretch..We had left around noon & got there by 11:30pm. While we were getting there, we decided to crawl up a snow covered mountain & when we were rolling down & got close to the road ahead the front wheels of the thar stuck in 3-4ft deep gully just before the road which was covered with snow & as oureyes were deceived. The sun was setting temperature dropping below 0. We had a shovel & we dug deep. You know the combination unprepared clothing+ snow is shoes. Thar tho, never disappoints. Always got your back like a brother. & We reversed it out after trying for about an hour. So we got kinda late + the last stretch was pretty bad road/no road. What a drive it was. Hella H4 beams & rallye 700ff showed the way. Reach Tso Moriri,book yet another cheap hotel room. Bar b que’d mutton kebabs on the roof top with onions & tomatoes while the moon light bounced off the frozen Tso Moriri for the view. Moriri means mountains & Tso is lake in ladakhi. Lake fed by mountains, hence Tso Moriri. Temperature dropped to -5/6 in the night. No problem with startup. Warmed it up good & off we go. Tso Moriri is a pretty huge lake, no wonder the largest fresh water lake in India, followed it’s frozen water banks. There was a decent climb up a mountain. 4L 2ndgear. In March/April 1st week 2022 there was no fencing alongside the bank of the lake drove alongside for a long time. Bunked the viewing spot indicated by downloaded offline google maps, entered the closed Korzok Monastery situated on the bank of the lake & then retraced 30-40kms to take a left towards Tso Kar which is less then 100kms from Tso Moriri. Puga hot springs , Kygar Tso also paid a visit. Tso Moriri to Tso Kar. Best route. Thar & the camping chair at the back ,shared strictly by Dhillon & Harnoor, handled it without breaking a sweat. Most of the route from one lake to the other was a pretty bad broken trail back then, you don’t need to bring the front wheels to life throughout the stretch but it’s a lot of fun. You can make it a technical route by deciding which axle breaking pot hole will jolt the spine of the rear seated camping chair passenger,less. I thank this route, as it enlightened us to ditch the idea of the rear placed camping chair & just sit on the stuff by making a level plain. Tso Kar killed it tho. Much smaller than Tso Moriri tho but it is such an vast beautiful area. Pictures speak, the thar in the background,size of a grain. People from leh used to trek to Tso Kar to get salt back in the day. Kar in the local language means white & Tso is lake. This is white because of the salt & there was a certain smell of the lake which was being showed in our noses by the blowing wind. It was nice & cold out there as we & the Thar stood on the lake bed. Not a soul apart from us. Leh is 100-110kms from Tso Kar. What a great route. Metalled road shows up when it joins the Manali-Leh highway & cross Tang Lang La for Leh. Reach back,rest for a day. Leave for Khardung La ,Nubra valley & Turtuk the next day at about 11am. No problem with the Thar at Khardung La it was just running a little rich as the air thinned.we drove till Panamik after going straight from T-MORH (there’s an Indian oil pump there)& after crossing Panamik we took a left from the Taksha iron bridge on to the Charasa road, drove till Murgi or Kuri & were searching for a homestay when we found a trail. Observed it, it went to the other side of the valley via Nubra river which had dry spots,eyes light up,so we took a left for the trail instead. Picture in the previous post. Got to the other side of the valley on to the road leading back to T-MORH (we shaved off 20-30kms by crossing the river) & this time we took a right for Diskit Leading towards Turtuk & then Thang,the last Indian village before P.O.K begins. Stayed in a homestay at Hunder where we had reached around 1230am. Bar b que’d the 2 chickens which we had picked up from Leh city & marinated them with curd,garlic&onion paste & other stuff(Harnoor did his thing) & let it sit for the complete day from Leh. Next day visit the Hunder sand dunes & head towards Turtuk. There our Ids were checked & kept by the army checkpost tho. Yep, this was the only time we were checked & a relevant entry was incorporated. The last stretch is really fun for a jeep/gypsy nice tight turns on badly beat up trail. The ladder frame of thar flexes through with ease. From there we saw Pak village Pharnu. Head back to Leh. We covered 400something kms or maybe more,now memory deceives,during the Nubra chapter. Relax for a day. Head on back to Bathinda via Zoji La ,no stops. Great trip. Again took every shortcut possible. There was black ice. Big horns faired well. 10 years of ownership. It has been to Leh/spiti 6times in total. Always performed flawlessly. Size never an issue. Turbo lag not an issue. Comfort not an issue. Love the 2.6crde engine. Practically bullet proof. Thar is to be driven a certain way, every vehicle is to be driven a certain way.Cj(covering all Jeeps)/Jimny/Gypsy/Gurkha/all have their characteristics which vary & make them unique & need to be appreciated. Anything & everything you want to use the thar for ,becomes it’s forte. The driver must know what it wants & how to get it out of the Thar as it is a very capable vehicle. Be it the the highway/city runs,trips/overlanding, OTRs, rescues on & off road, towing,Good in sand,can do 80kmph in 4L 5th easy, scaled such tall dunes during UDC & other desert OTRs scaled so many inclines off road, missed a solid axle in the front for but still a pretty good offroader, decent articulation, axles are solid (have faced issues tho but still not bad) crawls pretty slow(not the slowest) & water wading capacity without the snorkel is good, 2nd or 3rd 4low will mostly slay any climb or incline, can do 120-30kmph on the highway all day & brakes good for such a big vehicle. 32″ big horn is a pretty heavy tyre & the thar still touches 140/5kmph easy & it came with a really good air con(remember 2012 ac in jeep from factory) & an excellent alternator. Engine cooling system so good, never over heats. What more can I ask for. Locker maybe? It did tho with new face lift & 2020 thar. So many adventures & misadventures, countless smiles & memories. Thar does it all. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
