Shoulder room.
It’s not something that ranks high on one's priority list when buying a car, partly because your budget is sometimes restrictive of the size of the car you buy and generally if the car is heavy on features, you would be willing to overlook this point.
But with cars now going beyond just aspirations and becoming a necessity, having sufficient space inside has suddenly moved up the pecking order. Now, this is the first time we are doing a comparison on shoulder room of any type in cars. And so, for this debut, we have decided to look at a breed of cars restricted by the tight lines of the segment they are present in. Yes, we are talking about compact sedans and here they are in ascending order of the shoulder room they offer for the front passengers. The front shoulder room is defined as the width between the two B-pillars and is measured at window line.
Maruti Suzuki Dzire (1260mm)
The segment leader in terms of volumes and presence in general actually offers the least amount of front shoulder room. At 1260mm, it’s realistically not that far away from the rest of the cars in the competition but sometimes just having that extra space really helps.
Tata Tigor (1280mm)
The Tata Tigor sits one segment below the cars that are being looked at here. But since it is a compact sedan, we have brought it into the discussion. On paper, the Tigor is ahead of the Dzire but in real world conditions, the extra 20mm will have not have much impact on the shoulder room in the car.
Volkswagen Ameo (1290mm)
If you thought the battle between Dzire and the Tigor was close then the battle between the Tigor and Ameo is even closer as there is only 10mm separating both the cars. Like the previous two cars, here too, the fight is only on paper because 10mm is almost negligible in terms of real world space.
Honda Amaze (1300mm)
The Honda Amaze is now in its second generation and with the generational change, the car seems to have got a new lease on life. However, dimensionally it is the same as the previous model and that has managed to bring it to second place in the list.
Hyundai Xcent (1320mm)
Topping the list of cars with the most shoulder room in the front is the Hyundai Xcent. At 1320mm it’s the roomiest in terms of shoulder room and beats the Maruti Dzire by 60mm which, in such a closely fought battle, is a huge number! A new Xcent is slated to be introduced within the next two years. But given that the car already sits at the edge of what’s possible for a compact sedan, we don’t expect its dimensions to change at all.