On design : Indica Vista Anniversary edition

The Anniversary edition Vista, the best looking Indica yet

It’s the first post I’m writing about automotive design and hopefully it won’t be the last. The subject is unfortunately neither as hot as a Ferrari nor as cool as an Aston Martin, but needs to be spoken about nevertheless. It has actually driven me to write this, since I’ve been postponing this post for a long while now.

The subject is the new Tata Indica Vista. The earlier Indica looked like a mangy cur with enough empty space in each wheel arch to park a vespa, but the new one comes with a very polished suit. I’m going to stick to the exteriors of the car only, because that’s what I’ve experienced till now. Actually, I don’t want to spoil this good thing by actually driving the car.

OK, the design then. Bloody brilliant. And I’ll tell you why. Firstly, let me take a bow to the designer from the I.DE.A design institute who penned this design and also to Tata motors for having the gall to keep the final product as close to the design as possible.

Before I start waxing lyrical about the design discipline, let me put a couple of things out of the way – The grill sucks. I guess that was Tata’s sole final requirement. “We need the smiley face grille because that is our small vehicle corporate identity”. Damn them for that. A grille truer to the design would have made this car much better. And the small wheels. An unfortunate necessity for cost savings, though a redeeming feature is the ability to take 15 inch rims, which will surely enhance the looks. But the rest is just, wow. I know, I know, it’s an Indica, but lets look closely now, at the anniversary edition Vista.

This car is all about lines and creases that continue from one plane to another. It’s wonderful to follow them from plastic to metal to plastic to metal back again. The overall shape is more or less the same as the original Indica, but is squarer compared to its rounded ancestor. Oddly, the front is more rounded compared to the older Indica, which make this look a bit beaver faced.

The creases go all the way from the front around the car

Bonnet

The bonnet has 3 sharp creases. Two at the sides and one in the middle. The middle one adds character to the bonnet whereas the side creases are a continuation of the bottom of the grill. These creases go on to become the inside edges of the A pillars and continue all the way on to the back of the car over the roof.

Headlights

The headlights are massive. I think the biggest on any car in the country now in terms of its surface area. The top section houses the trafficators in a wedge shape. The wedge starts from the point where the bonnet meets the bumper and the top and bottom of the wedge flow into the body. The top becomes the door sills and meets the tail lamps at their center and also the center of the hatch, where the glass and metal join together.

So if one were to take a thread and follow this line, they would divide the car into top and bottom starting from the edges of the bonnet. The top part would be the glass house and the bottom metal. The bottom line of the wedge starts a sharp crease that goes from the front into the doors. The crease takes two short hops to become the door handles before meeting the tail lamp, disappearing into the metal and reappearing again to neatly bisect the Tata logo and lettering at the rear. Bravo!

Slick job

Side trafficators

Eschewing the current expensive trend of housing the side trafficators within the rear view mirrors, the designer integrates them beautifully in the small triangle made in the front of the mirrors. The 10th anniversary badge sits neatly a small distance below the trafficator. Very classy, and not prone to damage.

Bumpers

The front bumper is neat and clean. The vertical slats follow the side edges from the recessed area for the number plate. Good idea to have recessed areas – it saves the number plate from being broken off by people brushing against the front of the car. The rear bumper is neat and curves at the bottom near the tyres. The bumper also has reflectors that are a good safety touch, but otherwise not as inspiring as the rest of the car.

The lines tell a nice story

Wheels

Look like something from the Aura stable. Could have been much better.

Roof

Now the interesting bit. The roof is done in black, which doesn’t bode well for the interior temperature during the Indian summers. but looks very sexy. Yes it’s reminiscent of the Mercedes S class roof, or one of the carbon fiber roofs of the M3 or custom cars. Net effect, good character.

The slick side trafficator

Doors

The creased doors have a well balanced layout. The glass area and the metal part have a good ratio going. The side strips on the doors also serve to make the car look shorter than it actually is.

Possible improvements

1. Just getting the chrome upper lip off the bonnet will make the grill look decidedly better. It’s an Indian market phenomenon, these crome strips above the grill.
2. Integrated body color mud flaps on the bumpers would have been nice.
3. Larger wheels would have filled up the arches much better.
4. A less rounded front end

So all in all, nice car, shame about the grille. Here’s a gallery with larger size images.