Lifestyle cars, eh? Is that a real, important part of the car market, or is it just a fancy name for cars that don't sell? We investigate seriously – over a singsong and franks.

Look, life’s like that. Some cars sell, some don’t. And sometimes fairly bad cars sell surprisingly well, while very decent cars are treated like bad smells. Happens everywhere: go and Google ‘Subaru SVX’ and you’ll find a cool, high-tech, transparent-roofed coupe that no one bought; here, the cases in point are cars like the Ford Fusion and the Fiat Adventure. Both created a media frenzy when they came here, and it appeared only the media were really interested. Neither has sold well. And they have another thing in common, besides tragic sales graphs, that they’re both ‘lifestyle’ cars, neither fitting into a real market slot, both with a lingering aroma of picnic barbecues and beach balls in their advertisements.
And that’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Is that ‘lifestyle’ sticker the reason these cars didn’t sell, or is it something else? And just what is a lifestyle car? Is it just a regular car that looks like it’s made for a life off the beaten track? Is it a car that says “See, I’m wearing my hiking shoes, even at this business meeting, so you know I have the green hills on my mind?” If that’s what it is, then the Fiat Adventure fits the bill quite nicely. When it started life, as the Weekend, it was a nice family car; then Fiat took it to the army surplus shop and called it the Adventure.
And it really looks nice, like it’s just waiting for a sleeping bag and North Face tent to be loaded into that big boot. Wrought iron-effect bull bars, body armour, military-look running boards, yum. Inside, it doesn’t feel fresh any more, and the plastics aren’t croon-worthy, but you could live with it. It’s pretty good when it comes to lifestyle accoutrements: the boot’s large enough to take haversacks or firewood, the roof rails could conceivably take a mountain bike, and even if there isn’t much seating flexibility, it’ll work well as a holiday wagon. The engine’s a nice thing too – it sounds snorty and pulls well, and the gearbox is appreciably positive, but the real star is the chassis-tyre combo. Wrap your hands around that fat, talkative steering wheel and you can punch it along any road you like, even if said road is more gravel than tarmac. And you don’t feel a thing, which is amazing – how did they get the ride this good? Step out, preferably in a cloud of billowing dust, and you get a good feeling about this car. However, step out in urban smog and you may not like it all that much. In traffic it’s cumbersome, the controls feeling just a bit heavy and ponderous, the ocean of metal behind the driver a bit annoying when you’re dicing through lanes. And it drinks, oh how it drinks. It’s frightening – you actually see the fuel-gauge needle marching steadily downward…
And then the Fusion, which is from a very different school of lifestyle thought. It’s about packing as many different types of car as possible onto four wheels – SUV, hatch and MPV in this case – so one car works in lots of different situations. It does have this look of an SUV that got chucked into the washing machine, and with the right paint job
(a paprika red, maybe?), it looks quite sweet. It doesn’t have the Caterpillar-boot appeal of the Fiat, but it’s decent enough. And then…you see the seven-lakh tag, skip expectantly into the cabin and Jay-zus! Did they benchmark an Omni for this cabin? What Khrushchev-era plastics did they import? How did they delude themselves into believing that the ’50s hotel upholstery and the dash-top cubbies (one a twin of the Omni’s recess, the other with a shiny plastic lid that shuts with an alarming clack) would be acceptable? And build quality isn’t anything great either, not compared to the tank-like Adventure.
Argh. Anyway. One important thing: our test car had taller rubber than the low-pro stuff the Fusion normally uses, which is significant. Normally, the Fusion’s quick steering rack is one of its big strengths, especially in the ghats, where it works well with a quick-revving, eager engine (bar a slightly notchy box), but the ride’s a horror, especially at low speeds. The thicker tyres change that: it now rides acceptably well, the high-ish ground clearance coming into its own, and the hot-hatch feel gets watered down, which in this case is not a bad compromise.
And what about the lifestyle thing? That in the Fusion comes in the form of flexibility and storage space: the boot itself may not be huge, but the flip-fold seats have hidden storage space under the squabs, and the middle bit of the rear bench squab can be chucked out and replaced by a storage box – in case extra beer is more important than the fifth passenger. This car, in fact, would be brilliant for sneaking in a few bottles of this and that across state borders – remember that when you go to Goa. There’s also a cargo net in the boot, but that still means you can’t squeeze too much in there. Shame.
There are niggles with both, of course. Is the Fusion’s idiotic passenger’s side-mounted bonnet release more annoying than the Adventure’s useless wing mirrors? Is the Adventure’s stiff and imprecise seat adjustment lever more painful than the Ford’s German-style light-cluster knob and left-mounted indicator stalk? Difficult to decide.
it’s a time for quiet reflection, for lying back on a gently cooling bonnet and staring at the stars; unfortunately, instead of finding inspiration for deathless poetry or metaphysical solutions, I find myself thinking of the Indian car buyer. And he’s a serious chap.
Fussy, penny-pinching and all, yes,but most of all, serious. Image matters. What you’re really going to do with the car matters. Serious cars work – and these two aren’t nearly serious enough. There’s just one ‘lifestyle’ vehicle in India that’s also serious enough to appeal: the Innova. The pair we have here doesn’t quite have the sobriety required to sit in the corporate car-park.
Seriousness may be the key to the Fusion’s future: it’s never going toappeal as a ‘lifestyle’ car, so Ford should ditch the idea. Jeans and boots out, white collar in; forget the rock-crossing ads, forget the wafer-thin tyres. The handling was part of the appeal, but in this non-standard form, with taller tyres, the car’s more acceptable. Sharp steering is nice, but not when your spine’s about to crack: keep these tyres, and the car’s
useable. Oh, and the price needs to drop. By a lakh. Or two. In Swift-Getz territory it may have a chance; here, it’s a no-hoper.
The Adventure is more difficult: as a car, it’s wonderful. It looks good, handles well, rides well and with the chopped-down price, it’s very good value. Apart from its thirst, it doesn’t have the flaws of the Fusion, and just possibly, has an actual market. People who own it swear by it, but also swear at the company. You won’t ever regret
driving this car, but you’ll very likely regret owning it – Fiat may have a chance now to get its act together, after the tie-up with Tata, but until we see Adventures being sold in Tata showrooms and being accepted for free services at Tata workshops, we’ll reserve judgement on the car’s future.
For now though, we’ll take the Adventure, if for no other reason than that we can understand what it’s for.You can pack family and dogs and luggage in it, take it to villages and over rocks, have fun in the ghats, and be comfortable. The Fusion’s too European, too closely based on the mini-MPV idea that does so well there – here, it just makes you wonder what this car is meant to do.
And it still leaves us confused as to what this lifestyle thing is. We think we like it, but honestly, like all marketing-speak, it just belongs in the bonfire. Handy that we made one, then.