Edmund Hillary was the first guy to climb Mount Everest. I guess you already know that. But many of you may not know why he did it. Actually it was a journalist who asked him that profound question. To which his even more profound reply was ‘because it is there’. And that is pretty much my rationale for the slightly different test here.
So, in the silver corner we have the Fiat Adventure. A car that always made a lot of sense to people with great taste – motoring journalists, that is – and now shouldering the responsibility of getting a company back on track. In the red corner, the Mahindra Scorpio. The only proper affordable SUV that now boasts of 43 changes. What do they have in common? Well, nothing much apart from the fact that both these vehicles can go off-road er… slightly.
Which is exactly what we did. Took them off-road er…slightly. Or essentially timed them over a surface that Colin McRae in his Focus would have gone bonkers on. But hang on a minute. The way these cars are built also make this test a rather interesting one. One drinks petrol, the other diesel. One is powered and steered by the same set of wheels. The other gets its rear sets to do its propulsion. If you think about it, this duel really has the makings of a classic. Petrol vs Diesel and Car vs SUV. FWD vs RWD. Place your bets now!
The track for the day was pretty simple. A 300-metre loop done over two laps on so much loose gravel, going sideways wasn’t an option. It was the only way, er, forward. First up on the playground – the Fiat Adventure.
Now the Adventure comes with enough visual clout for you to drive it out of a showroom and arrive at a gravel stage of the INRC championship. From the big bull bar upfront, to the twin roof-rails, the plastic cladding, the twin running boards and the City Pirellis, it looks like it munches on grit for breakfast and shingles for lunch. Then there are the fog lamps. Or should I say, sets of foglamps, which means it can stick to its diet even for dinner.
There is also the equipment. The 1600cc petrol engine that’s such a delight in the Palio is just about adequate to have fun in the station wagon. But the 100 bhp that’s on offer comes in at a rather high 5500 rpm and that means the Adventure has to be kept on the boil, if progress has to be made. Yet, despite the relatively small engine and higher weight you’ve got to back the Adventure in this. Because at the end of the day, this is a car, and as a rule cars always go faster around corners than SUVs.
Right then. Air-conditioning off, windows up, revs up… and we are off. Sort off. You see, the minute you dump the clutch on the Adventure, the tyres spin like a washing machine on its dry cycle, shifting all the earth under them without really taking the car ahead. Once on its way the Adventure’s problems only get bigger and bigger. Not surprisingly they are all related to the tyres.
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