IGNITION
The star of the 15th Auto Expo was undoubtedly the Tata Sierra concept, shown with an EV powertrain, and hinting at Tata Motors’ Creta / Seltos rival due in 2021
Exhaustive coverage of the Auto Expo 2020 with everything from the likes of the Tata Sierra EV concept to GWM’s debut showcase for India
GOING INTO THE AUTO EXPO, WE knew VW and Skoda would unveil their mid-size SUVs, we knew MG would have a Fortuner rival, we knew about Kia’s sub-compact SUV and Hyundai’s new Creta. But a new Sierra? It was the best kept secret of the Expo and it received spontaneous and thunderous applause from the assembled ranks of journalists – yours truly included. Yes, journalists are supposed to be rational and unemotional about such things, reporting facts and figures from launches and reveals, but the reality is that in our formative years, the Sierra was king. Imperfect and impractical but with a desirability quotient amped all the way up to 11. We – what Millennials label as Boomers – grew up lusting after it, despite knowing that the guys sitting in the back were getting a proper roasting in the Indian summer. The Sierra was India’s first SUV, a lifestyle SUV before the term was even coined, and from a truck maker it put Tata Motors, then TELCO, on the radar of us (starved) car enthusiasts.
Much water has flown under the bridge and we don’t have the space to get into all of that, save to say that the Sierra faded away before social media could lay its merciless fangs into it. As a nameplate, nearly three decades on, it remains an icon — ripe for a rebirth on Tata Motors’ 75th birthday.
That’s the emotional part dealt with. Millennials will be more interested in what they’re looking at, and on that front I can report that the Sierra concept looks fantastic in the metal. It is an obvious evolution of Tata Motors’ Impact 2.0 design language but with more precision, tightness and minimalism. Design head Pratap Bose references the mobile phone industry for inspiration, and he has made no bones of his admiration for Land Rover design director Jerry McGovern’s ‘reductionism’ applied to current Range Rovers. The nose has what he terms ‘flush tech’ while the ‘tough tech’ of the bottom half is emphasised by the underbody cladding, bash plates and rugged SUV cues. It is in profile that the Sierra EV concept harks back to the past with the large window graphic that defined that original Sierra, yet with the practicality of a sliding rear door on the kerb side to overcome the ingress/egress issues. And of course with modern HVAC systems the rear quarters are in no danger of turning into an oven.
The cabin is pure concept car with the swivelling front passenger seat and a sofa for the rear seats. Interestingly Bose and his team have stayed clear from the current trend to overload the dash with screens, a move he calls ‘Digital Detox’. There’s space on the centre console to plug in your device and the rest of the cabin focuses on being a calm and relaxing space with minimal digital intrusions.
In keeping with the times — and the general theme of the Auto Expo — underneath the hood
is an electric powertrain. This is well within the realm of reality, Tata Motors proving their EV capabilities with the recently launched Nexon EV, but no specifications have been revealed for the Sierra except that it will have more performance and better range than the Nexon. Of more relevance is the fact that the Sierra has a proper hood that can house four-cylinder diesel and petrol turbocharged powertrains; mass adoption of EVs are still a long way away. Underpinning it is the new ALFA platform of which the Altroz was the first recipient. Unlike the original Sierra, the concept is front-wheel drive and that is what the production version will persist with. The flexible architecture has been stretched to 4.1 metres in length for the Sierra concept, though the pictures do make it seem much larger. Actually if you look back in time, the original Sierra was also similar sized so this concept does stay true to its roots and reminds you of the fact that back in 1991, Tata
Motors was probably ahead of its time.
Today it is behind the race, at least as far as mid-size SUVs go. The Creta strapped booster rockets onto Hyundai’s sales trajectory and the Seltos fired Kia right into the top-ten list of manufacturers, mere months after they arrived in India. That’s the big hole the new Tata Sierra will address, particularly important for a manufacturer who has deep roots in SUVs.
Make no mistake, the Sierra is no mere pie-inthe-sky concept. Nothing on the Sierra concept is miles away from reality — Pratap Bose even points out that the wheels aren’t “silly-sized”. Our guess is the mid-sized Sierra SUV will hit Tata Motors showrooms in under 18 months, with both EV and IC-engined powertrains giving multiple options to the clientele. In any case, Tata Motors no longer make concepts just to fill their stands at motor shows. And, most heartening of all, their designs make it remarkably unchanged from the floor of motor shows to showroom floors.
“This being the 75th year of Tata Motors, we wanted to pay tribute to the team that created the original. They had nothing to look back on, they only looked forward. “It’s a skunkworks project [over] 6 to 8 months. I didn’t want it to become a retro mobile, a slave to the past. If a young kid saw it today without seeing the original, it should be an appealing car.
“A lot of people have this fear that when you go electric you go boring. I don’t think this is boring by any stretch of the imagination.
“This is based on the ALFA architecture. The Altroz is available in both forms, EV and ICE. So yes.
“A lot of the interior, door panels are very close to reality. We wanted to show the car as a digital detox space. If you see inside, there is a little iPad and that’s it. You can bring your own device, put it in on what we call the Tech Shelf.
“There are no silly size wheels, the dimensions are very real, the roof is not cut off, it’s not a coupe. It has a very real footprint, an engine can and will fit in here. We haven’t gone crazy so that it’s unbelievable.”
NOTHING ON THE SIERRA IS MILES AWAY FROM REALITY, WITH SPACE FOR IC ENGINES “It’s a part of India’s cultural memory” Pratap Bose, Tata Motors global head of design on the Sierra EV concept