Hasta la Vista!

Tata Motors has been expanding its current offerings and at the same time even giving facelift to its existing models. The Pimpri-based automaker launched the Aria 4x2 this month to fill in the price gap between the already existing Safari and the 4x4 version of the Aria. Now, they have facelifted the Vista gets a lot of gadgets from the Manza, giving it sedan-like features.

Highlights:

-The Vista is the only hatchback in the segment to get an in-dash music system and steering mounted audio controls across the range expect the base model. Other hatchbacks get this feature only in the top-of-the-line variant.

- Tata engineers claim that the clutch pedal is now lighter by 20% than before.

- The Vista will be available in six shades of which the Summer Sparkle and Brilliant Blue are new colours.

The Vista now gets a Manza-like front grille as it sports the chrome grille with the triple barrel headlamps and the front fog lamps get chrome surrounds. A lot of chrome bits have been added to the side of the car, alloys and it now even comes with smoked tail-lamps.

On the inside, the Vista gets the dual black and Sahara beige interior shade, electric ORVMs and steering mounted audio controls. The quality of interiors on the Vista has been improved further and now it gets the soft-feel touch dashboard. The effort to open and close the doors has reduced, as the door handle and lever have become lighter than before.

The Vista will be available with the same four powertrains and they remain untouched as Tata had recently upgraded them to meet the Bharat Stage IV norms. We drove the 1.3-litre Quadrajet engine. There’s not much to say about the Fiat powerplant – we simply love the engine! The turbo lag on the Indica Vista isn’t too much and the engine cleanly pulls from even low almost –walking speeds even in the second gear. Engineers at Tata have reduced the driving effort as the clutch and the steering wheel have become lighter reducing driver fatigue.

The Vista has pretty good ride quality and Tata have really managed to get the Vista to ride even better well without compromising too much on the handling front. The suspension is well composed even broken tarmac road and as the suspension absorbs most of the road shocks.

Tata has gone about renaming its variants and included a lot of features in the lower variants. This will be the biggest advantage that Tata can boast of, as the second base model will come loaded with features like in-dash music system, steering mounted controls and Bluetooth, which are features normally made available in top-of-the-line variants of all the hatchbacks sold in India. So, with improved quality and addition of more frills makes the Vista even a better value for money hatchback that one can procure.