The Hyundai Elite i20 has been chosen the Indian Car of the Year 2015. The most prestigious Indian car awards which are judged by a panel comprising the editors of Indian auto magazines chose the Elite i20 for the top honour. The Elite i20 competed with the Honda City, Honda Mobilio, Mahindra Scorpio, Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Maruti Suzuki Alto K10, Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Tata Zest, Datsun Go and Toyota Corolla and managed to come out victorious.
So does the Elite i20 really deserve to be the winner? Well, we tried to analyse the list of the contenders and the Elite i20 seems like a fair choice. Here’s why.
Let’s start off with the Celerio, the one product, which in our opinion came the closest to the i20 for winning the coveted award. With the Celerio, Maruti engineers and marketing guys sat down together, and did the laudable deed of democratising automatic transmission in the country. An AMT auto may not be the most advanced, or the most enjoyable automatic transmission system, but it sure makes life a lot more comfortable in traffic infested, clogged roads of a metro. Also, unlike the traditional torque converter automatics or the CVTs it has minimal effect on the fuel efficiency of the car. AND it’s cheap. The Celerio AMT made the average cost-conscious Indian car buyer aware of the automatic transmission, and presented itself as a viable option. It evoked unprecedented interest for a low-cost automatic car, giving its audience an insight into how their everyday driving woes could be easily addressed. An automatic car, with a reasonable sticker price and fuel efficiency comparable to a manual transmission variant was something that really captured the imagination of a typical, traffic stricken Indian metro dweller.
Apart from the transmission, however, the Celerio was an ordinary product. An average looking exterior, a rather disappointing interior and an overall finish and build quality which left something to be desired. Even with all its virtues, the Celerio couldn’t quite cut it for the Indian Car of the Year.
The Alto K10 AMT also made a case for itself by becoming the most economical AMT on offer in the country. However, the Alto K10 isn’t a brand new product –it’s a refresh in essence. Also the Celerio, which is a brand new product having been launched with the AMT earlier, somewhat stole the thunder from its smaller cousin.
Next on the list is Honda City, which has been an old, reliable, well-rounded nameplate, and in its newest avatar looks better than ever. It’s bigger, more feature packed, spacious and is offered with two great engines. It would be hard to overlook the City knowing how well it reinvented itself and snatched the top spot back from the Verna authoritatively. It isn’t the best choice, though, for two primary reasons. One, it doesn’t address a popular segment – the volumes in the category the City represents are much lower than in the hatchback or entry level sedan segment. So it doesn’t affect the market with enough impact to bring about a quantum shift. Secondly, the City doesn’t bring anything entirely new to the table – bigger, better, more is always good, but not enough to get the top honours.
Honda Mobilio, another strong product from Honda, though impressive in execution doesn’t quite come across as the gold standard in its category. It tries its bit to outclass the Ertiga, its primary rival, but doesn’t quite succeed. It’s a nice product, but it doesn’t raise the bar in any way.
The Scorpio has been around for ages, and in its newest iteration it’s better than ever. The specific segment it caters to isn’t big enough and the changes it incorporates don’t quite make it all that compelling a product. The design, in particular could have shown some more maturity.
The Ciaz, again a new product from Maruti Suzuki, and an impressive one at that, could have been a strong contender. However it doesn’t take the top spot on the podium for reasons somewhat similar to the ones we described for the Honda City.
The Zest is a very capable product from Tata Motors, and in terms of cabin quality and features, raises the bar for the rest of the players in the field. The two things that go against it are its uncanny resemblance with the Vista platform and the fact that even with all their newfound zeal to uplift the appeal and quality of their products, seasoned journos would wait for a couple of years before recommending Tata products strongly with confidence.
The rest of the two contenders, the Datsun Go and the Corolla are too basic and too expensive respectively to become the forerunners.
That was about the other contenders, but what is it that makes the Elite i20 tower above the rest and take the ultimate accolades? Adopting the new Fluidic Sculpture 2.0 design philosophy, the i20 has managed to re-invent itself into something which is much more desirable and upmarket as compared to the other products in the segment – an extremely important segment which has plenty of options. It comes across as a truly international product with hardly any flaws. Of all the products we have discussed and described above, it’s one option that one wouldn’t think twice before recommending to friends and family emphatically. And that’s making a big statement for the fiercely contended hatchback category it represents.
Our gripes include the lack of a multi-information display and the missing DRLs, which, mysteriously, are available for the European market. Then again, those aren’t real deal breakers for the Indian customer who is now enamoured by the qualities of this multitalented supermini.
So while we agree with the result of the ICOTY 2015, we completely understand if you don’t. It’s just our opinion, and you may have a totally opposing one. Do let us know if you think that we were wrong in our analysis, and if you think there could have been a better winner. We’d be glad to hear your arguments via comments.