Test Drive: Hyundai Previews New Santro, Official Launch on Oct 23

Actor Shah Rukh Khan will be at the launch of Hyundai’s new hatchback, the all-new Santro on October 23.

This is the all-new Santro, launching very soon in India. 

(Photo Courtesy: Hyundai India)

It’s official now. Hyundai’s latest hatchback codenamed AH2 will now be called the Santro, harking back to the car that catapulted the company to fame in India back in 1998. The new Santro, therefore, has a lot riding on it in terms of expectations.

Hyundai India invited The Quint down to its plant in Chennai to get a sneak peek at the all-new Hyundai Santro and will be launched officially on 23 October, 2018. We also got a short test drive of the car on Hyundai’s test track in the plant.

However, we weren’t allowed to shoot photographs or video at this event – so the two pictures you see here are the only two official handouts.

So what’s the all-new Santro like? Can it give the Maruti WagonR, Maruti Celerio and Tata Tiago a run for their money?

The new Santro is slightly wider with more space than the original model.(Photo Courtesy: Hyundai India)

The Looks

To keep costs down Hyundai has a lot of part sharing going on. The design looks like a mix between the older i10 and Grand i10. The Santro retains its tall-boy feeling, but it’s also longer and wider than the original car, hence it doesn’t look all that tall.

The front of the car gets swept back headlamps, a wide hexagonal grille and high-set foglamps on the bumper. It retains Hyundai’s family look. Look at it in profile and you will see some resemblance to the older i10. It gets taller wheels – now running on 165/60 tyres with 14-inch rims (the earlier car was on 13-inch wheels).

At the rear, the car looks quite wide and squat. The tail-lamps wrap around the corners quite nicely and there’s a hint of a spoiler over the rear windshield. The car will come in five trim variants – Dlite, Era, Magna, Sports and Asta, with the last one being the fully loaded variant.

The Interiors

The inside of the car is done up in black and beige plastic. It gets fixed headrest bucket seats in front and at the rear. The rear seat is wide enough for three adults. The driver’s seat does not get height adjustment and neither is the steering height adjustable, so getting an ideal driving position for tall drivers or really short ones would be an issue.

The car gets a fairly long feature list otherwise. Considering it will be competing with cars like the Maruti Celerio, Maruti WagonR and Tata Tiago, Hyundai is throwing in a lot.

The Features

All variants will come with ABS as standard and a driver’s airbag. The top variants get two airbags in terms of safety features. The Asta trim gets a rear wiper, defogger as well. The Sports variant and Asta come with Hyundai’s new touch-screen infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple Car Play.

It gets steering mounted audio controls, rear AC vents and centrally mounted power-window switches – which take some getting used to. There are door pockets and cupholders for the front seat occupants. The AC has a bigger 135 cc compressor (others in the segment use a 110 cc compressor), for better cooling.

The Engine

This is where it gets interesting. The engine is a reworked 1.1 litre, four-cylinder Epsilon engine. This engine did duty in the older Santro Xing and ZipDrive as well. It puts out a little more power and torque now.

This engine makes 69 PS of power (earlier 64PS) and 99 Nm of torque. It gets a choice of a five-speed manual transmission or a five-speed AMT (automated manual transmission).

The AMT variant is a first on a Hyundai car, and Hyundai claims it has been developed completely in-house. We got to test it out as well.

The Drive

After unveiling the name of the car and then revealing the car, we were offered a short test drive of the cars on Hyundai’s test track. Getting behind the wheel of the manual variant first, the car seems quite familiar. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you feel you’ve driven this before.

Once you rev the engine you realise why. The good old rev-happy Santro is back. Sure, it gets buzzy, but in a happy way. The gearshift is easy to flick through, although the throw is not as short as the earlier Santro. The steering feels light at first, but does get progressively heavy, much better than the earlier car.

It’s meant to be a city car so don’t expect stellar acceleration. In fact, the engine is now tuned more for fuel efficiency – Hyundai claims 20.3 kmpl for the 1.1 litre petrol variant and 30.5 Km per Kg on the CNG variant (yes, there will be a factory fitted CNG model).

What was interesting to drive was the AMT variant. It’s not quite as quick as the manual for sure, but it’s quite refined. You don’t feel the jerks when the gears shift unlike in the Maruti Ignis AMT for instance. However, don’t expect sporty performance from this one. It will do well to creep along in city traffic, speaking of which it has a rather nice “creep” function built into it that will serve its purpose in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Y K Koo, CEO and Managing Director, HMIL said the company decided to name the "new family car" Santro following an overwhelming response from customers in an online poll.

The company will open online pre-bookings for the new Santro from 10 to 22 October with Rs 11,100 as booking amount for the first 50,000 customers.

HMIL expects around 25 to 30 per cent of the new Santro to come from the AMT, Koo said. Koo further said the new Santro would be manufactured in India for other global markets. It has a localisation level of 90 percent.

We will get you a detailed review of the car after its launch later this month. Oh, and Shah Rukh Khan, the brand’s brand ambassador for the original Santro, will launch this one too.