India’s largest car exporter, Hyundai Motor India Ltd commemorated its decade old journey in India by organizing a unique transcontinental Delhi to Paris drive that was flagged off from the national capital- Delhi on 10th September 2008 by Olympic Gold Medallist Abhinav Bindra.
The drive passed through the historic city of Agra and Gwalior along with Bhopal from where i10 was driven down to Hyderabad. From the city of Nawabs, the cars reached their destination – Hyundai manufacturing plant in Chennai.
The cars covered approximately 2,300 km long journey in India. With this the Indian leg comes to an end and the European leg begins to Paris where the car will be showcased at the Paris Motor Show 2008 in October..
From Chennai the i10 will be airlifted to Turkey and driven to Paris. The drive would be for last more than a fortnight and would traverse the international borders of 10 countries including Turkey, Italy, Greece, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany to end in France. The event is being co-sponsored by Hyundai partners Mobis, Shell, Bridgestone, Mando and HSBC.
On this occasion H. S. Lheem, Managing Director, HMIL said “It is a moment of immense pride and happiness for all of us at Hyundai as we complete 10 successful years of operations in India. This extra-ordinary drive of i10 Kappa from Delhi to Paris is an acknowledgement of our technological prowess and the advanced quality of products and services. Hyundai has played a remarkable role in changing the dynamics of the automobile industry in India and with this unique drive we want to create automobile history.”
The i10 Kappa was launched recently in July and the drive is an attempt to prove the performance and reliability of the engine and the i10. The i10 Kappa on this epic journey will be driven by a team of well known automobile journalist who will take turns driving it across to Paris from Delhi. The i10 till its launch has sold over 100,000 units and exported