An auto fanatic from childhood, much of my growing years were spent reading car reviews and watching auto shows on cars I dreamt of owning one day. As I approach middle-age, without owning most of the cars I dreamt of, I still continue to follow popular car shows like BBC’s Top Gear & Channel 5 UK’s, Fifth Gear.

After moving back to India (I lived in New York for about 10 years), I was curious to see what kind of car shows existed in a country where luxury brands like Mercedes and BMW hit record sales during a time of global recession, and people spend Rs. 6 crore on Bugatti Veyrons.

Amongst the popular auto shows aired in India, are UTV’s Auto Car Show & NDTV’s Car & Bike show hosted by Renuka Kripalani and Siddharth Vinayak Patankar respectively.  Both of them are similar in that both are pretty boring for the car enthusiast used to watching international shows. For starters, both shows are hosted by people who don’t display the energy, passion and madness which you can see in a Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) or a Vicky Butler Henderson (Fifth Gear). These two give you the impression that they wet their pants a little every time they are behind the wheel! That is what makes it so interesting for the viewer. Siddharth and Renuka on the other hand, seem like they may have spent the previous night cramming information, to score a B+ on a multiple-choice exam on car specifications – as a result never bringing any passion or ‘drive’ to their respective shows.

Having said that, from a car buyer’s perspective both these shows are informative. Extremely informative. While they don’t have the passionate hosts, choreography, music or adrenalin exhibited by their Western counterparts, they do make it pretty simple for an indecisive buyer to narrow down on what his or her next car should be. For example, Renuka Kripalani recently hosted a mid-sized diesel segment, in which she compared the Skoda Rapid, the Volkswagen Vento and the Hyundai Verna.  She thoroughly compared and contrasted every differentiating aspect from the exciting (or not) design, to the ride quality, suspension, power, comfort and aesthetics of each car. After this episode, at least I found it easy to evaluate which of the three fit my criterion best, as I am certain did other viewers.

But while the review was thorough, it was a bit misleading. For instance, the Vento was eliminated first on the basis that it was slightly more expensive than its sibling, the Skoda Rapid. However, Renuka previously spoke in detail, about the Vento’s superiority to the Rapid in terms of features, richness & aesthetics. Maybe it’s just me, but in the real world, when you get more, you pay more! Moreover, throughout this episode she praised the Vento & the Verna profusely, while patting the Rapid’s back only on account of its suspension and price differentiation, while portraying a rather dull image of the car. But in the end, it was the Rapid that won!!

Renuka made a strong case about the superiority of the Hyundai Verna; its array of features and its superior silent engine, saying that compared to its competition it looked like, “the wild child of the three and will keep you turning back for second glances”.  The Verna looks about as ‘wildchild’ as Rakhi Sawant looks saintlike. For a car host, it is important to not just talk about which car floats their boat, but about which car statistically floats the world’s boat, based on actual figures.  And after exciting the viewer with these stellar reviews, and underplaying the competing cars in almost every feature, the Verna didn’t win.

While the Indian shows do a good job in the segmentation of new cars based on their size, price range and utility, as far as reviewing cars individually is concerned they just haven’t managed to get it right. What I mean by that is, when an exciting new car hits the market, you need an exciting review to supplement it.

For example, Siddharth recently reviewed the 6^th generation BMW 3 Series scheduled to hit Indian markets by June. The 3 series has always been one of the most aspirational cars in the world for buyers looking to enter the luxury segment, and auto shows across the world eagerly await the launch of such cars so that they can create an equally awesome video review to entice their excited audiences. I have honestly seen more vibrant reviews of wheelchairs on American television than Siddharth’s review of the new 3 series. As I said before, these guys leave no stone unturned when throwing the car’s fact sheet on screen for their viewers. But these shows aren’t supposed to be just about facts & figures. If that were the case, then why have a video review? This episode literally showed Siddharth sitting in the car talking numbers and nothing but numbers. Later on the track, he drove the sporty 3 series like no 3 series had ever been driven on a track before: Like a soccer mom driving three infants, a dog & some fragile Swarovski, on her way back to the boonies. While all shows reviewing this car from different countries drove it through various landscapes, different road conditions, skidded donuts on streets & drove through tracks like Schumacher, our shows took out their measuring tapes and spent a chunk of the show discussing the 3 millimeters of increase or decrease in length compared to its predecessor.

Here’s the thing though: To be fair, a part of the reason auto shows hosted in the west are so much more enjoyable to watch is because they have the budgets required to help them create epic reviews. For example, in 2008, even after cutting production costs, each episode of Top Gear was estimated to cost an average of 200,000 pounds. (Source: caradvice.com) Here in India, the budget for each episode is roughly around 3-5 lakhs, if that much. And while Clarkson, Henderson and the rest of the international auto show hosts are like demi gods amongst the car enthusiast community, they are paid like demi gods too. Jeremy Clarkson reportedly makes up to 6 million pounds a year, just for hosting Top Gear. He probably makes double that on the side writing columns and testing cars off air. Having said that, these guys get paid because people want to watch them. 60 million people worldwide on a weekly basis, to be precise! When one can command that kind of audience, they will be paid! It’s a cycle – more money means a better host and a better show, which in turn means more money. In contrast, when you’re reviewing the madness inside a 700 bhp supercar on an open Indian expressway, and a Hyundai Accent overtakes you while you’re discussing the car’s ‘seductive headlamps’, chances are people aren’t going to be too impressed!

This is probably why car enthusiasts even here in India, continue to follow Top Gear & Fifth Gear’s reviews instead of the local shows to determine which car should be their next car. People looking for specifics can find factsheets online. Just like a painting needs a good curator to sell it, bringing out the soul of car for an audience requires a truly passionate car nut. Not a marketing executive who decided to switch to anchoring.

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