Tata Indica Xeta - Incremental Progress

Just as the V2 revived Tata Motors' passenger car dream, the company hopes its new XETA will further fuel its petrol-engined ambitions. Will it or won't it? We find out

Story: Kartikeya Singhee Photography: Kunal Khadse

Webster's Dictionary Circa 2050 Indica: A successful Indian product of truly Indian origins. The word is derived from the first automobile to be designed, manufactured and sold successfully by an Indian company. Several variants of its original hatchback design were spawned and eventually over one million vehicles based on the platform were sold. The diesel-engined vehicle sold in large numbers across the nation and even has the notable achievement of having been exported to several countries across the globe. The diesel-engined Indica received notable appreciation from all around, whereas the petrol-fuelled versions played second fiddle on the sales graphs.

Will the future read this way? Ever since I drove the new Tata Indica XETA (eXtra Efficient, Torque Advantage), I'm fairly sure it will not. Even today, the Indica is spelt D-I-E-S-E-L; despite the advent of the petrol engined model back in 2000. Just as an example, the other day when I strode into the B U Bhandari dealership to pick up the XETA, I inadvertently blurted out "Gaadi mein diesel hain na?" The driver gave me a queer look and reminded me that the car I was about to drive was a petrol engined one. That story has been that way since day one. The petrol Indica has been in the diesel's shadow; despite structurally being exactly the same as the diesel. Even the block was the same as the diesel's, fitted with a head suitable for a spark ignition engine! But for the customers it was a moot 4.30 lakh rupee question of trusting a company whose experience lay in making diesel vehicles, to turnout a good petrol vehicle. The Tatas have, figuratively, grown up swimming in diesel - vehicles, that is; trucks being their mainstay. They never ventured into petrol trucks or any petrol vehicle manufacturing activity. So where exactly did they cut their petrol teeth? Tata's lack of prior experience in petrol technology gave potential customers cold feet.

However, the power of numbers is supreme and Tata Motors core idea was to offer mobility to the masses. While the majority of the vehicles rolling out of Tata showrooms were diesel, the market as a whole remains biased towards refined and powerful petrol engines. But, the demographics are slowly changing. Volume players cannot ignore the petrol engined small car segment, and the business sense of potentially creating two breadwinners from one platform screams, "DO IT!!" Which they did. In more than half a decade since 2000, Tata Motors has merely participated in the petrol segment on one hand, while fielding the rip-roaring success of the diesel on the other. Now, it seems, they are ready to scorch the small petrol car segment as well.

In India, the price tag and fuel efficiency claims orchestrate sales figures to rise or fall. A sure fire way to lure the public into the showrooms is to offer an unbelievably low price tag or a high fuel efficiency figure, better still, both in the same package. It was never that the Indica was a perfect mechanical package, far from it. Despite, its quality and reliability issues, people kept queuing up for it. Given the success of the Indica, this implies that Indians are inherently sadistic or masochistic folk, which we are not. Actually, we are rather shrewd; the cost/value equation offered by the Indica's hardy if troublesome mechanicals and its low cost, decent efficiency equation was what made it a runaway hit. Tata knows the magical equation only too well.

Source: Car India April 2006.