Imagine me taking your brand new baby, dropping it by mistake it and breaking one of its legs. And then imagine you dealing with that rather uncomfortable situation gracefully; assuring me that all was well and that I wasn’t to worry about it. This was precisely the situation that faced Tata Motors when they graciously flew me out to Udaipur to test the new Bolt. I’ll make no bones about it; I crashed my test car quite badly whilst trying to avoid an absolute idiot on the highway. First time that’s ever happened to me.
Since me job (at times) is to review very expensive cars and bring them back in one piece, I’m a very careful driver and I hope the idiot who changed lanes without looking in his mirrors gets violent diarrhoea. And I also hope that because I like the Bolt. It’s sort of the perfect recipe for a city car; small on the outside and big on the inside with a tiny petrol engine and loaded with useful features. So, here’s the big question – has Tata Motors made their second ever good car? In short, yes.
At the Zest launch, we were treated to billions of First-in-Class this and Best-in-Class that. This one was different. ‘Hello everyone. This is what we’ve made. We hope you like it’ was the general inference. Much better. And it looks pretty good. Pratap Bose (Chief Designer) must have taken one look at the Vista and decided to start all over again. He’s done a fine job on the Bolt. I’ll just say that the overall styling is pleasing, yet striking.
The inside is 20,000 light years better than old Tatas. There’s genuine quality here. To say that it feels as well built as the Swift’s and a lot better than the Etios’s (Oy! Toyota! Wake up!) is as good a compliment as I’ve ever given a Tata. Harman’s been at work here as well, so you get a great 8-speaker stereo, many things to play with on the touchscreen system, and…wait for it… satnav! Mapmyindia gives you maps that you download on your phone and connect your phone through a cable to the system for satnav via an app. It’s a lot easier to do than I’m making it sound.
The petrol version we had on test had Tata’s 1.2L turbo that puts out 90bhp and 140Nm of twist. Even though it has a slick 5-speed manual, driving the thing takes some getting used to. It has 3 modes; City, Eco and Sport. I was expecting this to be something to make fun of, but they really work. They change the engine characteristics, throttle response and many other things make it feel genuinely different.
We used City mode in the city, Eco mode on the highway and Sport mode on twisting roads on the way to Kumbalgarh and, weirdly, they all worked. The steering, though electric, feels positive. Only at very low speeds do you feel the assistance. As speeds build, it firms up nicely and lets you know quite a lot about the surface you’re driving on. Throw in a nicely-sorted chassis that rides well over just about any surface, well-judged suspension, 9th generation ABS with EBD, Goodyear NCT tyres and you’ve got a dynamic package that is going to send the Hyundai i20 scurrying into the woods.
Again, if you do meet someone from Tata Motors who’s been a part of the Bolt project – their glasses should be empty by now – please buy them another round.
