My MM550, In its new Avatar happy with its new owner

Hey guys,

As many would know that the 1st off-road vehicle that I had bought and restored was a Mahindra & Mahindra MM550. Threads are all over this blog under the MM550 section.

Anyways the new owner that I sold the vehicle to, has done a complete restoration himself and practically rebuild the vehicle from all over again.

I recently received an email from him with pictures and a brief writeup on the work that he’s done on the vehicle. So the first thing that I thought was to share it with everyone.

Thanks a lot to the new owner for sharing these pictures and giving me permission to share it with the community.

Please click the link to continue reading

Toyota LandCruiser – Maintenance Update III (108105 Kms)

Hey Guys
The ODO has now (as of today) crossed 111k kms and now reads approx 111030 kms .
In the past couple of months I took the vehicle to the workshop thrice to sort out some small and big issues that are natural to crop up with the ownership of the vehicle especially when one buys a second hand or in my case a 3rd hand vehicle. Please do not misunderstand me as I am not cribbing or complaining, I am rather happy that these issues are cropping up as, as and when I am resolving these issues my vehicle is getting close to near perfection, atleast mechanically.

This particular maintenance/ update was carried on at 108105 Kms on 09th Of November 2010.

 

What have I got myself into This time???

Hey Guys,

Again I ask myself What have I got myself into THIS TIME?

And this is exactly the kind of question that my family members, friends, neighbors, near and dear ones must be asking themselves. Seriously, what is this guy upto???

• First he craves for something (Obviously amongst many things, I am talking in context of a vehicle) 😉
• Then he goes ahead and buys it,
• Then, spends his time and dough in bringing it up to shape
• Later on, as everyone expects, uses it for some time, AND
• Finally which no one expects or for that matter used to expect, SELLS IT OFF and the circle starts all over again

Slush Fest: NIOC OTR at DND 17th Nov 2010 – Part II

I am really sorry for delay in posting the second part of the pics and videos. So without further delay heres the second and final set of pictures and videos for that day events.

 

So after negotiating the water on one side of the embankment we headed to the other side of the trail and we could see lots of water and it looked very inviting.

I having completed water crossing on one side, maybe got a little over confident and well… l

 

please click the link for the full post

Toyota Land Cruiser – Buying process

Continued from this previous post 

Anyways as I said that I was waiting for TRAMWAY’s call and was high with anticipation. The phone rings and I am please to see TRAMWAYS name. He tells me

Harjeev you are a very lucky guy!!!

 

My excitement builds up and over the conversation I learn that…

 

the vehicle is still not sold and is in an extremely good condition. Further I think that the gods were in a mood to listen to all my prayers that day it turned out that TRAMWAY knew the owner well. So over the course of next couple of hours I had a very detailed conversation with the owner, REDONE, who I’d say was one of the most patient guys I’d ever spoken too. He answered all my queries some of them now that I think were quite weird, but it was a big decision that I was taking.
To cut a long story short I think that before lunch that day 28th of August 2010

• Booked my air tickets,
• Taken prints of the essential paperwork (Form No 28, 29, 30, Delivery note, Payment receipt, etc (thanks to teambhp everything that I needed was on the threads)),
• Purchased the Demand drafts.

What followed was a very sleepless night or I should say no sleep night.

 

    Picture credits: Owner Redone; Downloaded from Teambhp Classified

My Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80 – The start

Hey guys,
Since I can remember I wanted a vehicle in which I could cruise on the highway at comfortable speeds, take the family on vacations, have 4×4 capability, available in the Pre-Owned segment, have decent to good reliability, etc. Additionally I wanted a vehicle from the pre-owned segment.

So the vehicles in question were the either the Toyota Land Cruiser (TLC), Mitsubishi Pajero or the Suzuki Grand Vitara. I didn’t consider vehicle from either the Tata or the Mahindra & Mahindra stable as having already owned the Safari I wanted something more from the vehicle and if I bought something similar, I would have to take a hit of on the value of the vehicle, spend another big wad of cash and still stuck with the vehicle that I had for the past 3 years. Further as I mentioned didn’t want to buy new vehicle as the depreciation in the first couple of years is quite huge, so I decided if I buy pre-owned one the depreciation hit that I would take on my safari would be compensated to some extent on the pre-owned vehicle that I’d buy.

 

4guna4 – A photologue – Part I

This sunday the 24th of October 2010, I attended an event and as the title says it all, the 4guna4, translated in English 4×4 or four wheel drive or a fun filled, all day event.

Its not that I have never attended any  4×4 event previously, I must have attends countless of them but this time it was different. Me and Ashish Bhatia were here today not as mere spectators or as officials but as participants. We couldn’t believe it ourselves but just a couple of days before the event we decided that lets participate and have fun. So it was Ashish as the designated driver and myself as the navigator, mustered the courage and decided to go for it.

Now I am not much of a writer, so I will just write narrations and let the pictures and videos do the talking.

A little more about the event. This event was organised by none other than Northern Motorsports. The name Northern Motorsports shouldn’t be new for anyone who’s even slightly familiar with motorsport’s in India but for the less aware here a brief intro

In 2001 a team of well known automotive enthusiasts, some with over 30 years experience in motorsport, came together to form an Association with the objective of revitalizing motor sport in India.

Today, over 20 events later northern motorsport is the leading motorsport organization in North India, organising highly technical National Championship events and Rallies like the “Rally of the North” and the “Rally Desert Storm”, India’s first international cross country rally.

More info can be had from their website

http://www.motorsport.in

and their Facebook page

Northern Motorsports on Facebook

We were at the event location the Leisure Valley Grounds, Gurgaon at 7am

Here’s a picture from far end of the grounds

The lineup of the vehicles, participants affixing stickers, meeting, greeting each other etc.

The organisers explaining the rules and regulations, details on how the event will be carried out, penalty system, safety points, etc

Another picture

After this all the participants started to line up and get prepared for the start of the event.

I do not remember the exact count but I believe that the number of participants was around 30+ vehicles with all the vehicles competing in two categories. The Extreme and the SUV.

The event was being organised in two parts and half of the vehicles were sent to complete the nature trail while the remaining set of vehicles competed at the Man Made Trail

• The Man Made Trail
• Nature Trail

Further the above were also broken into further sub sections and each section was to be completed in a specific amount of time, with the least amount of penalty. If the participant got stuck or was not able to complete any obstacle there was a rescue team on standby.

So  below are some pictures of the participants at the line-up

Some were just having a nice stroll

While some watched the organising team try hard in getting everything inline and maintaining the time schedule

Some checked their vehicles

Others were all set to go

While some just stood there and happily posed for the shutter

Me and Ashish were part of the group that was suppose to compete the Nature Trail first. Around 9AM is were out of the Leisure Valley grounds and waited for all the participants, officials to come along and get set to go.

This is the end of the first set of pictures. I will update the next set of pictures and videos soon.