MIDDLE GROUND

Answering the question you all have been asking. Can the Harrier take the fight to the best-sellers?

- SIRISH CHANDRAN

IF YOUTUBE COMMENTS ARE anything to go by, the Harrier has an extraordinarily large fan base. And a rather vocal one at that. Among the gems on the evo India channel, one particularly strident Harrier enthusiast accused us of being “biased to foreign brands” for not including the Tata in our Creta v Seltos comparison test. “Being an Indian try to promote Indian cars n (sic) help Indian manufacturers,” hollers Jachin before delivering a crushing verdict. “U (sic) reviewers are so disappointing.”

Well, we can only feature cars that we can get our hands on and believe me when I say your comments spurred us to pull whatever strings we could to get hold of the 2020 Tata Harrier. Here, then, is the comparison test you have all been clamouring for. And we will try our damndest not to disappoint you.

The nicest on the eye Now styling is a matter of personal taste but let’s not take away from the fantastic job Pratap Bose and his teams did with the Harrier — so much so that two years later it still looks fresh, contemporary and on the money. Apart from new rims there are no visual tweaks to the 2020 Harrier and, truth be told, it didn’t need any, save for the urgent re-profiling of the wing mirrors to reduce giant blind spots. Even today, the Harrier turns the most heads and that’s despite the Seltos, in a very flashy shade of blue, running in the same convoy.