by I was fortunate enough to be shortlisted as one of the 60 bloggers to cover this event as it happened. From Chennai it was a group of 7-8 bloggers who came for the meet. This included a few of my friends , Shrinidhi Hande and Bhushavali and Preethi, both established bloggers in their domain.
The venue was at Novotel , Hyderabad Airport, Hyderabad. The expections around the event was set pretty high , right from the venue and the way things were organized. The hotel was set in a sprawling campus full of lush greens, long swimming pools, beautifully decorated rooms and passageways and served some great food. Frankly this is the first five star hotel I’ve personally visited that’s right inside an airport campus (hardly 5 mins drive from the airport, inside the same area)
With free shuttles to & fro from the airport at all times , check in counters inside the reception itself, airport arrival and departure screens, Novotel has really upped the ante here.
The HexaExperience involved the actual launch, a product presentation of the Hexa by the design chief(Mr.Richard Winsor) & Head of Marketing (Mr.Vivek Srivatsa). The session involved them taking the crowd through some exciting visuals of how the Hexa was evolved, challenges faced, an audio visual demo of the Hexa’s performance and of course followed by a cocktail party.
We also got to form teams for the drive the next day (3 per car) . I happened to meet 2 wonderful bloggers from Mumbai, Avantika & Sangeeta (both incidentally fashion bloggers) and we instantly clicked and finalized the team.
A brand new Hexa in a dazzling midnight blue colour was placed right across the dinner area that gave the bloggers ample opportunities to make full use of their DSLR’s to showcase the car in so many ways.
The following day had a super early start at 5AM. Shortly followed by breakfast, before the sunrise could even set in , we started on a long test drive ( longest test drive I’ve even been ) for about 85 KMs to a Hill & Adventure Resort, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The drive involved testing every feature of the Hexa which included
- Different drive modes in Automatic version,
- Using Navigation apps
- Sound testing in the JBL speaker by connecting Bluetooth devices
- Testing the lumbar support features in the seat
- Testing the Torque and Acceleration speeds in the Manual , Sports and Race Car Modes
- and last but not the least, tested to see if the cooling glove box really kept the items chilled
Though we would have loved to spend an hour at the resort, owing to lack of time for successive activities, we started back pretty soon. One thing I noticed on the way back was that my fellow blogger, Avantika having driven mostly Hatchbacks or other compact cars, could easily master driving the Hexa almost within minutes, that too the manual version.This could make a significant difference in the confidence of new drivers and not really get conscious of the towering structure of the Tata Hexa
The final activity involved a 30 minute offroading experience, probably one of the best parts of the event. This time we were the passengers, while a professional test driver from Tata Motors took over and drove the car to its extremes. Our route involved traversing through deeply dug trench with ice blocks on its path, a steep hill climb with just a gravel track or sand filled roads & farmlands that can slide off any car. But it was quite amazing to see the Hexa 4X4 with almost little effort gliding these obstacles as its engine and booster performance mechanisms kicked in, once the mode was changed to rough road conditions.
Having been experienced dune bashing in a different 4X4 in Dubai desert, I feel this was a totally different tougher experience, that could truly test the core strength of this car and the Hexa certainly didn’t disappoint in any way. As a casual remark, I also suggested to the marketing guys at Hexa that this a great opportunity for them to market it overseas esp in desert areas in Middle East such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia etc
My return journey was through Indian Airlines (surprisingly the first time through this carrier, having flown every other airline in the country) and I should admit the overall flying experience was excellent, service was perfect and completely in contrast with the negative reviews that’s been floating around in social media
Nice Car!!