The Hyundai Santro has been around for some time now. Initially, it’s odd-looking shape caused lips to sneer and its Korean lineage had all of us distrusting the product. Now, three years later, this ’Tallboy’ has mopped up most of the awards going around. It has also chalked the maximum sales in its category for two of the three years, beating the combined sales of three Maruti cars in this range, the old warhorse Zen, the ’original’ Tallboy WagonR and the new Zen - oops, the Alto.
Santro has has a superficial facelift a year after introduction and a more major one this year, with the Engine capacity going up by 10% to 1.1 L. The new ’ZipPlus’ has all the endearing qualities of the earlier ’ZipDrive’, besides being a lot more zippy. Pleasing colours add to the charm of the new Santro.
Strange, isn’t it, that the first Tallboy on Indian road does not look so gawkish anymore??? Strange too, isn’t it, that a Korean car has surpassed Japanese car sales records? Not so strange, considering that what drives the Indian market (for any product!) is value for money - something that the Santro offers, much more than any other car screeching down our narrow and potholes-ridden roads!