After the Tiago and Tigor, Tata Motors is now trying to breach the premium hatchback segment. As a first in the keenly competed segment dominated by Maruti Suzuki Baleno and Hyundai i20 enters the Tata Altroz. The car will be launched in January 2020, however the company has started accepting bookings for the car on their website as well as at showrooms for a down payment of INR 21,000.00. The car will be offered in five trims, XE, XM, XT, XZ and XZ (O). At the time of launch you can choose from five colours, Avenue White, Downtown Red, High-Street Gold, Midtown Grey and Skyline Silver.

The Tata Altroz is based on the new ALFA platform which is a new modular platform developed by Tata Motors and which allows short development type for different types of vehicles. The platform can be used for developing hatchbacks, sedans, UVs with either petrol, diesel or even electric propulsion.

Altroz follows Tata Motor’s Impact 2.0 design. It has a slim grille flanked with narrow projector headlamps. The body lookes chiseled out of a block of metal and has large glass house to give it a an airy feel. It has large fog lamps integrated with the bumper with a uniquely shaped LED DRLs. The car is endowed with 16″ laser cut alloy wheels which look handsome and give its a futuristic look. The rear door handles are integrated into the C-pillar to give its the looks of a sporty two door hatch. All the four doors open wide by 90 degrees to allow easy ingress and egress from the car.

The Tata Altroz is 3,990 mm long, 1,755 mm wide, 1,523 mm tall and has a wheelbase of 2,501 mm. Inside the car is spacious and the floor pan is flat allowing for comfortable seating for five people. It has a floating island dashboard layout and two 7″ screens. One screen is dedicated to the infotainment system while another 7″ TFT screen acts as the instrument cluster and navigation screen which provides turn by turn instructions. Incidentally, the display of the infotainment system can be replicated on the instrument cluster. The infotainment system can be integrated with both Apple CarPlay and AndroidAuto. The leather covered steering wheel has controls for the infotainment system. Tata Altroz replicates all the notes of the music being played on the Harman music system which has USB, bluetooth and iPad connectivity.

The car comes with idle stop start function along with a city and eco driving mode for better fuel efficiency. For ease of driving it comes with a cruise control. It has auto headlamps, rain sensing wipers, a wearable key for keyless access and a start/ stop button. The Altroz comes with a fully automatic climate control and rear AC vents and 15 litre cooled glove compartment. It has a 345 litre boot whose volume can be increased to 665 litres by folding the rear seats.

On the safety front, in addition to the steel structure the Tata Altroz comes with twin airbags, ABS with EBD, reverse parking camera with dynamic guiding, corner stability programme, collapsible steering wheels and the standard features including seat belts etc. The cars comes with Independent MacPherson dual path strut with coil spring at the front and Twist beam with coil spring and shock Absorber at the rear. The steering is electrically powered. Front wheels have disc brakes while the rear do with drums.

Tata offers the Altroz with two engine options. A naturally aspirated 1199 cc inline 3 cylinder petrol engine which is BS 6 compliant. The engine produces 86 PS of power at 6,000 rpm and 113 N-m of torque at 3,300 rpm. The power and torque are transmitted to the front wheels using a five spees manual transmission. The petrol car weighs 1,036 Kgs.

The second engine option is a turbocharged and intercooled 1,497 cc inline four cylinder common rail diesel engine meeting the BS6 norms. The oil burner produces 90 PS of power at 4,000 rpm and 200 N-m of torque at 1,250 to 3,000 rpm. In this version also, the power and torque are transmitted to the front wheels via a five speed manual gearbox. The diesel engined cars weighs 114 kg more than the petrol at 1,150 Kgs.

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