The Maruti Alto has another claimant to the small car throne it has held for over a decade now. But can the Datsun Redi-Go make a successful claimIJ Kushan Mitra finds out
Kolkata is the unlikeliest city to schedule a media drive, but after the countless runs up and down National Highway 76 between Udaipur and Mount Abu, Kolkata is an oddly welcome change. And the roads of New Town, reclaimed from swampy marshland are wide and smooth; the urban development of this ‘new’ Kolkata is far removed from the ‘old city’ and is indeed a template that other Indian cities wishing to redevelop themselves should follow.
In the middle of New Town, there is a lake; ‘pukurs’ are a cornerstone of Bengali habitations, only that this lake is surrounded by multi-storey towers as against small adobe huts.
The problem is that in this rush to develop a new Kolkata, something has been missed out. Evidently, the powers that be feel that what has been missed out is a connect with ‘nature’. So in the middle of this lake, itself in the middle of this ‘New Kolkata’, is an ‘Eco-Village’. Which would be very nice if it weren’t for hundreds of dead fish across the lake there, and this ‘Eau De Kolkata’ would be familiar to anyone who lived in the city during its industrial and cultural decline through the 1980s.
But, in all fairness, the analogy about things remaining the same no matter how much they change should not apply to Kolkata now. Despite the tragic flyover collapse recently, and lakes full of dead fish, Kolkata is a great example of urban modernisation in India. Most of my companions on this trip were markedly impressed with Kolkata; a Kolkata where the roads and public transportation infrastructure are being built along with the city. Not as an afterthought like in Gurugram, Bengaluru and Navi Mumbai.
However, in one aspect the more things change, the more they remain the same. And that is the Indian small hatchback market. Maruti is running a lovely television campaign to celebrate the fact that they have sold three million Altos in the 15 years since they first brought in the car. No other carmaker in India with the exception of Hyundai has sold that many vehicles in the same period. Maruti Altos, with recent facelifts, have managed to hide their age as well as ageing silver screen stars, thankfully without the use of botox.
And the Alto has done this despite facing a lot of competitors over the years, from inside the Maruti stable and to cars like Hyundai Eon and Tata Nano. Cars have come and gone, but displacing the Maruti Alto from the top of the hill has been impossible.
And now there is another contender to the throne, the Datsun Redi-GO, the reason why I was in the city of my birth.
Datsun has decided to call the Redi-GO an ‘Urban Cross’ vehicle. Don’t ask me what ‘Urban Cross’ is, but this is likely in reference to the car’s 185mm of road clearance. The raised clearance is supposed to make the car a winner on rough roads. But the roads on New Town Kolkata and even the lovely, classical bits of older Kolkata where we went early the next morning are really nice and when the car did face an uphill stretch with speedbreakers up to the lobby at the Hyatt, it stalled. You need to keep the revs up on the car.
The higher seat position and large field of view did make the car very easy to see out of; which is a good thing because the interiors of the car are rather spartan. Sure, this is an entry-level car but there are some things that could have been done better. The colour of the plastics for example, the dull brownish-grey coupled with tacky silver inserts is par for the course in the cheapest econohatches. And you notice the places where the plastic isn’t there. like the door pockets, where the door frame is the backing.
And there are some other issues, mainly the noise. Carmakers spend a lot of money reducing what is termed as Noise, Harshness and Vibration (NVH) in a car; this is an expensive process and Datsun-Nissan have cut back on that; engine noise is significant as is engine vibration.
This is also not a car that enjoys being driven at low engine speeds which, as we learned as traffic started, mashing gears all the way down to first in certain circumstances even in moving traffic. But the one significant change from its ‘GO’ siblings from Datsun is the floor-mounted gearbox and the simple handbrake.
It is unfair to judge this car against the lovely German-made sedans that I drive every second week. But judging it against a car like the Alto, you do find it wanting in some areas. That said, it looks nicer than the Maruti and if Datsun gets their pricing and service network right, it could give the Alto significant competition in a couple of years, much like its sister the Renault Kwid has done.
The Redi-GO lacks the SUV-esque styling of the Kwid, but Datsun officials say this is to attract a younger buyer to the market, and the angular styling also means that Datsun claims that the Redi-GO is the most spacious car in its class.
But then again, in a highly competitive market, defeating the dominant player is not always the aim at the start. The main aim is to pick off the other players and in that sense, is the Redi-GO as good or better than the Nano for exampleIJ
It certainly is more practical with comfortable seating for four and decent luggage room. This is a car for $4,000 and when I tell a German gentleman of that car, he is stunned. The fact is for that kind of money getting a brand new car with four seats, a decent engine and some safety features is quite an achievement. It is also true that multiple companies have achieved this feat in India.
The Redi-GO is a very good proposition when you consider the fact that it will be an entry-level first car for most owners. It is not perfect, far from it, but expecting perfection at that price is ridiculous. It ticks the boxes of what a first car for a 20-something is in India.