Take Two

It’s a tough follow-up, but It had to be done. It can’t possIbly be done better, though, can It?

- Raunak Ajinkya

Fifty thousand five hundred and ninety five. You’ve got to be doing something right if that’s the amount of cars you’ve sold in the last three months alone. Bear in mind that this isn’t the figure for one company’s entire line-up of cars; it’s the cumulative number for only one of its cars — the Dzire. I’d have fidgety, jelly hands were I assigned to come up with an encore for it. Thankfully, and rather wisely I might add, that’s not the case, obviously. How do you follow that up?

Well, just like this. This is the new Dzire, and before that conjures up images of infuriating taxi drivers manoeuvring it recklessly down our roads, let it be said that the current car will be rebadged as the ‘Swift Dzire Tour S’ and sold to cabbies to help you differentiate between sane drivers and taxi-folk. The ‘Swift’ tag’s been dropped as well for this new one, although I wish Maruti had spelled ‘Dzire’ right, too. Anyway, that niggle aside, there’s much to look forward to. I don’t believe there’s a car around that looks better, not in this area of the playground, at least. The subtleties in its design are as likeable as its more glaring elements, and this amalgamation helps it to be a crowd-puller. That’s not something you’d expect to be saying about a car like the Dzire, so obviously the designers have been justifying their worth. I’ll leave it to your eyes to form an opinion about its look, of course, but we’re sold, that’s for sure. So, apparently, are the people of Goa, who couldn’t help but glare inquisitively every time one of our media cars flashed past.