Radio and TV personality Kriya Gangiah will soon be back on the small screen.
She joins Victor Pardal as the new host of “Tuned In SA”, which looks at everything from performance-modified rides to crazy custom builds, on Ignition TV.
They are currently about five episodes into production for the seventh season.
During my chat with Gangiah, who viewers will also remember from her work on SABC3’s “Mela” as well as “Supersport”, she explained how her latest gig came about.
“Obviously, with the Covid-19 pandemic, everything kind of got put on hold. ‘Mela’ stopped filming. So I started looking at opportunities on other channels,” she explained.
And so she reached out to a producer that she knew at Ignition TV. As luck would have it, he was keen to have her on “Tuned In SA”.
Now don’t be fooled by all her lockdown recipes, aside from being a foodie, Gangiah has been a car enthusiast for years.
“Growing up in a family who were very into their cars, I kind of picked up the bug from there and then I got big into motorsports.”
She hosted a few shows in that space, too, so stepping back into this arena is a natural transition for her.
She added: “Essentially what I love about this show, it takes my love for motorsport and cars and combines it with the community element.
“This show is all about people’s passion for their cars, their passion for creating something unique, and connecting those two things for me was really exciting.”
Gangiah pointed out that pimping one’s ride, so to speak, is not a novel concept in the country.
“South Africans have been doing this for years and it has become a real community. It might be an underground community as it’s not as mainstream. But the community that is involved in it is so heavily involved in it, that shows like this can exist and really thrive.”
Having grown up in this culture, I quipped about the love of Golfs by some of the guys in the hood, which she immediately got.
On working with Pardal, she offered: “He’s been on the show pretty much since inception. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his idea to create the show.
“He is so embedded in the modified car community that he is the perfect fit for the show. And I just get to join him for the ride.”
Although the season should be wrapped up, the schedule suffered a setback due to the coronavirus.
But she’s having plenty of fun, all the same.
She added: “At the introduction of each episode, I get to drive the car before we meet the owner. So it has been a little bit of a challenge because some of the modified cars have their tweaks and finicky bits.
“I had recently driven a 1973 VW Beetle and, at that stage, I don’t think they catered for short people, so I couldn’t reach the clutch and I had to sit on the edge of the seat. So that was an interesting experience.
“There are some beautiful cars. The one gentleman has a VW Up and it was probably kitted out better than some of the BMWs you buy stock-standard.
“It’s amazing. His bagging, which refers to the air that lifts and drops the suspension, is controlled by his phone on Bluetooth.
She also revealed that his windows were tinted red as in “full-on red”.
“This week, I’m interviewing someone who has a fish tank in her car.”
“A fish tank?” I asked, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing wrong.
She confirmed that it was a fully functional fish tank with actual fish.
Just when she thought she had seen it all, she witnessed some owners with R90 000 cars fitting it with accessories that cost anywhere in the region from R200 000 to R250 000.
We decided not to get into the semantics of car insurance as it does get a bit tricky with what you can and cannot insure.
Of course, one needs to bear in mind that these aren’t the owners regular everyday rides. They normally take them out for weddings, special car events and such.
“Tuned in SA” season 7 will soon be airing on Ignition TV (DStv channel 189).