Club Himalayan Devils Jeep Club
CHD (Club of Himalayan Devils) had a Jeep Breakfast Drive to Barog Railway Station (Solan, HP).
The station lies on UNESCO World Heritage Site Kalka–Shimla Railway
The longest tunnel (No.33) with a length of 1,143.61m
CHD’s (Club Himalayan Devils) 13th celebration Trail.
Original itinerary:
08:00 AM – All meet after PGI barricades. Distribution of chakhna for the trip for each Jeep for the trip.
09:00 AM – Have breakfast at Heritage Haveli.
11:30 AM – Reach Baba Garibnath mandir (The beautiful picnic spot) via Una. The reason why we would take the Una route is because it has less mountains and more plains. It’s a bit longer but faster.
12 to 3 PM – Have a good time… There are multiple off roading places there over the grassland. We can also get into the water but not deep as there are sudden drops. We will have various competitions and games for kids as well as adults. Bring your frisbees and footballs. There is ample space to play there. You can also get in the water there. So do bring slippers.
03:00 PM – Have lunch at Sea Rock Hotel (2 kms from there) followed by Cake cutting and Goodies distribution.
03:45 PM: Start from Sea rock hotel and go towards Bhakra
04:20 PM: Have fresh Bhakra fish fry on the way.
07:30 PM: reach back to Chandigarh
Short and simple.
This may be the first ever JEEPAG’s all regional groups meet with Jeepers of WW, BJC, IJ, GoJ and DJ driving down to the factory together. The Jeepers kicked off with a group partying a day prior to the plant visit, a night rather midnight well spent sharing skills of our JCs and other club activities.
An early morning assembly and timely co-ordination by WW team, JCs lined up in batches for flag off to the factory. As usual the predicted traffic slugged the time taken to reach factory. A warm welcome with breakfast was waiting for everyone and the checkin was so quick as it was well organized by the FCA team.
A brief introduction about the plant and their management team, the Jeepers were escorted in batches to various sections. As usual WW had arranged for an enlightening cake with milestones of the trails.
The factory produces around 40 different variants of Jeep Compass catering to the 13 countries. Almost with 65% localization including the diesel engines, the facility is gearing up for more localization.
They manufacturer 40000 diesel engines presently in this facility catering for all brands like Fiat, Tata, Jeep and Suzuki. The production capacity will be expanded soon to 1 lakh plus engines with rotational shifts for the staff. The doors of JC was laser welded – this was first time in India.
The petrol automatic variant engine and transmission is completely imported and they do not have the facility to manufacture here in India as of now.
There was a display of the diesel engine and transmission in transparent enclosures and everyone had hands on experience on the technology inside these machines.
A break for delicious lunch which no one expected to be organized with such great hospitality inside a factory, and the journey continued for further sections of plant.
We were also able to have glimpse of the test tract in their facility, wherein the Jeeps were tested for up to 120kmph and along side a track to test the suspension and ground force tests. A tests are also carried out to ascertain the performance of the vehicle with speed breakers, kickers and maneuvering cones circuit. We did not get any clarity about where the crash tests were performed.
It was a breath taking view through the safety goggles as how the state of the art robots perform their job with a thread thickness accuracy.
The assembly is fully automated that it can produce any variant, any brand and any model car at the same time, as we witnessed there were competitors cars running along with different variants of JCs.
Every Jeeper were thrilled to have a glimpse of the trail hawk variant (even though none of us were allowed even to open the doors), it was a masterpiece of all standing next to it. Few of us also had a sneak peak to the remotely parked Renegade.
Everyone’s curiosity about the sun roof addition to their existing JCs was self-explanatory, once they saw as how the sun roof plate was built by the robot lines. Hey Jeepers please DON’T ever think of cutting your roofs – this will have major safety concern. Only FIAPL at Ranjagoan is certified for such high standard production of safe structures for your Jeeps, and be proud that your JC is manufactured in the south Asia’s best and unsurpassed factory.
There was a discounted counter for accessories and a send off note with high tea which concluded the journey to plant. As a customary by FCA team, a refreshments / snacks kit was provided for everyone at exit. Thanking the FCA team and WWs for such a wonderful experience and promising a greater safety in our JCs everyone departed to their respective locations.
Happy Jeeping Jeepers, after the witnessing the built process we have more confidence on our beasts.
