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The second generation Indica is outstanding for its segment, punches way above it and is brilliantly positioned to grab sales from almost all sections of the B-segment spectrum. And beyond! says Adil Jal Darukhanawala and the Zigwheels team after the first ever road test of this segment buster.
The new Indica Vista is a conundrum as much as it is a brilliant new B-segment contendor. Contrast it with its original from a decade ago and you would have got a gawky upright car trying to blend in with the scenery - read that as Marutis - but not succeeding. This inability to blend in was also the reason for its commercial success, to the tune of almost 900,000 units produced and sold to date (with another 200,000 units plus for the saloon and estate versions on the same platform).
To date every car maker has marvelled at the Indica package but stayed in the comfort zone given that it catered to a hardy robust type of customer. Well gentlemen, that image is going to change: the hardy robust appeal will remain but this now comes clothed in a smartly cut set of clothes adorning a finely toned body with athleticism and stamina to match. Throw in performance, fuel efficiency, great road manners and presence plus genuinely strong build quality and suddenly you are looking not at catching the others but towering over them!
Yes this may indeed be a bolt from the blue but take it from us this is deserved appreciation. Especially for an all new, from-the-ground-up automobile with the Tata logo placed firmly on the smily face of India's first indigenously developed automobile. Of course in its second avatar the Indica breaks another tenet from the original - it has tried not to reinvent the wheel but take the alliance route for critical aggregates. It is fitting that Tata Motors' powertrain deal with Fiat will manifest itself first in the Indica Vista - ironic in that the original Indica effectively saw off Fiat's very own Palio creation so very effortlessly some years ago.
However as many say an engine alone doesn't make a car or as Jagdish Khattar, former head honcho of Maruti Suzuki said: "People buy cars, not engines," and perhaps he was hinting, tongue-very-much-in-cheek at what was in the realm of possibility for Tata Motors. In fact as the Indica Vista has proved in the course of this first ever road test in the country, the designers and engineers at Tata Motors actually heard him and delivered a product which is outstanding for its segment, punches way above it and is brilliantly positioned to grab sales from almost all sections of the B-segment spectrum. And beyond!
It might seem unthinkable but the finished product rolling out of Tata Motors' modern facility in Pune is proof that Indian enterprise can hack it big time. That the Indica Vista comes when its maker has been dragged into the politically loaded Singur impasse (not of its making), is also ample proof of how much Tata Motors has progressed in the car business since December 1998. Maturity comes in many forms but Tata Motors has displayed this by getting the large hatchback Vista spot on. Our detailed road test says it all.
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