Variants of the Accent never seem to stop. Inwake of the GLX aimed at the buyer with some extra cash and the GVS aimed at the buyer running a little short of cash and GVS aimed at the buyer running a little short of cash comes the flagship Accent, the GTX Tornado. With a new engine and some exterior frills, the Tornado aims to appeal to Ikon SXi as well as the Honda CIty buyers with her mix of style, power and loads of kit. Sirish Chandran has the lowdown on the speedy Korean.

Have you ever wondered how times have changed, how much easier life is these days as compared to just a few years back? I'm sure you don't spend too much of your time worrying about it. I didn't, not until I came across this moron on the highway. I was on my way back from Goa when as usual I had the usual urge to tank up my stomach. Among the cars parked outside the dhaba was a Zen, with the bonnet wide open. Letting the Good Samaritan in me take over, I asked the dude whether he needed some help in fixing his car. The bemused guy politely thanked me, informing me that nothing was wrong with the car. Turns out that this chap had just traded in his 10 year old Ambassador for a spanking new Zen, but then old habits die-hard. What this chap was doing was to let the engine cool down, in usual Ambassador style so as not to get stranded at the next ghat due to overheating! Sounds funny but its true. It was not that long ago that I used to do the same thing in my Ambassador at every halt. Back then a road trip meant planning on the scale of a minor military exercise. First the beloved car has to go to the mechanics for a complete run down, which would take anywhere between a day to a week depending on the number of parts to be overhauled. But that didn't mean your troubles were over. Among the luggage to be packed was a twenty-litre can of water for topping up the radiator along with cans of oil, required every day.

Plus a comprehensive tool-kit that would put a small garage to shame to fix all the little things that would and always went wrong. It's a testament to modern manufacturing process and quality standards then that these worries are consigned to the memory books, to be related to grand children in their formative years. Road trips these days are just a matter of popping in the luggage, tanking up on petrol and hitting the road. Of course some head poking under the bonnet is still called for, on the regular run of the mill types. But never on the truly well built cars like the Accent GTX Tornado we have on test here. Imagine logging on 3000 plus kilometers in the span of fifteen days and not a squeak or rattle to show for! Just clicks on the odo and a willingness to go that that extra mile, speaks volumes for the car, before we even get down to the actual road test.