Tata Indigo CS – A notch above the rest

13 March 2008

"Buy one get one free!" "50 per cent off, last few days!" — few among us have successfully eluded such offers thrust on us by the media day after day, every day. In such a scenario, comes a car that actually delivers more for less. Sourya Biswas reviews this notchback that promises to revolutionise the sedan segment, and perhaps shake up the hatchback arena as well.

The evolution of Tata Motors
Circa 1998 AD: Tata Motors, a reputed name in manufacturing trucks, brings out India's first indigenous modern car, the Indica.

Circa 2008 AD: With fanfare mirroring the celebrations a decade earlier, Tata Motors unveils the cheapest car in the world, the Nano.

A lot has changed in this decade. We have had two general elections in the country, India had reached and lost the cricket World Cup finals, and Tata Motors is no longer a truck-maker trying to build passenger vehicles, but is now vying for the top spot with Maruti-Suzuki which has been the market-leader for donkey's years.

In the entire hullabaloo surrounding the unveiling of the Nano at the recently concluded Auto Expo in New Delhi,  many of the other illustrious launches got little coverage. Few of them happened to be from the Tata stable as well, such as the Sumo Grande and the new Indica. And of course, the cheapest sedan in the world, the Tata Indigo CS.

"Cheapest," did you say?

Yes, we definitely did. In a country obsessed with costs, we have always found the word "cheap" to signify value for money and not a compromise on quality, unlike in several Western nations. And in this regard, Tata Motors delivers, and how! Not only does it offer you the least expensive car in the world, (well, not yet, but from September onwards) but it also makes the cheapest sedan to be found anywhere in the new Indigo CS, where CS stands for Compact Sedan. The importance of a boot cannot be understated, especially when many here think that a hatchback is a car that people buy if they cannot afford a sedan. So the Indigo CS, even with its small boot, is a notch above the hatchbacks in the status ladder. Fittingly, it is also called a 'notchback' in its new avatar.