Tata Tigor

With an emphasis on style, the new Tata Tigor is a refreshingly different take on the compact sedan.

- Nikhil Bhatia

Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicles, Tata Motors, starts the series of product presentations to our gathering of the media. Hearing him speak, you could sense a cautious optimism in his tone. Understandably so. You see, the compact sedan segment isn’t what it once was. Sales aren’t growing as rapidly as they once did, and whatever growth there is, it’s courtesy the Olas and Ubers of the world, not private buyers. The latter lot of buyers have slowly gravitated towards similar-priced premium hatchbacks and compact SUVs. So, it’s not the best of times to launch a new compact sedan. Then again, Tata is confident that buyers won’t see its new Tigor (pronounced Teegor) as just another compact sedan. In fact, Tata doesn’t even call it one. A ‘Style back’ is what the marketers at Tata would like you to see the Tigor as.

So what is the Tigor and where does it fit in? In a nutshell, the Tigor (formerly known by its internal code – Kite 5) is the compact sedan version of the well received Tiago hatchback. It’s also the model that will become the mainstay of Tata’s compact sedan range; the capable but slow selling Zest is set to be repositioned for the taxi market while the Indigo eCS, which pioneered the sub-four-metre sedan segment, is headed for discontinuation.

Tata says the Tigor was conceptualised to offer buyers a car high on style and rich in features, in addition to the practicality and comfort that similar-sized sedans are just expected to offer. The best of all worlds? Let’s see.

STYLE FILE