Alright, if you haven’t figured it out already, let me spell it out for you — India is not the best place to be an automobile enthusiast. If like me, you get excited at the sight of anything pumping out with more than 300bhp (but don’t have the money to own anything close to that), you’ve got to resort to being the automotive equivalent of the paparazzi to satiate your hunger for fast cars. We’ve got plenty of supercars around, but no roads to drive them on and no tracks to race them on. And this means most supercar owners take their mean machines out in the dead of the night, or simply leave them languishing in their garages, leaving people like you and me very, very frustrated.
This is precisely what led to the creation of Pete’s Super Sunday. Peter Chacko, the owner of Pete’s Automotive Products realised how many people want to catch a glimpse of performance cars up close and decided to get supercar owners together and make it happen. Pete’s Super Sunday takes place in Kochi on one Sunday every two years; this was the third time the event was taking place. The supercars all lined up at a Kochi hotel in the wee hours of the 3rd of April, and from there went on a 100km drive which ended at the CAIL convention centre, right next to Kochi airport. Quite a few interesting cars turned up, there was a Ferrari F430 alongside a 458, a couple of Lamborghinis including the rear-wheel drive Gallardo LP550-2 and the Huracan. A Nissan GT-R showed up as well as a couple of Audi R8s and Porsches including a lovely blue 911 Targa. And the list just goes on and on — there was an F-Type, some Mini Coopers, a BMW Z4, a DC Avanti, a couple of M cars, AMGs and some souped up Lauras.
This was the first time that manufacturers officially participated in the event. Lamborghini sent over an Aventador Roadster, while Mercedes-Benz sent over the AMG GT S. Maserati displayed the GranTourismo, GranCabrio and Quattroporte. Even Jaguar and Land Rover joined the party and displayed quite a few products including the new XE. But it wasn’t only four wheelers that made it to the show — over seventy bikes including Kawasakis, Ducatis, Benellis, Harley-Davidsons, Indians and Triumphs were put up on display.
And if you think all you could do there was go and look at cars, you’re wrong. There was a go-karting track set up for enthusiasts so they could go head to head and get the adrenaline pumping. Also, Gaurav Gill made an appearance, driving his rally-spec Super XUV on a specially designed dirt track.
The turnout was impressive — over one lakh people showed up over the course of the day! It just goes to show how much people really want to see cars like these on the roads. It’s another two years before Pete’s Super Sunday takes place again and the who’s who of Kochi will hopefully have even more interesting cars next time round.