Festive long drive with Tata Aria 4x4 pride

I am currently driving around in a Tata Aria Pride 4x4, which Tata motors has given to me for review. I get to drive it wherever I want and then return it safe and sound. I will be footing the bill for fuel and toll, which I don’t mind.


When India’s leading auto maker Tata Motors gave me their flagship vehicle, Tata Aria for about 10 days, I had a tough challenge. At first look it might appear as if I got a free vehicle to go for a joy ride, but at heart, I was virtually competing with all automobile journalists, for whom it is part of job description to go for long drives with new vehicles and then write about it. With limited time, skill and resources at my disposal, I had to not only do justice to the task at hand- travel around with Tata Aria, take good photos and write about it, but I also had to do a job at par with or better than what a seasoned automobile journalist would have done.

Thankfully for me, the time coincided with my Deepavali travel plans. Had originally planned to take train to native place and spend a week there. Now I’ll be driving all the way and with a vehicle I’m not known to sit Idle, so will be covering several destinations around western ghats and coastal Karnataka during next 8-9 days. Made extensive plans to cover as much ground as possible in 10 days that I will have it.

Tata Aria is a nice crossover, spacious, capable vehicle. I’d test driven it earlier. Already drove it to Blr-Chennai, Chennai Blr. Blr-Hasan-Chickmangalur-Shimoga. Drove it all the way up to the top of Mullayyana giri hills.. More about these later. Pls don't mind if there's an aria overdose in my next few blog posts

Nov 20 2011: Here're some photos and updates: Aria 4x4 review * Aria photoshoot Set 1, Set 2 * Aria in Mullayanagiri * ottinene * Sigandur * Murudeshwara *