The Hindu Business Line : One for the road

What's off-road if you can't carry a motor-cycle, mountain bike, or a fully rigged tent? Or at least an outdoor barbeque? Check out this range of rad wheels that affords all.

Seats six, comfortably, and can carry over a tonne of cargo. Power-steering, disc brakes and king of the road features. A three-litre diesel engine that brings a three-lakh kilometre/three-year warranty as standard; 210 mm road clearance; 1100 authorised service stations all over the country, as remote as you like them. Add an air-conditioner to the car interior, and you could still drive one of these home for less than Rs 4.5 lakh. Now that's a real utility vehicle. Sure, we also have the Suzuki Grand Vitara, Mitsubishi Pajero, Chevrolet/Subaru Forester, Honda CR-V, all from Japan and in the Rs 15-20 lakh range. Then some of us can go for the Mercedes-M at around Rs 40 lakh. Or, closer home Tata Sumo, Toyota Qualis and Mahindra Scorpio range in the Rs 5-10 lakh bracket. But none of them have the kind of ground clearance we are talking about here. Nor do any of them afford the luxury of an open cargo area in the rear. After all, what's off-road if you can't carry a motor-cycle or mountain bike, maybe a fully rigged tent? Or, if nothing else, at least an outdoor barbeque? Maybe you want to hang on to the rear deck, wind in your hair?

This, then, is our very own homegrown Tata 207 DI, previously known as the Tata Mobile. Relaunched with the brute power of the Tata-407 engine shoe-horned into an attractive front, this low-cost value for money wonder is currently being sold as a pick-up truck, but has all the comforts of a car thrown in. Including tilt steering. As of now, the authorities in some States in India have "passed" it in both private as well as commercial categories. With a "Bharat Stage-2" emission certification, which means you can get it registered in metro cities also.

Personally, for those of us fed up of being bullied on roads by larger vehicles like trucks and buses, this is it. More than that, I am going to revive my old Java-250, load it in the back, and really go off-road after that.

Prediction: The Tata 207-DI will repeat, India versus Japan, in the SUV/MUV market, what the Tata-407 managed in the LCV market a decade ago. That's great, because the Tatas have always listened to all three customers — buyer, operator and passenger/user.

One for the family

A few decades ago, a new Bajaj Chetak was probably the best two-wheeler you could be allotted in India. (You did not simply buy it then. You booked, waited for a decade or so, and were then allotted a scooter with no choice on colour or anything else for that matter.) While the rationing based "allotment" business has changed, all sorts of new two-wheelers have come into the market. And though annual sales of side-engined, hand-geared scooters have dropped from the lofty heights of a few years ago, not much has changed with the basic scooters made by both Bajaj or LML.

So why does India need yet another side-engine hand-geared scooter? That's simple. It seats a family and the pet goat with some comfort. Packs a spare wheel. Can be repaired anywhere. Can carry a gas cylinder. Most of all, costs very little to own and maintain. Stays on the extreme side of the new highways with as much ease as it does in the middle of a cart track. Simply put, it really does everything.

Now take this package, stay away from delicate pretty-pretty looks, and bring in a twist-grip single-direction gear change, where neutral is on top. Instead of the painfully ancient first on top, neutral in the middle and three below. Make some technical stainless steel-based innovations on the famous clutch-gear dry-wire debacle, and dunk the shifter in oil. Do interesting things to the headlamp and dash console. Retain the tubular chassis for strength and overloading, but bring the riding position closer to that of a dual-seat motor-cycle for lesser fatigue.

Most of all, improve the electricals and introduce an engine compartment cover that can be removed and re-fitted with ease. Those of us who have spent time on the street, frustrated with our attempts to get the Bajaj/LML side-covers back on without the rubber beading falling off, will know what one is talking about.

By going behind in time, and retro-launching the oldest two-wheeler design in India, with improvements, Honda seem to have taken two-wheeler manufacturers in India by surprise with the launch of their "Eterno" range of side-engine, hand-geared scooters. At Rs 31,000, this one will give the old Vespa derivatives more buzz than a wasp ever could.

Prediction: The scooter round, like the motor-cycle round, goes to the Japanese. That's sad, because our Indian two-wheeler manufacturers seem to only want to listen to themselves.

Set to steal the show

There are these amazingly vibrant looking, bright coloured buses, visible in increasing numbers on the trunk routes lately. Especially in the South and West. Your able and not-so-young anymore correspondent chose to look into them, by riding on them and chatting with users as well as drivers, on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, Pune-Bangalore Highway and Bangalore-Ooty Hill Road routes recently. All in the course of some extensive driving done in connection with non-media road testing for a new version of an existing car which I cannot talk about right now.

To be on the safe side, and because one thought it would be more comfortable, one asked for the air-conditioned (excellent) three-box sedan test car, market price in India in the Rs 10 lakh range, to follow the bus.

In all three cases, high-speed, non-stop excellent expressway, medium speed variable condition highway being built, and medium-low speed twisting moderate condition sanctuary and hill roads, the Volvo buses were surely more comfortable than the car could have been. And except for on the Bangalore-Ooty hill section, the test car had a tough job keeping up with the now generic for public transport comfort, "Volvo".

The BR-7 air-con integrated/monocoque chasss luxury bus from Volvo costs about twice that as much as a luxury bus from Tata/Leyland built on a truck chassis. However, it probably costs less to operate, and seems to provide much better "uptime" for the owners. But from the passenger and driver point of view, it delivers far higher safety as well as comfort, when compared to anything else on the road. Including cars. As a thumb-rule, a passenger would apparently be willing to pay the same as what s/he would for an A-C/3-tier train berth on the same route, is the feedback I got.

Now on the Pune-Bangalore route, the fastest train takes about 20-22 hours. The Volvo bus, however, does it comfortably in 15 hours. We are talking about a distance of about 850 km. Some drivers talk about doing this in less than 12 hours.

So it is now not just cost, but also time. And please remember, the Pune-Bangalore Highway is still being completed at many stretches en route. And when that happens, quite some amount of traffic is going to move from train onto bus. And Volvo looks ready to be there at that stage.

As a matter of fact, there was this one rear-engine bus one spotted near Belgaum, which had "Volvo" painted on the front "show", but on closer inspection, revealed an Ashok Leyland axle and chassis. Body by a famous coach-builder in Punjab, this is as vivid a message to both Tata and Ashok Leyland that they had better get their act together with quality luxury buses before OK TATA becomes HI VOLVO!

Response can be sent to life@thehindu.co.in

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