Sipani Badal Rides Again

The late-1970s Sipani Badal, at the INDEA booth, at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025

 

Okay, not really. I mean, the Sipani Badal isn’t really coming back in any shape or form. But for one glorious week, this three-wheeled plastic-fantastic from the ’70s had showgoers – at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025 – in its thrall. This was, mind, India’s premier automotive show, where car and motorcycle manufacturers were busy taking the covers off their latest, greatest electric vehicles that are all the rage these days. Swoopy, swanky styling, powerful electric motors, batteries that charge quickly and allow vehicles to be driver farther than ever before, and plush, luxurious cabins filled with high-tech electronics, ADAS and big touchscreens – that was the vision of mobility shown at this year’s Expo. And yet, amongst all this glitter and EV-glamour, the stone-simple Badal held its own, bringing happy smiles to the hundreds of people who visited the INDEA booth from 17^th to 22^nd January.

Driving a Ferrari 308 GTSi in Lonavala

Mr Fali Dhondy's Ferrari 308 GTSi, which I drove in Lonavala back in 2003!

I had dreamt of driving a Ferrari ever since I was a schoolkid and my first shot at piloting a car produced in Maranello came sometime in 2003, when I was working with Motoring magazine, which was at that time published by Business Standard. Srini, the classic cars specialist at BSM was going to Khandala for one of his drives/photoshoots and I offered to tag along. Little did I know then, what was in store for me that day.

Esperienza Ferrari at Buddh International Circuit

Being an automotive journalist has its occasional perks and getting to drive a bunch of Ferraris at an F1 track is one of those perks. Driving a Ferrari 458 at BIC was an incredible experience

Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to be a part of ‘Esperienza Ferrari,’ which was held at Buddh International Circuit, where I got to drive various Ferraris. Driving not just one but three Ferraris, all in one day, on an F1 circuit?! Yes, as you might imagine, it was a dream come true for a Ferrari fanboy like me. Here's the article I wrote for Man’s World magazine, about the entire experience.

I have no other way of starting this, so let me say it right away – I love Ferrari cars more than any other. Having spent more than a decade writing about cars, I’ve had the good fortune of driving high-performance cars from almost every manufacturer. But even then, Ferraris remain something exceptional, something truly special. The ‘Ferrari’ name conjures up images of glorious, low-slung, sexy supercars, all painted red. Cars like the 250 GTO, 308, 328, Testarossa, 348, 288 GTO, F40, F50, F355, F430 and the 458 Italia. As a schoolboy, I grew up staring wistfully at posters of Ferraris from the 1970s-80s, which were plastered all over the walls of my room. For many, many years, I always wondered what it might be like to actually drive a one of those Italian beauties.

BMW M5 Driving Impression

The 5th generation BMW M5 remains one of the fastest, most powerful cars I've ever driven

Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to drive the mighty BMW M5. With its 560-horsepower twin-turbo V8, the M5 was one of the fastest production four-door sedans in the world at that time. Here is what I wrote about the car.

The M5 is one of my childhood heroes, a car I grew up fantasizing about. Unveiled at the Amsterdam Motor Show in 1984, the first BMW M5 hand-built, using a BMW 535i chassis and a modified version of the BMW M1’s 3.5-litre six-cylinder engine. The car weighed about 1,550 kilos and with 285 horsepower, it was the fastest four-door saloon of its time. With just 2,191 units produced, the first M5 is one of the rarest production BMWs ever and, of course, never came to India.

Land Rover Defender 110 Driving Impression

The Land Rover Defender 110 looks good, drives well and costs the earth!

I had a chance to drive and review the Land Rover Defender 110, back in 2021, for Man’s World magazine. I’m not really a huge fan of SUVs and fast, sporty cars (like the Audi S5, which I love so much!) are more my kind of thing. Still, for what it’s worth, I quite liked the Defender 110 and enjoyed the experience of driving it - more for its sheer size and road presence rather than its driving dynamics. Anyway, here is the article I wrote for the magazine.

What’s an SUV? That isn’t always an easy question to answer these days. Buyers across segments don’t seem to want cars anymore; everyone wants an SUV. So, of course, every car wants to be an SUV, which is why you have softroaders, crossovers, compact SUVs, SUV-inspired hatchbacks and more. Marketing types everywhere know a good idea when they see one; take a regular hatchback, jack it up a bit for slightly increased ride height, slap on a bigger set of wheels, bolt on some plastic cladding on the sides and on the wheelarches, add an extra dollop or two of chrome, give it a fancy new paintjob and a cool sounding name, and there you have it, a brand-new SUV for the unsuspecting masses!

