General Motors in India really does seem to be on quite a roll with their new 300 series cars! Just a couple of months ago, they launched the Cruze (the J300) and they will officially launch the Chevrolet Beat (the M300) that you see on these pages at the Auto Expo on the 5th of January 2010. In world markets the Beat is really the new ‘Spark’ but the car will be called the Beat for our market, since the Spark as we currently know it, will continue to sell alongside this new car and GM has no plans of discontinuing the car. Their entire focus is to drive in new products and infuse more life (and youth) into the Chevrolet brand, and the Beat will no doubt help GM gain a better foothold in the Indian market.

The Chevrolet Beat was first seen, along with the Trax and the Groove, as a concept vehicle at the 2007 New York International Auto Show. GM then conducted a poll testing the relative popularity of the Beat, Trax and Groove concepts and the Beat won by a fair margin, we are told. The concept was to create a small car that would appeal to young car buyers in urban markets, while also delivering fun, fuel economy and value. The Beat, known as the Spark for the North American markets, was finally showcased in its final production avatar at the Detroit Motorshow ’09 and is slated to be launched next year in the USA. And if you’re a movie buff, you might recall that the car made its first screen appearance as Skids – an Autobot in the film, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

The Beat certainly looks fresh – it’s got a very dynamic stance and has Chevy’s new (and younger) more aggressive family look on the front. While the car has sharp styling overall, there are some softer lines – the fenders for example, which add a fair bit of muscle to the car, especially at the rear. The design inspiration, we’ve been told, comes from the Cheetah and this car has made it to production almost true to its concept design. The sweeping roofline with the narrowing greenhouse, all add up to give the car a very purposeful stance and also lends a fair bit of muscle to the rear by giving it more visual bulk. (However, we kept thinking Ritz when we looked at the car from the side, possibly since it has a very similar greenhouse). The Moroccan blue example we drove, as well as the other bright red examples on the drive, had excellent paint finish and fairly good shutlines. We’re sure that there will be other young and exciting colours at the launch.

Another visual trick which makes the car look sportier is the complete absence of a door handle for the rear door along the flanks and blacked-out window frames. This gives the car much cleaner-looking sides and makes it look like a sporty three-door from some angles. The door handles for the rear doors are recessed just after the rear windows. The neatly integrated spoiler on the hatch and the silver-finished roof rails also help in adding to the overall sporty look.

The large trapezoidal and wedge-like headlamps pack in an indicator, a parking lamp and a well-proportioned circular headlight unit. The fog lamps are also good-sized circular units and from the little driving we did at dusk, they seem up to the task to handle the speeds the car is capable of. The rear end of the car sports tail-lamp units which house circular brake, indicator and reverse lamps. The top-end variants we drove had good looking 14” seven-spoke alloy wheels (which the brochure says is an option on the LT trim), while the standard fare is a14” five-spoke pressed steel wheel, which also looks quite good. Both the wheel options run the same tyre size – 155/70 R14 and the cars on the drive sported either JK Vectras or Apollo Acceleres.

The Beat at 3640mm sits right in the middle of the i10 and the Ritz in terms of size. It is longer than the i10 by 75mm, and is shorter than the Ritz by 75mm! It’s as wide as the i10 at 1595mm and is 30mm lower at 1520mm. With a wheelbase of 2375mm it is 5mm shy of the i10, but interestingly a good 15mm longer than the Ritz’s. It tips the scales at 965 kilos whereas the i10 is a good hundred kilos lighter at 860 kilos and the Ritz is heavier by 50kg at 1015 kilos. That’s a lot of numbers and what all of it means is that it has dimensions that put it bang-smack between these two relatively new cars which have been doing some fairly excellent numbers. This is also a key factor to understanding the product pricing and the segment which it will cater to. The top-end LT variant we were driving was equipped with driver and front passenger airbags as well as ABS. The car rates 4 stars in the EuroNCAP crash tests.

The interior of the Beat looks quite modern with a well-sculpted dash which swoops in to the very modern looking center console. There’s plenty of glossy-black inserts in the dash and door panels. It’s quite sporty and trendy, and is quite in sync with the overall design language. The plastic quality of the dash is particularly good but the door pad plastic quality could be a tad better. It scuffs easily and owing to the material texture, was difficult to clean. That said, we simply prefer the black and grey interiors of the Beat over a beige one, since beige gets too difficult to keep spotless. The top half of the dash, especially the speaker housing, does tend to reflect in the windscreen in very bright sunlight and was a little distracting on occasion. This could be due to the fact that the part of dash has a slightly shinier finish. It’s never bothersome, but you will notice it.

