The SUV Era

- Abhishek Chaliha

Tata Motors appears to be riding this surge in demand for utility vehicles with aplomb – with the Hexa, and now the brand-new Nexon. The Creta continues to set the sales charts alight, but it’ll face far stiffer competition from the Jeep than it could possibly ever have imagined.

In the sub ten-lakh playing field, meanwhile, the Maruti-Suzuki Vitara Brezza simply isn’t taking its foot off the gas. At the same time, the sales of the Honda WR-V appear to be consistently on the rise. So, despite how impressive it looks, can the upcoming Tata Nexon actually shake up the compact SUV segment?

On that note, let’s get cracking...

There’s a new ‘Jeep’ in town

Every once in a while, an extraordinary personality comes along. This aspect is valid in every walk of life, whether it be in regards to sportsmen and women, world leaders, musicians, actors, and so on. These kinds of people have such strong personas that they overpower their respective field by their sheer presence.

This is exactly what Jeep is attempting to do here with the Compass. In an SUV crazed nation, it’s ironic that we don’t really have a proper, usable, and comfortable 4x4 in the twenty-lakh range – until now! So, it seems that Jeep’s all-new Compass is in a league of its own right from the get-go. Or is it? You see, while the Compass comes with the legendary Jeep badge, and despite its bold 4x4 badge, it comes only with a torque-on-demand all-wheel drive system – unlike the bigger Jeeps that feature proper full-time four-wheel drive systems.