December 1, 2014
Brake-horsepower,
naught-to-hundred numbers, performance body-kit - are you the kind that
indulges in such stuff? Are you that loony-head who spots a curving
section on the road and decides to dial in more revs and attack it? If
you are, then you'll like the fact that the three cars that we have
gathered here are trying to march towards the 'hot-hatch' spectrum. You
could argue that Volkswagen already has two cars that would fit the tag -
Polo GT TSI and GT TDI, but that's for another day.
Between
Vikas, Kritika and I, we've been driving each of these cars for over a
month - swapping the keys, and keeping the odometer count ticking. Let
me tell this to you right at the outset - we didn't share notes until
the very last moment to maintain complete transparency towards our
respective results and opinions. However, when we did, it was startling
to note that the final outcome was pretty much the same.
Lest I
amass hate-comments, let me clarify that looks of a product is a very
subjective thing and you're entitled to your choices. For me though, the
Punto just doesn't work somehow. It is the most noticeable of the three
here - and that's not just because it wears yellow all over itself, but
also because of its obnoxious front-end design and the forced chrome on
its posterior.
Why
did Fiat do such a terrible cosmetic job is completely beyond me. Plus
it's being called EVO - which is just wrong. Why I say that is because
the 'EVO' tag brings about many flashes of automotive brilliance that
Mitsubishi has produced over the years. The Punto EVO is nothing other
than a slightly evolved, relatively fouler version of the standard
Punto.
Sure, the EVO gets a nicer cabin - but that's relative to
its pre-facelift avatar. This thing is just not on the same scale as the
i20 or the Polo. The quality is severely last-decade and the shiny
dashboard reflects so badly on the windshield that there are moments
when you feel like either breaking the windscreen, or demolishing the
dashboard itself.
But
there're some strong points too. The space is very decent - our camera
person, Arif, was most comfortable in the Punto and was moaning about
the lack of space in the Polo. The handling, too, is really good and the
tyres grip fairly well. It has the best turn-in of the three and it's
not rebellious in nature at all. That said, the absolute joy-giver is
this car's steering - it's a hydraulic unit and it feels a lot more
connected than the electric systems. It may not get a geek's
affirmation, but the fact that it feels slightly more physical makes it a
lot more enjoyable than anything else in the hatch segment today.
The
Punto EVO gets its drive from a 1.3-litre MultiJet diesel engine that
Fiat supplies to many other car makers. Surprisingly, Fiat's
customer-companies do a better job of noise insulation. In the Punto
EVO, this diesel unit makes a really loud racket. You may even say it
sounds very raw. Now, I like raw in my mechanical companions; but it's
not really a pleasant experience and you keep praying that the Gods of
all-things-motoring would make this thing die instantly. And if that
wasn't enough, the gearbox feels like its fed gluten and the shifts have
a really artificial, rubbery feel to them. I'm not saying the shift
quality isn't slippery enough - it is, but the experience lacks the
feeling of it being a satisfying event in the process of driving.
The
Punto EVO isn't really unadorned - it gets a lot of equipment, but it's
still not as feature-rich as the i20 is, but that's not the point of
this comparison - this is mainly about driving dynamics. The Punto EVO
is the most powerful here and it shoots off the line fairly swiftly, but
the suspension is absolutely absurd. I was pushing the car around the
same sections of the road as I was the other two - the i20 and Polo -
and the Punto EVO displayed extreme eagerness to hopping on the road. It
felt as if the suspension was always too busy doing
something-or-the-other; it never felt settled and composed. And that
prevented the Punto EVO from being a committed and fun car. That made it
oddly anxious. That's not a good thing. On the whole, I have to say,
the Punto EVO has a rather good engine; but there's not much else to it.
When
Hyundai introduced its refreshed i20, I was very surprised by it.
Seemingly, the company had sorted most of the issues that crippled the
previous model and the 'newer' i20 promises to be a much more composed
and sorted driving experience. To be honest, it does come very close to
all its claims - it really has become an extremely sorted product now.
For
doing the obligatory home-office-and-back exercise, there are few cars
in the sub-10-lakh bracket that come close to the i20. It has a
fabulously designed interior and even the quality is almost as good as
its German rival here. I usually don't care about the overall style
factor of a car, but it does matter to a great extent and the more
special a car looks, the more 'wow' factor it has, and in this
department, there's nothing that matches the i20.
