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Tata Motors is launching the three row version of the Harrier as the Safari. We drove the car before its launch to find out whether it matches up to the Safari moniker and also how it drives and how it differs from the Harrier

- Yogendra Pratap

Likes Third-row space, safety, sound system

Dislikes Small screens and displays, too much like Harrier

What does the new Safari have in common with the iconic SUV that heralded Tata Motors’ arrival onto the SUV stage? Well, not much actually. Apart from the fact that they are both seven-seaters. The Safari from its launch in 1998 had undergone changes of powertrain as well as platforms and the new Safari retains nothing from either of the past SUVs. Whether it was the body-on-frame architecture or the independent rear-suspension geometry – the new Safari has nothing of those. And while the Safari was always available as a 4WD vehicle, the new Safari is available only as a 2WD and the driven wheels are also now the front wheels unlike the previous generations of Safari where the 2WD versions were RWD. Besides, the Safari had always been a rugged SUV with a body-on-frame chassis, for the Harrier and consequently, for the new Safari, Tata Motors has adopted a heavily modified version of the Jaguar Land Rover D8 architecture that was itself a modified version of the Ford EUCD platform. To cut a long story short, the OMEGA-Arc (short for Optimal Modular Efficient Global Advanced Architecture) platform is a cheaper version of the JLR platform, with the use of a lower proportion of high tensile strength steel as well as the doing away of the multi-link independent rear suspension in favor of a take on the cheaper semi-independent twist-beam axle suspension that Tata Motors is calling the twisted blade with panhard rod suspension. Of course, the same suspension also does duty on the Harrier.