Blitzkrieg: Audi RS5 Sportback Driving Impression

Three years ago, I had an opportunity to review the Audi RS5 for a leading men’s magazine. Along with its younger brother, the S5, the RS5 remains one of my most favourite Audis ever. So, here’s the article I wrote about the RS5, back in 2021

Audi is making a bunch of truly phenomenal cars these days. And that’s causing me some grief. No, not the cars themselves, of course. The problem is with the reviews I end up writing, which tend to go a bit overboard with praise for the cars’ performance. Take the last Audi I drove – the S5 – which made me fall deeply in love with its screaming, rasping, turbocharged V6, intense acceleration and terrific handling. Predictably enough, I wrote a rather glowing review, which was subsequently accused by the Editor [of the magazine for which I wrote the review] of being ‘gushing’ and ‘breathless.’ Oh, the shame!

Maserati GranCabrio: Beauty and the Beast

It may not be the fastest car I've ever driven, but it's certainly the most beautiful!

I was between jobs in 2012. Had moved on from Buddh International Circuit, where I had served as the PR manager and was national press officer for the inaugural Formula 1 Grand Prix of India, and had nothing much to do for a couple of months. At that time, my good friend Murali Menon gave me an opportunity to drive the incredible Maserati GranCabrio, which was on sale in India in those days, retailing at Rs 1.76 crore ex-showroom.

Murali, who was the managing editor at MW magazine at that time, spoke to Maserati and arranged for me to drive the car on the Noida-Agra Expressway, which had just been opened up to the public and remained, for the most part, fairly empty and devoid of traffic. The Maserati was stunningly beautiful – gorgeous beyond words – and sounded divine, orgasmic, beyond anything that words can describe. Here’s the piece I wrote on the car.

Class Act: Driving the Mercedes-Benz S-Class

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class remains the best luxury car money can buy

 Back in 2021, I had an opportunity to drive the then-new, seventh-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class and write about it for Man’s World magazine. Here are some excerpts from the article I wrote.

Flooring the throttle in the new S-Class and chucking it around a series of fast corners in quick succession should probably just feel wrong on so many levels. The S-Class, a stately luxury sedan that’s more than 17 feet long, an opulent car that weighs more than 2,100 kilos, definitely isn’t boy-racer material. It is, instead, the preferred mode of transport for those who’ve achieved XXL-sized dollops of fame, success and wealth. Top business executives, industrialists, heads of state, and film stars with 10-figure annual incomes love the S-Class. And the preferred status isn’t anything new for this ultra-luxe Mercedes-Benz, which has been on top of things for the last 50 years.

Audi S5: Firecracker

The Audi S5, one of the most memorable cars I've ever driven

Having worked as an automotive journalist for around two decades, I’ve lost count of the number of cars I’ve had the opportunity to drive over the last 20-25 years. But of those, a few cars stand head and shoulders above the rest. Those few cars were truly spectacular, truly memorable. With most cars that I drove / reviewed as a journalist, it was business as usual. You get in, do your driving, testing etc., the car goes back to its manufacturer, you write your story and move on. But with some rare, few cars that were truly memorable, things were different. When I got out of such cars, the only emotion was, ‘Oh my god!! I wish I could somehow afford to buy this thing!’ Deep in my heart, I knew that would probably never happen and I’d never get to drive that particular car again, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to dream about it. One such car was the Audi S5, which I drove in 2021 for a review that I did for Man’s World magazine. This is the article I wrote:

A nuclear reactor is, for most people, a bit intimidating. Inscrutable for the most part, with its inner workings not understood by the vast majority, a nuclear reactor houses controlled nuclear fission – a process that unleashes vast amounts of energy via the splitting of atoms. Controlled and harnessed in an orderly fashion, nuclear energy can power entire cities. Nuclear propulsion has also been used to power submarines for many decades and scientists propose that interplanetary spacecraft might, someday, use nuclear power. In the late-1950s, some car manufacturers were also dreaming up nuclear-powered concept cars; witness the rather outlandish Ford Nucleon, the Studebaker Packard Astral and the Simca Fulgur, all of which were supposed to eschew the poor old internal combustion engine in favour of putting a miniaturised nuclear reactor under the hood.

The Day I Drove a Ferrari FF

Back in 2012, my dear friend (and former colleague from Business Standard Motoring) Murali K. Menon gave me an opportunity to drive the mighty Ferrari FF and write about it for Man’s World magazine. Murali, or MKM as we call him, was Managing Editor of Man’s World at that time and he spoke to Ferrari’s New Delhi dealership and arranged for me to drive the FF. That car, along with two Maseratis – the GranCabrio and the Quattroporte – had been brought to Jaypee Spa Resort for an event of some sort. All I had to do was, go to the Jaypee Resort, which was just 2km from my house, pick up the car from there and drive it as much as I wanted. Could this really be happening? Could it be real? On that day, it was. A dream come true.