The i20 wasn't
ever a bad looking product - it actually looked quite nice in the
populated hatchback segment, but with the latest update, Hyundai has
pulled off an absolute supermodel. The current i20 makes the previous
one look insipid and some other hatchbacks just pure stupid. The rear, I
think, is the most attractive part of the car and has an unmistakable
Alfa-Romeo look to it. However, I'm more concerned with the way it
drives - because the previous model was not really that great.
I've
driven both, the new one and the model it has replaced, on the track as
well - on the BIC, that is; India's very own F1 circuit. When testing
the previous model on the track, we had a bunch of other diesel
hatchbacks for good measure and the i20 came out on top of the lap-time
chart. It wasn't very surprising because the 1.4-litre diesel engine
delivered oodles of power and the horsepower advantage alone made it
clock well around the BIC. Other cars like the Figo and Pulse were more
engaging and fun though because they communicated and responded better
around the bends, but the lack of power saw them falling by the wayside.
The i20, on the other hand, had absolutely no sense of connection and
the steering felt like it had no life.
The
new i20 feels more alive right from the moment you slot it in first and
set off. Yes, the steering still has a very artificial and vague feel
to it, but it is slightly better than before and the suspension is
rather sorted and controls the body-roll around corners quite well. The
chassis is also more assertive and you can go around bends at a rapid
pace without fearing that the car wouldn't come around according to your
inputs. The i20's suspension is still slightly on the softer side and
you do feel swaying when you drive over some dips on the road at speed.
Otherwise, it's brilliant at soaking all bumps at city speeds and the
seats are also the best in the business here - wide, and offer good
all-round support.
It's a car that's hard to fault, really. It's
comfortable, efficient and it's loaded with absolutely all the necessary
features - and then some. Yes, it doesn't feel too connected and has a
bit too much of an artificial feel and the engine has absolutely nothing
below 2000rpm, but truth be told, it's quite reasonable to drive. It
has that 'special something' which is missing, and that matters.
That's
where the Volkswagen Polo shines brighter than the other two. First
thing that struck me was that its size is so much more manageable than
the other two. Hatchbacks are becoming big and fat and unnecessarily
pretentious. So it was really nice to get behind the wheel of a small
car that really was that - small. The dimensions are just fine and the
shape is also pleasing, if not sexy or exciting. I somehow find myself
drawn more to the straight-lines, simple-design sort of cars. The Polo
now gets a 1.5-litre engine and that makes a whole lot of difference.
It's got a very useful spread of torque that peaks out at 230Nm. You
might say that the GT TDI is more powerful, and therefore more fun; but
I'm not convinced if it is - especially not really good enough to
justify a one-lakh gap north of the regular 89bhp model.
The more
you drive the Polo, the more you like it - and dislike it. The steering
is delightfully direct and weighted; despite of being an electric unit.
The chassis feels like it can handle much more power and it has a great
'heavy' feeling to it which inspires confidence and lets you push the
car as much as your nerves would allow.
One
problem is that the seats are quite silly and don't hold you well when
you're going rapidly around a bend. The other problem is the suspension -
it's soft and though it is good at soaking in the bumps, it's really
not well-suited for animated driving.
But Polo's biggest problem
is the i20. In a car that costs about 8 lakh rupees, you can't ignore
the manual controls for things that you expect to be electronically
operated - electronically folding rear view mirrors for instance.
There's not even an auto-dimming option for the inside rear view mirror -
that's really pushing the boundaries. However, the Polo comes with
airbags as standard across the variant list, and I think I can live with
the other controls being manual if I get safety items like ABS and
airbags.
All
the shortcomings in the Polo still don't stop it from being the most
fun car here. The power delivery is the most linear and it pulls right
from as low as 1000rpm while the others struggle till around 2000 and
though the seats could be better, it still gives you the best driving
position of the three cars. The pedal position, too, is perfectly suited
for heel-and-toe shifting.
But
these cars are still not of the 'hot-hatch' level. It's a good start,
and things will (hopefully) only get better and more manufacturers
(again, hopefully) will embrace this relatively small-volumes segment
just to help build somewhat of an enthusiast culture in the mass segment
of motoring here. Amen.
