Rather than calling it a warm or a hot hatch, we’d say that with the new turbocharged petrol engine, the Tata Altroz is now well-equipped to perform like its image suggests. We are yet to spend time behind its wheel and maybe it could surprise us with the new-found muscles in its feet. So we’ll reserve our opinion until then and share a new TV commercial which has been released for the good-looking car.
Two cars line up at a start-finish line to a countdown which sounds a lot like it has been picked out of the famous 8-bit video game – Road Fighter. A little wheel spin and then the cars set off to show off the new sport mode. Post that is a marketing spiel and a mirror where the blue Altroz admires itself post a handbrake-helped slide. We don’t know what happened to good car commercials.
The Altroz iTurbo must be fun behind the wheel though, for being equipped with a 5-speed stick, mated to an engine which does crank out a decent amount of power on paper. With that, the car’s dynamics, which are quite sorted already, must make for a good match. Prices for the turbo petrol Altroz will be revealed on the 22nd of January although other details about the car are out. It gets a new shade of blue and is powered by a 1.2-litre engine which cranks out 110 bhp of maximum power and 140nm of torque. The Altroz iTubro claims to accelerate from zero to 100 kmph in under 12 seconds and for delivering an overall fuel-efficiency of 18.13 kmpl.
In terms of other equipment, it gains two extra tweeters for its JBL system, leatherette seats for higher trims, a grey theme for the cabin (black and grey), and a Sport mode, which accompanies the City mode. Some of the key features are push-button engine start & stop with smart key, cruise control, and iRA (Intelligent Real-time Assist) which is Tata’s version of connected car tech. Alongside idle start-stop technology, it gets a seven-inch floating touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, automatic headlamps, rain-sensing wipers, anti-glare IRVM, automatic climate control, cornering stability control, etc.