Friday, February 27, 2009

Ferrari vs. Mehran










People of Lahore are familiar with three forms of driving…

Driving in the city (which can turn into serious off-roading),

Driving on the highway (often with donkey carts),

And last but not least, reckless driving.

Oh and there’s one more; driving in the fast lane at 30 km/h. Actually this is even more dangerous than reckless driving because it puts you at the risk of being murdered.

But don’t forget that this is also the city where literally hundreds of people own top of the range cars from Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, even Ferrari and Aston Martin. These are just a few names from a long list that’s growing fast.

When I first realized that my fellow citizens drive these exotic beauties,  I was quite excited.

But if you think about it, you will realize that people are driving cars that can do 320 kph on roads that hardly ever allow 120. That means I can easily keep up with a 400 hp Ferrari in my 40 hp Cuore on the highways.

And as soon as we are off the highway, I will instantly leave the Ferrari in my dust...

Yes...and the reason is that now we're in speed breaker territory, most of which happen to be taller than the Ferrari itself. Building sky scrapers looked like a hard task that's why we decided to go for the tallest speed breakers  in the world. By the way, these speed breakers are usually nicknamed “jumps”, which says it all. I call them something else which I can’t tell you.

So if I had the job of issuing license plates for cars, I would issue a special golden “Jackass” plate to anyone who has one of these imported exotic cars in Lahore. I mean what’s the point of having a Ferrari when you can’t even keep up with a Mehran in a race???

Let’s have a comparison…

The Ferrari obviously can’t do off-roading on our city “roads”…

You can’t drive it recklessly (without getting stuck on a speed breaker with all four wheels in the air)…

And I would love to take a picture of a Ferrari driving behind a donkey cart.

So that’s all three forms of driving known to Lahore-kind, ruled out for Ferraris and Astons. A Mehran, on the other hand, is perfect for all of these scenarios. It’s the supercar of Lahore.

Now that I’ve proved that you can go faster in a Mehran than a Ferrari. I want to prove it wrong. I’m not going to ramble on about road conditions and government policies because, let’s face it, we are on our own.

It’s time to introduce a brand new form of driving to Lahoris. This form of driving is the reason why names like Ferrari and Porsche exist, and no Mehran has ever seen it. This is the form of driving where you need a racetrack.

Perhaps I should explain that a racetrack is a road that doesn’t go anywhere, it has no speed humps, donkey carts are not allowed to use it, and you can go as fast as you dare. Oh and it’s a little bendy too. In fact it can scare the hell out of you with its high speed bends.

Only trouble is that this magic road doesn’t exist anywhere near Lahore. It doesn’t even exist anywhere in the country. So would you like to know why racetracks are non-existent in our country even though we have hundreds of cars designed only for the purpose?

Here’s why…About 1.6 million years ago, Martians came to earth. They marked out the boundaries of Pakistan and then cursed it to make sure no one ever enjoys driving here.

This is the best logical explanation for the fact that no one has ever built a racetrack in Pakistan. I’m not kidding; I even have strong evidence to support my theory of Martians.


Across the eastern border, India is currently hosting four separate motorsport championships on proper racetracks with purpose built formula cars, now that’s more like it. Here are some names if you are interested; Formula LGB Hyundai (shown in the image), FISSME (aka Formula Maruti), Formula Rolon and JK Tyre National racing championship.

Still not convinced? Well even if you only watch PTV and you’ve never heard of Michael Schumacher; you would know that Formula1 is the most prestigious car racing championship in the world. To give you an idea about the success rate of Formula1, the Shanghai race circuit built in 2004 cost $300 million to make. And it’s such a money tree that they hope to recover its cost by the year 2014. You do the math.

Now please take a deep breath because what I’m about to tell you might come as a big shock…

India will be hosting a Formula1 race in the year 2011 on the streets of New Delhi. Not to mention that their Formula1 team, Force India debuted back in 2008.

Enough said?

I think it’s time for us to call the Martians back to earth and beg them to lift the unbreakable curse before we become a laughing stock for Indians. Otherwise it’s a possibility that soon you will be offered an unused Ferrari in exchange for your old Mehran. And you will probably say, “No thanks!”