DIESEL DIKTAT
The spiffier, more powerful Tata Indica V2 Turbo wants to be the small diesel in your garage, but it still has to beat the Fiat Palio D.

QUICK FACTS
Model tested	Tata Indica V2 turbo	Fiat Palio 1.9D
Price	Rs 4.39 lakh*	Rs 5.31 lakh*
Top Speed	154kph	152kph
0-60kph	7.14sec	7.14sec
0-100kph	14.9sec	19.55sec
Kpl (overall)	14.9	14.0
For	Performance, value for money	Ride and handling, solid build
Against	Build quality, refinement	Refinement,lacks punch
*On-road Mumbai

Do you see what we do? A wedge of opportunity amid a slew of petrol hatches? We’re making a case for a smart diesel hatchback. Inexplicably, apart from Tata Motors, no manufacturer has found it worth its while to take a good, long look at this very significant segment. This then is Indica diesel territory, created by Tata Motors and cultivated by them. With sales of about 80,000 last year, the car also makes the cash registers ring at Bombay House.
Since its launch in 1999, the carmaker has, apart from a couple of cosmetic revamps and mechanical fine-tuning, let the Indica be. Now, as the car gets close to completing its seventh year on Indian roads, Tata’s gone ahead and injected aspiration into what was always positioned as a value-for-money automobile.
It wants you and me to take a look at its new Indica diesel, equipped this time with a turbocharger and consequently, enhanced power. The turbo is the most significant upgrade the Indica has seen yet and Tata hopes this will boost sales until the Indica’s long overdue successor comes along, sometime in late 2007. And if you’re looking for a car in this segment, the Palio D which, despite all of Fiat India’s burdens, still remains the only competent economy diesel hatch in a Bharat Stage III environment (the Peugeot TuD5-powered Zen D has been discontinued). In a way, keeping in mind the imminent Tata-Fiat alliance, we’re almost comparing products that in the future could belong to a common stable. But let that not stop you from knowing which is the better car.