The center console houses a built-in single disc player that will play MP3s and the radio. It also comes with a plug-and-play USB (mini-USB) input as well as an Aux input. The system is fairly easy to use with large, clearly marked controls and the large volume knob scores big points on usability. However, the sound on most preset EQ settings is quite unsatisfying and tinny. We’re not comparing it to what we’ve heard in larger cars but just what is available in this segment. And since the Beat will necessarily appeal to a younger audience, this is an important part of kit that needs to be improved. We think the speakers are the culprit here and GM should consider getting better speakers. As we foresee, this built-in audio system may be part of just the top-end LT variant, and people will most certainly want better sound quality since they will be shelling out more money for that extra bit of style and features.

There are more than enough storage spaces in the Beat and it has been thoughtfully designed. The large door pockets can easily take in a regular one-liter water bottle apart from several other odd-items. The space below the air-conditioning controls is large enough to house a fair number of CD cases and there are other small spaces to fit in a mobile phone on either side of the dash. The cup/can-holders take in standard beverage cans as well as 500ml beverage bottles. We’re telling you this, because there have been so many more expensive cars we’ve driven recently, where we’ve picked up take-away meals and discovered there’s not a single space where we could safely put the coffee or milkshake! The glovebox is decently sized, and will be more than adequate for most needs. Of the other conveniences, the car has power windows and central locking, albeit without a remote control and also has internally adjustable mirrors (manual). The one grouch we had with the car was the fact that there is no external boot release handle. You either have to pop the hatch using the key or use the boot release lever on the inside.

The LT variant we drove had climate-control with a full auto feature. There are three knobs that essentially work the system. The right-hand knob is the temperature control with the compressor button, the center is the air-flow distribution control with a demister button and the left-hand knob is the blower speed control with the Auto mode button. Above these knobs are the recirculation mode and defogger buttons. There’s an easy-to-read display which shows all of the air-conditioning settings, like the desired temperature, air distribution mode, blower speed and fresh air or recirculation mode as well as whether the compressor is switched ‘on’ or ‘off’. The blower vents in the center don’t feature a close function so you can’t shut them. However the circular ones on the sides (which are increasingly common across brands these days!) allow for excellent air direction control and the ability to shut as well. The blower also has eight steps making it easy to arrive at the desired blower speed in the car.

However the pièce de résistance on the inside seems to be the instrument cluster. This is a combination of a large analogue speedometer and a digital display which displays the time, odometer and trip reading, RPM and fuel level. The design inspiration for this we are told, has come from motorcycles which feature such instrument cluster design. It does add a certain element of ‘kewl’ for the current young generation and is certainly different. Sometimes, though, it is a little difficult to quickly glance at the display and look at what you need to know. This could be simply because of the fact that it’s all in a cool ice-blue colour, so key information like RPM and fuel don’t stand out easily. That said, the ice-blue backlighting on all the controls look brilliant at night and we did quite fall in love with the way the knob surrounds and the audio-system controls light up.

In terms of Interior space the car is quite comfortable for four large adults. The front seats are generous enough for large frames and surprisingly the rear seat legroom is just about adequate, even if you have someone tall sitting in the front. Mind you, it isn’t generous, but you won’t complain. Really tall people will like the fact that the seat rails on the front seats allow for a fair bit of travel and the tilt-adjust steering helps find a perfect driving position. Short drivers may like a height-adjustable seat, which isn’t available yet, and we feel the addition of a dead-pedal would help matters a great deal to offer better driver comfort. This isn’t a car you can squeeze five large adults into but it is comfortable for four and the boot (which we are guessing is just about 200litres) is enough for the bags you’d need for a weekend getaway. A useful touch was the boot light.

The Beat has a four cylinder, 16valve, DOHC, 1199cc engine producing just a shade under 80bhp @ 6200rpm. Torque is a respectable 108Nm @ 4400rpm. This Euro-IV compliant engine is mated to a five-speed manual gearbox for our market and powers the front wheels. The Beat (Spark) will be sold in North America with a turbo bolted on and mated to a four-speed automatic transmission, making it a hot ‘minicar’ – which is what the Spark really is.

