Curse the highways. Bless the highways. Curse them because construction of the Golden Quadrilateral is going on in full swing, which means heavy traffic and unexpected logjams. Bless them because the stretches which are complete are simply divine and they more than make up for the time you are stuck behind trucks. Picture this. We are returning from Jaipur and cross the Gujarat-Maharashtra border. From the road construction mess of Gujarat, the highway opens up to a clear stretch of dual carriageway blacktop that leads as far as the eye can see. It's late afternoon, the sun is throwing golden rays all around, Billy Joel is warbling through the 6-CD changer and the Terracan is blissfully cruising. It feels like heaven, traffic is light and we seem to be doing what feels like 100 kph. I look down at the speedometer... the tacho needle is fixed at a leisurely 3200 revs and the speedo is nudging 140 kph actually. I could extract more juice from that turbocharged common-rail direct injection if need be, but this is more than adequate. Even when I cut down on speed on those mildly-cambered curves, it's still at 120 kph that I am tackling them. I steal a glance at my travel companions – Pablo and Prashant – to see if the Terracan's mild body roll affected their comfort. But no, their eyes are blissfully shut, no doubt dreaming about those mind-blowing jalebis and malpuas they had at the wedding.
That's where this story begins. Our two-wheeler correspondent, that half man-half bike, Shubhabrata Marmar was getting married to one of our colleagues at Business Standard, Arti Sharma, in Jaipur. We could have booked train tickets, but hell, driving would be more fun. It had to be an SUV, that much we were sure of – a diesel SUV preferably. And what else could it be, but the Hyundai Terracan, definitely the best diesel SUV you can get in the Indian market today.
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