Chennai, March 13 (IANS): Debutant director Guhan Senniappan says the vintage Contessa car, which plays a pivotal role in forthcoming Tamil road thriller "Sawaari", is the real hero of the film, which is slated for release on March 18.

"This is a road thriller featuring three contradicting characters - a cop, a psycho and a driver - that are headed to different destinations on this journey. The real hero of our film is the Contessa car," Guhan told IANS.

While it was usually available in white or cream colours, the makers chose a black colour Contessa for the shoot.

"We thought black would be an interesting choice, given that this is a thriller," he said, adding that shooting in the car was very challenging.

"Most of the story unfolds on the road, inside the car, and the shooting part was very challenging. At all times, the car features three characters and hence, there wasn't any room left for another person to sit with a camera and shoot," Guhan said.

The camera was attached to the car and the actors had to deal with the shot.

"When the car moves, the camera would roll and the actors would call the shot. If a shot didn't go well, we had to reshoot it from the beginning," he added.

The other challenge was to shoot in the forest, which was inundated with wildlife.

"The film was planned to be shot at night, but we couldn't because we were shooting in the dense forest where wild elephants were known to loiter, so we had to shoot only during the day," said Guhan, who guarantees the film has elements to appeal to all sections of the audiences.

"The three characters represent different type of audiences. Although this is a thriller, audience will be surprised by comedy at the most unexpected places. The unique screenplay will be one of the highlights," concluded Guhan.

The film stars Benito Franklin, Karthik Yogi and Sanam Shetty.