This S-Tec II engine sports chain-driven 16-valve DOHC valvetrain as well as variable intake geometry and was first seen early last year in the Aveo range in the other Asian markets. For India, the engine has been re-calibrated for a balance between performance and that all-important factor – fuel efficiency! We really weren’t able to get an exact idea of the economy on our drive (ARAI test figures claim 18.6kpl) but we’d reckon we were getting 14kpl on our drive which involved plenty of acceleration and lots of spirited highway driving – which isn’t really too bad. However, we’ll update this figure once we do a proper road-test of the car.

In our test, the car did a 0-100kph in 15.7 seconds and a quarter mile in 19.6 seconds. We’ll just have to wait to see if we were right when we get the car for a proper test, but that’s what it feels like it will do. It's not quite the rocket, and we so wish we'd get that turbo! What was pleasantly surprisingly good (and honestly quite unexpected) was the in-gear acceleration. They’ve really worked on getting the gearing as close to perfect as possible keeping the average Indian driver in mind, who love to lug the car in the second and the third through traffic. It’s surprisingly quick off its feet with the engine pulling strong and clean. The only fly in the ointment here is the fact that even though the gears engage fairly positively, if with a slightly rubbery feel to it, the second to third shift always made us feel like it hadn’t slotted all the way into third.

The engine is fairly refined and quiet during normal driving, but it can get rather loud and buzzy beyond 4500rpm all the way to 6000rpm. It’s most comfortable on the highway doing 100kph in the fifth where it’s turning over at 3000rpm. We weren’t comfortable doing a top speed run given the fact that the highway we were driving on in North India was full of maniacal trucks and plenty of suicidal tractors traveling towards us in our right lane! It’s quite comfortable doing 130kph and even at that speed there’s barely any wind noise or the feeling of lightness which plagues some hatchbacks. The Chevrolet Beat topped out at 157kph, in our tests.

One of the first things which strike you as you settle into the seats, is the fact that the Beat has control stalks setup for right hand drive. So you’ve got your headlight controls and indicator stalk on the right hand side and the left hand one is for wiper control. The three spoke steering wheel is generous to grip and has contours for ideal ten-to-two hand placement for an ideal driving position. The one gripe that some people had on this pre-launch drive was the fact that you can’t easily ‘thumb’ the horn button. We had no such issues though.

The hydraulic power assist steering rack makes for fairly effortless steering and feels almost perfectly weighed – at no time does one feel it’s too light or too heavy. However it was devoid of some actual ‘road-feel’ and this could be down to the tyres the car is running. The car also rides fairly well over bad roads, if a little stiffly. The front runs a McPherson strut setup with an anti-roll bar and the rear a compound crank type. Bad ruts and potholes are dealt with ease, although you do have to watch the chin and the underpinnings. The 165mm ground clearance is good enough for most of our road conditions but you should be careful when you do decide to drop a wheel onto the rutted make-shift shoulders our highways are so full of.

While the tyres are adequate enough for the car, wider rubber wouldn’t have hurt. But in the quest to deliver better economy maybe the engineers decided to stick to 155/70 R14s across the range rather than plump for 175 section rubber. Sticking to one size also would help streamlining inventory and reducing costs at the operations end.

The brakes had quite a bit of feel to them at moderate speeds but at speeds in excess of the century mark, tended to need a lot more pedal travel to have the front discs and the rear drums bite as much as you’d like. But, we’re going to wait on a final judgment on the brakes, until we get a press demonstrator to do our braking tests and we’ll let you know how it fared. And if you were wondering, the top-end LT examples we drove were equipped with ABS.

General Motors has really pulled up its socks in the Indian marketplace and are ensuring that Chevrolet becomes a young, fun, exciting, trendy and value brand in the minds of the Indian consumer. All their new products are geared to deliver this. However, service at the dealer level is still something that Chevy needs to work on. They’ve done everything they can internally by offering maintenance packages, buybacks and by launching exciting new products.

We are making an educated guess and are hoping that the Beat will be priced between 3.75 lakh – 5.25 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai) but only 5th January 2010 will tell us all. It remains to be seen whether a sunroof and keyless entry make it to the options list for the top-end LT variant. We think it’s a well-styled car and has the potential to give other hatchbacks in the segment a run for their money. And apart from getting the after-sales up to speed, only the final pricing vis-à-vis features, will decide whether it will indeed be a tough act to Beat!