Tata Indica Vista Quadrajet Aura

Tata set out to deliver even more car per car with the new Vista

Published on Sep 08, 2009 07:00:00 AM

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It takes a while, but you soon realise why the Vista doesn’t feel like a Tata. There is precious little vibration on the move, the cabin is silent and, incredibly, shifting gears is easy too.The Vista feels responsive and tractable in city traffic and lower gearing helps as well. Peak torque is reached at 1750rpm and with the turbocharger optimised as well, it’s actually slightly nicer to drive in the city than the Swift. With gearing identical to that of the Palio D, the Vista is a good highway cruiser as well, the Fiat diesel spinning unobtrusively. And overtaking slower cars is relatively easy too. But the Vista is neither as fast as the Swift, Indica DiCOR or the Palio D.

100 from rest takes 16.4 seconds, more than a couple of seconds away from the Swift, but due to the gearing the gap narrows slightly by 120kph. Top speed is a decent 151kph. Though we did like the Vista’s gearbox, the light clutch and especially the unobtrusive manner in which gears are selected, the gearshift needs some degree of effort to operate.

Heavier than the Swift but now with more torque at a lower rpm as well as shorter gearing, the Vista did brilliantly in our city cycle, giving 13.6kpl to put it in the same ball park as the Swift diesel. On the highway, a short gearing does penalise economy to some extent but the Vista still acquitted itself well by returning 16.7 kilometres per litre.