It’s 47 degrees Celsius. Power lines are buzzing over my head, and the terrain is open and arid, except for the freshly laid tarmac of the Coastt High Performance Centre race track in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. It feels like I’m in Martian terrain. More so because of what’s in front of me: Bujji. It’s a mammoth vehicle that makes you believe you’ve stepped out of reality.
There are several sci-fi films about the apocalypse consuming humanity, leaving behind dystopian survival-of-the-fittest world that the hero navigates from the sanctuary of their super-vehicle. I never thought I could step into that kind of future outside of a dream. But I did.
While most filmmakers today use CGI and artificial intelligence to create these kinds of visuals, director Nag Ashwin wanted a touch of reality for his fantasy, Kalki 2898 AD, his newly released film that stars actors Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Deepika Padukone. So, he roped in Mahindra and Mahindra and JA Motorsport from Coimbatore to build Bujji.
I’ve been an automotive journalist for over 20 years and driven everything from a tractor to a Sherp, but this is quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The gargantuan machine is over 6m long, 3m wide and 2m tall. Its sheer size blows me away, and I see the hubless front wheels—yes, I can see through and through the centre of the wheel. Purpose built, the 34.5-inch wheels with inches of rubber, crafted by Ceat, function with the rims mounted on taper roller bearings and then on to the hollow hubs. It’s all done to create a cool-looking wheel. While there are two wheels in front and only one in the rear, it is a far cry from a Polaris Slingshot (the three-wheeled motorcycle). The rear axle weighs about 3 tonnes, and the wheel’s frame pivots on the vertical and horizontal axis.
The cabin is nestled in a transparent bubble-like canopy. The machine looks like something out of a Transformers movie.
I step up into the sparse cabin, and the raw look is all intentional as the hero of the movie, played by Prabhas, is supposed to have built this out of the scraps he could find.
I am thankful that once that canopy shuts over my head, there is an air-conditioner.
The steering folds up from the floor, and I lock into place via a lever and use another one to move forward. As I accelerate away, the two electric motors offer me instant torque, and this 6-tonne behemoth is propelled forward super rapidly—9000 NM of torque is what’s on hand. I am trundling down the dirt runoff areas around the Coastt track feeling super invincible, decimating everything in my path, imagining myself warding off evil villains and capturing the enemy.
In the film, the rear half of Bujji has a cage to hold captured enemies, but here, it houses the 47kWh battery.
One of the engineers who is riding shotgun with me tells me to steer on to the track. Bujji is rear-wheel drive, and considering there is only one wheel at the rear, I imagine I will have to steer it like a rudder on a boat, but it turns easily enough, much like a large truck would. It accelerates easily, and once I am on the tarmac, I step on the pedal and drive into 2898AD at a rapid pace.
It’s easy to dream inside Bujji, but I have to navigate between a set of cones and turn around. Like a truck driver, I turn a little wide, and Bujji sails through to the other side.
I feel like I have stepped into a crazy world way in the future. I am grinning from ear to ear, little 5ft 3 inches me driving this monster. I feel like I can fight off any evil anti-hero that crosses my path.
As I get out, I am still wrapping my head around the crazy amount of engineering that has gone into this vehicle, built to navigate a post-apocalyptic world.
The Mahindra and Mahindra and JA Motorsport teams say it took more than two years to create Bujji. The surprising nugget of information shared by director Ashwin, a car nut himself, is that they couldn’t use the actual car because of the two-year long wait. Instead, they used a prop vehicle. But since they thought since the project had started, it would be great to complete the car. The film industry is crazy, isn’t it?
Renuka Kirpalani is consulting editor, Autocar India.
