The newly launched Hyundai Santro has only one thing in common with its older generation i.e. the name itself. Otherwise, there are no similarities between the old and the new car. The car gets a brand new skin, a new engine under the hood, design which is far from the original ‘Tall Boy’ design which used to be the USP of the car when launched in the late 90s almost 20 years ago.
The new car can be called a ‘Wide & Tall Boy’ car, if Hyundai wants to take some cue from the old car and make an association with the first generation car.
The car promises to be a very good overall package. Starting with the front, hexagonal shaped grill, triangular headlamps which staunchly follows the new design philosophy of Hyundai, being seen in recently launched Verna & XCent, gives the car a bold and stylish look. The front fog lamps are disproportionately big in size with shape similar to what is there in Creta. Looking at the side profile, we get to see wide and large doors for easy ingress and egress of passengers. The boomerang shaped impression on the front fenders gives a distinct style statement to the car. Wide windscreen in front and rear gives good visibility of the road and makes reversing the car much easier. This should be appreciated by the customers, specially the first car buyers which form a major target segment for Santro.Slight kink in the rear door breaks the linearity and also makes way for broader windows. Infact the car inspite of its large rear windows also has a reasonably sized quarter glass, which goes to show that the car’s rear seats are quite wide. The rear of the car houses a very practical but modern looking tail light cluster, rear fog lights though is a miss. The hatchback’s rear door has a uncanny bend at the back . The car has decent storage space, but due to tall stance has a high loading lip which can make loading unloading of luggage a bit difficult.
The car gets a well designed dashboard in which the 7’’ touchscreen infotainment system acquires centre stage and supports Apple Carplay and Android Auto. The large AC vents on both sides of the infotainment screen and circular spoke AC vents on the sides give a modern look to the car. The quality of plastics is good, not excellent though, but is better off than most other cars in this segment. A noticeable change, is placement of power window switches which are there in between the front seats, and not at their regular position on the side door handles. I like this clever design change made in this car to make way for additional shoulder room for front passengers, though at the cost of compromising on the ergonomics of the car. The front seats though well contoured lack a bit of cushioning making them uncomfortable in long journeys. The rear seats can easily accommodate two people, third person would be a bit of a squeeze. The car gets rear AC vents which is a segment first feature. This coupled with a powerful AC compressor makes the cooling faster and effective.
The new Santro gets a 1.1 Litre 4 cylinder petrol engine which produces 69 BHP power @ 5500 RPM. The engine is well suited for the car of this size, with good low end torque, ideally suited for city driving. The car though lacks punch when taken out on highways where its performance is a bit sluggish. Also, a light steering wheel which is quite responsive enabling easy manoeuvrability in the city, makes highway rides difficult due inability of keeping the car steady at higher speeds.
Hyundai claims that the car gives mileage of 20.3 kmpl under ideal test driving conditions. The car with its well refined 3 cylinder engine gives 18 kmpl in highway and 15 kmpl in city driving conditions and can give 16 kmpl in city+highway driving conditions.
The AMT variant of the car is quite impressive. The AMT gearbox meshes well with the engine and powertrain providing optimum performance at all speeds.The AMT uses electronics instead of hydraulics for shifting of gears and engaging/disengaging of clutch which is different from other AMTs available in the market which are all hydraulic based. The gear shifts due to electronically mAnasultanged AMT give a smooth ride with well calibrated gear shifts. Santro has good structural rigidity and a suspension which makes it traverse the undulations on the road with ease.
Santro gets only driver side airbag and ABS from the second variant onwards. Not giving the co-passenger airbag is a big miss for the car and should have been provided. In the AMT trim(only single model), only driver side airbag is being given which deprives people looking for driving effort to miss on the safety feature.
On the whole, Santro is a well designed car which will give stiff competition to its rivals. It is better off then its rivals in many aspects and therefore, will require lot of catching up from them. It should help Hyundai resurrect the lost market share in the entry level hatchback segment, which has eluded India’s 2nd largest carmaker after their exit from this segment in 2014.