Following the Sierra’s Trail Through Hampi

Hampi is not a place you need to rush through. The roads wind between giant boulders, old temples, and the Tungabhadra, with something new appearing around almost every corner. We arrived in the new Tata Sierra without much of a plan, but an old photograph soon gave us one.

Inside the glovebox was a handwritten letter and a faded photograph of a man standing beside a 1991 Sierra. The letter spoke about his travels in the car and pointed towards a particular spot in Hampi.

That gave us a reason to explore.

Two Sierras, one landscape

Following the location took us through Hampi’s narrow roads and rougher tracks. The new Sierra handled the route without making a fuss, while some of its features came in handy along the way.

• 360-degree camera: Automatically came on when the car entered tighter sections.
• 205mm ground clearance: Helped over Hampi’s uneven tracks.
• Mappls navigation: Helped us follow the location from the letter.
• PanoraMax sunroof: Made the final stop a little more enjoyable as we looked out over the landscape.

But the more interesting part of the drive was what we were seeing around us.

The original Sierra had been here decades earlier, and we were now driving its modern successor through the same landscape. The two cars are separated by generations of design and technology, but the roads, rocks, and views remain familiar.

Finding the old view

Eventually, the clues led us to the large boulder overlooking the Tungabhadra that appeared in the photograph. After spending the drive trying to work out which part of Hampi we were looking at, there it was.

We parked the new Sierra beside the same landscape and compared it with the old photograph. The difference between the two cars was obvious, but the place itself had changed surprisingly little.

Then we checked the date.

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36 years separated the two photographs.

For us, the drive showed a different side of the Sierra. The original was a car that took its owner across South India, while the new one brought us back to one of those places all these years later.

It wasn’t about recreating the past. It was simply about taking the new Sierra somewhere the old one had already been, and seeing what remained along the way.