22nd of July, 2018, around 11AM, we (Ayush, Kannav, Kunal, Mohit & Rizul.. aka jeepag.com co-founders) had a quick chit chat on a conference call to meet midway from Tricity & NCR over breakfast and plan for the upcoming trails and drives.. Eventually we also checked the pulse of fellow jeepers and they were more than keen to join us over for this short drive. After just a small ignition, it didn’t took much time for the engine to warm up and vroom, just like our jeeps…. The soft clay started taking the desired shape and the plan was formulated to utilize the Independence Day to have a small meet and greet breakfast drive by a few interested jeepers from DNCR and Tricity… And agreed to meet all the jeepers from Tricity & NCR at Karnal. While we were going through registration process of collecting details, we checked with jeepers to come out with a theme for the Independence Day drive where Saurabh Sharma came up with a wonderful idea of “Say No To Plastic”… We were already in parallel discussions with FCA to help us support the event and it was this point where #jeepindia to step in, which was very well accepted by them, although the time was very short. A number of jeeps and the list of participants was freezed upon and details were shared with FCA officials for necessary arrangements and got unconditional support from #JeepIndia, #Landmark Delhi #WSL Mohali #RahulJeep Karnal #eventsolutions to plan the drive in their respective regions and help the fellow jeeprs. The closed group meet of 5 jeepers slowly started to turn out as a trail and the numbers gradually started increasing from 5 to 12 to 20 to 35 and finally 61 jeepers along with families registered for the drive.. Which surely was no more just a breakfast drive 🙂 :)Sadly due to time and logistics constraints, we were to close registration and say no to many fellow jeepers 🙁 :(It was a well planned event by Jeep India. DNCR jeepers received a warm welcome at Landmark Jeep, Moti Nagar with Mr. Harmeet Gill (from FCA) briefing about the dos and donts which was followed by breakfast. Same welcome was received by Tricity jeepers as WSL Mohali dealership which was well taken care of by Mr. Nikhil Jaspal (the official Trail organiser for Jeep). #eventSolutions planned the event so well that the jeepers from NCR & Tricity reached Noor Mahal, Karnal with a warm personalised welcome at the same time and the visuals were well captured by their photography team using drone cameras… The jeepers were not at all ready to rest a little after the long drive and straightaway meetings and introductions started between inter state jeepers of the North. The introduction session was concluded with introduction of JEEPag, introduction of Indian Jeepers and a welcome speech cum drill by Mr Nikhil. The JEEPag team and Event solutions teams were further introduced to fellow jeepers. This was followed by fingerlicious snacks & lunch along with chit-chat with each others. FCA, #jeepindia was more than generous to support the event by arranging delicious food and T-shirt for all the participants. Carrying the theme of “Say no to plastic” a little further, the jeepers cleaned the near by areas as a gesture of caring for a cleaner India #swatchBharat. Despite it being a hot day, the yung jeep kids were simply more than cheerful and happy to be a part of the clean drive. Most of us were clearly inspired by the young guns to start up. All the social activities were followed with an off roading trail with a specifically selected a d curated area. Lastly a message to society was delivered by forming “NO PLASTIC” through preplanned placement of 51 jeeps showing that “Responsible Jeepers care for our environment” and again the moments were captured by drone camera. After a well spent day by jeepers at Karnal it was time to bid adieu untill we meet again… Stay tuned @www.jeepag.com for more details..
KHT Prime and Bangalore Jeep Club have planned the Independence Day Drive on Aug 15th, 2018 to Jain Farms.
Theme – Pledging for Eye donation with Rotary Orchards, Bangalore
Jain Farms http://www.jainfarms.com offer a plethora of activities within the resort which can be availed at own cost.
As a good will gesture you may donate for Divyaang Maitri, an NGO run by para athletes for para athletes to represent in domestic and international sports. They also nurture young para athletes. Visit https://www.divyaangmyithri.com/
Like one said Why go on an adventure alone when you could have exponentially more fun surrounded by other like heads enthusiasts? The answer was quite simple and is that to gather all North Jeepers again and have blast. Being the early birds and allure the charm we had to raise the bar this time. So decided to do JEEP’s Way, Adrenaline way.
It was time to decide the location and what else could be better option than to go all away to Shivalik Range in Uttarakhand and do River Rafting. With Help of WSL Mohali we were able to gets our hands on one of Itinerary of best property in business. It was Camp Ganges Riverra situated 40 KM Above Rishikesh and 25 Km from Shivpuri. Finally Jeepers from Tricity (Chandigarh) and Delhi (NCR) ready to had the time of their life. From Bachelors to Newly Married, From Families to People Enjoying solo time from their spouse gathered . After Having Great 250+ K m Drive in JC’s people were ready to Start Day 1 with breakfast followed by Meet n Greet Session with Fellow Jeepers At Waterfall near the Camp Itself. After Lunch Session Jeepers were introduced with Beach Volleyball so that they could burn calories for Bon fire party in evening. Everyone Enjoyed playing Volleyball, Badminton on White sand after ages and realised how important is to outdoor activities.( Life’s a journey best traveled in Jeep outdoor-JEEP Thing). Day end with more opening up and enjoying music in the woods.Cherry on the cake , we were allowed to put our beds outside our camps and sleep under the open sky. It was Nostalgic for most of us and relatable. We experienced one of the most amazing morning to wake up on. Bags were packed and ready for last but not least thing of our journey – River Rafting.
River Rafting said to have its origin from same country from where our Compass got its. Rafting was done about 16 km (Kodiyala to Marine Drive) and another amazing meet came to an end with another drive going back to our cribs.
Whoever said life is a highway, Never owned a Jeep.
Happy Jeeping.
-Rizul Sharma
OIIIIIIIO
JEEP® had announced it’s official Ladakh Trail for Exclusively for Jeep Owners between 16TH JUNE – 28TH JUNE 2018. To Register or for more details visit Jeep Trails India.
