52-Year Old Indian Drives His Toyota Fortuner to Over 60 Countries – VIDEO

Driving a car is often perceived as a mental and physical exercise. Although, people drive their cars just to get from point A to point B. Some individuals, however, use it as an escape route from their busy life routine. Here’s a YouTube video that showcases the same, which we stumbled upon via the channel of Curly Tales. The video is about a 52-year old man – Praveen Mehta, who drove around the world in his Toyota Fortuner, travelling to 60 countries with his wife and son. Mehta says, men have a mid-life crisis at the age of around 40 years, and it was when he started doing long-distance cycle rides from Bombay to Goa and Manali to Leh.

Eventually, Mehta started riding a motorbike and travelled to Ladakh and Kanyakumari.  With the appetite for long-distance trips increasing exponentially, he planned for the aforementioned world trip in his Toyota Fortuner. He claims that it was the extension of all his earlier trips. Mehta started the drive with this wife and son in April 2019 and covered around 74,000 km while travelling to 60 countries. Talking of the itinerary, he travelled to Bhutan first, followed by Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Estonia, Finland, Denmark, Europe, UK, USA, Mexico, and more.

Also, he managed to return to India just two days before the nationwide lockdown was imposed. According to him, he was on this trip to meet the change-makers of our society. During the drive, he got car-jagged once when a thief broke the rear windshield of the Fortuner and took away 10,000 USD worth of accessories, cash, and other essentials.

Talking about his ride – Toyota Fortuner, it is one of the most reliable cars that are on sale in the country today. Underpinned by a ladder-frame chassis, the Fortuner is a capable off-roader. It is sold with a 2.7L petrol and 2.8L diesel engines, which produce 166 PS/245 Nm and 204 PS/500 Nm, respectively. It can be had with either a 6-speed manual gearbox or a 6-speed MT. Also, the diesel-manual trims get the option of a heavy-duty 4x4 drivetrain. Prices for the Fortuner start at Rs. 29.98 lakh and go up to Rs. 37.43 lakh.