The entire country took notice when Nissan India’s Datsun car brand took re-birth and its first car, the Datsun Go, greeted the audience today.
The new car, which was until now being called as the K2, will go on sale in 2014 and will be priced lower than INR 4 lakhs. This means that the upcoming Datsun Go will rival the entry level variants of Hyundai i10, Maruti Suzuki Wagon-R, Estilo & A-Star and base variants of Chevrolet Beat in the ultra competitive compact car segment of Indian car market.
Rumors are afloat that the Go will soon spawn a 7 seat MPV that will first go on sale in Indonesian car market.
The Datsun Go is said to be based on last gen Micra’s platform and will be positioned below the newly launched Nissan Micra Active. However, in no way can the Datsun Go be thought of as a cut-price and stripped out versions of the Micra.
Talking about the car’s exterior styling, the Go looks well proportioned and every bit like a modern hatchback should. Datsun has done a good job with the car’s styling and while the Go won’t win any beauty contests, the inoffensive and understated looks would certainly appeal to a large scale of audience.
A look at the interiors shows that the car has a dash mounted gear lever (a la Hyundai i10) and the dashboard has a clean and uncluttered layout. The instrument binnacle is pretty spartan and consists of an analogue speedo and what seems to be a digital tacho and fuel gauge. The car gets a 3 spoke design for the steering boss and the doors don’t get any fabric inserts. Also, the car won’t get a a ‘close-able’ glovebox! The front seats get fixed headrests. One of the talking points of the car is the front passenger seat, which extends all the way till the driver’s seat, to form a “bench seat like” arrangement. We can already see people trying to squeeze three in the front.
Powering the Go is a 1.2 litre petrol engine that is speculated to have 62PS of power. Datsun hasn’t yet unveiled the spec sheet but our guess is that the 1.2 litre engine will be tuned to offer fuel efficiency than the Micra.
Overall, the K2 seems to be a decent car, with none of the quirkiness that was being expected by some of the industry watchers. It will surely be interesting to see the effect of Datsun cars in our market.
Go to next page for new 2014 Datsun Go image gallery