BRISK, REFINED PERFORMER BUT GEARSHIFT POOR

The D-Tech engine that powers the Optra is a double overhead camshaft 16-valve unit, which displaces 1799cc and comes from Holden, GM’s Australian subsidiary. Designated Z18 XE, this engine puts out a healthy 115bhp at 5800rpm and 15.9kgm of torque at a relatively high 4000rpm.

The ECU and fuel-injection system have been specially tuned to suit the low-speed environment in India. Fire the engine, and it settles down to an imperceptible idle, with no vibration filtering through the gear lever, pedals or steering wheel. In fact, so silent is the idle that we cranked it over a couple of times by mistake, thinking the engine was off!

Front seat manually adjusted; neat mobile phone holder in rear doors; Optra feels sure-footed on any surface, ride improves with speed.

The Optra’s long-stroke motor is fairly tractable, and will chug along from just about any engine speed. However, it is unresponsive and lacks urgency at low rpm. This can be quite a pain in traffic, as you constantly need to keep the engine in a lower gear to avoid getting bogged down. Part-throttle performance isn’t great either, and you experience some jerks when you get on and off the throttle. You really need to use the gearbox to wring the most out of the Holden engine —and that’s not something to look forward to. The gearshift is heavy and slow, and the ’box doesn’t like being hustled through its baulky gate.

Wind the engine beyond 3500rpm, and there’s a sudden step up in the Optra’s tempo. The engine pulls strongly to its 6500rpm redline, purring smoothly for the most part, and only getting mildly guttural towards the redline. It feels distinctly more refined than the Corolla, but nowhere near as quick.
The Optra’s performance is impressive for a Rs 8-9 lakh car, but is still completely overshadowed by the Corolla. Flat-out acceleration tests showed that the Optra took 11.1 seconds to reach 100 kilometres an hour from rest, with 120 coming up in 15.8sec. This places it in the same league as the petrol Octavia, but the lightning-quick Corolla gets to the 100k mark two seconds earlier. In third gear, the 20-80kph slog, the all-important urban passing band, takes 11.8 seconds with 40-100 in fourth — critical for the highway lug — an even more impressive 16.3 seconds. That said, the Corolla takes 11.52sec and 16.33sec for the same increment.

The Optra is pretty short geared, so highway cruising is not very relaxed and the 191kph top speed was achieved in fifth gear at 5700rpm. At 100kph in fourth gear, the engine is turning over at a busy 3900rpm. However, the good NVH insulation ensures that you can never tell if the engine is working overtime.