Van-ity fare

As I entered the IT Park where our office is located the security guard stopped me to tell me the parking lot is for IT Park employees and that call centre cabs have to wait outside! It wasn’t before I showed him my parking pass that he let me move on.

It was a moment of realisation for me. This was India after all and in our country, vans are synonymous with either cabs or cargo vans. Speaking of vans, so far options, in the affordable segment, were limited to two Maruti Suzuki vans – the Eeco or the good old Omni from over two decades ago. Now however there’s a new entrant from an entirely different manufacturer. Enter the Tata Venture, India’s newest 7-seater van.

The Venture isn’t just based on the Super Ace platform. It even has the same fascia – the only visual differentiator being the chrome touch on the front grille. The Venture is the first vehicle in India to get plug in windows. Meanwhile the 14in wheels and shallow glass-in area make the Venture look bigger than it actually is. The sharp crease line and long tail lamps also add flare to the Venture’s styling.

Step inside the Venture and you will be disappointed with the quality, especially for the price it comes for. The quality of plastics and fit and finish level suffice but aren’t great. The GX version also gets AC vents for all the three rows, power steering, power windows and an aftermarket music system.

The Venture comes with a flexible seating option of 5, 7 and 8 seats – ours was a seven seater. The first two rows of the Venture are spacious with ample legroom and headroom. The third row however is a tad tight on kneeroom. Although thigh support offered by the second and third row seats is decent we would wish the squab were a little bigger still. Up front, thanks to the wide windscreen, visibility is very good. The large glass area also lends to an air of roominess inside the cabin.

The Venture has a gross weight of 1,990kg and it gets a 1.4-litre diesel engine with indirect injection. Whereas the base model gets a naturally aspirated engine producing 50bhp, the other variants get a turbocharged version that pumps out a maximum of 71bhp.

Needless to say, one shouldn’t expect the Venture to please the enthusiast in him. To begin with, thanks to its near 2-tonne gross weight, it has a poor power-to-weight ratio of about 35bhp/tonne. As a result the engine feels sluggish. Should you push it hard the unit screams for mercy as the revs inch close to redline.

The good part though is that the Venture can cruise at 70-80kmph in the top cog without feeling strained all day long. The engine thus fulfils the purpose the vehicle was built for. We however wish the Venture had been endowed with a common rail unit, which would have been more torquey, and therefore more driveable.

Transmission of power to the wheels is via a 5-speed manual gearbox. Shift quality being rubbery, gear shift operation isn’t the most positive of experiences. And this can be a pain since one does need to downshift a fair amount, courtesy its poor weight to engine output relation. Nonetheless the Venture managed to return a fuel economy figure of around 10kmpl in the city.

The Venture has been built for comfort and in this it fulfils its motive quite well; the soft suspension provides a smooth and composed ride over almost all surfaces. The dampers iron out most of the undulations isolating passengers from the shocks of the road below.

The handling of the Venture though isn’t its strong point. Driving quickly around corners and bends could be scary as it has loads of body roll; good enough really to put the driver off around a corner. With a turning radius of 4.5m, manoeuvring in city traffic however is a breeze and with reverse parking sensors, it isn’t difficult to park either.

The Tata Venture, at Rs 6.03 lakh (on-road, Mumbai) isn’t an inexpensive affair. True, you can get a 7- or even an 8-seater vehicle with the basic luxuries. It’s also less than 4m long, which means driving it in the city should not be a problem. There’s also the option of CNG. However, truth also is, that the Venture does suffer from quality issues and you can get the Eeco, minus some luxuries, for nearly a lakh rupees less.