My road test editor has two types of grins. One comes alive whenever he meets a poseur – which means every other day – and the second, Sameer saves for occasions when a car does brilliant things. I remember seeing the second type when he was navigating for me at a particularly fast stage in the Raid de Himalaya. On that occasion, the Alto we were driving let its rear step out for a nanosecond as I grappled with the steering wheel to stay this side of a 16,000 foot fall, or man’s longest flight without the help of a wing.
On this morning, he was flashing that Type 2 grin again. The Chevrolet Camaro Z28 we were in, was travelling at a very brisk, illegal pace. We were doing close to 240 kph in the pretext of automotive evaluation, yet, trust me, we were not really endangering other road users, since all of them were sucked back into the big vacuum we had generated as we accelerated out of a toll-station. Now, I have done such speeds before and Sameer once forced the on-board computers of a Mercedes SL500 to self-destruct, as they took a sustained 250 kph attack in Indian conditions. But then, why that grin? Let me explain. To begin with, the Camaro was still accelerating, two, there was a certain degree of lateral movement as the tyres were not really in good shape, three, in all probability, my face looked as if I were being invited to see someone’s wedding video tape a third time.
I eased off the throttle, breathed without forced induction and pulled over to the slow lane and eventually came to a halt. And then did the 0-240 run all over again, this time trying to look a lot calmer and managing to ignore my partner’s grin. Let me assure you, I could have done that a zillion times without getting bored – the wheezing note of an American V8 inhaling through a Vortec supercharger, the smell of burnt rubber, the nice feeling when fast-spinning tyres catch up with power delivery, the sheer acceleration thereafter which makes you clench your teeth, as this ultimate wedge of a sports car cuts through speed barriers, the wind that threatens to uproot every hair in your scalp... if this isn’t absorbing open-top entertainment, I have no option but to recommend you Janet Jackson.
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