A Tall Order

It changed the game in the small car segment dominated by one car maker. Can the new Santro do it all over again?

- Girish Karkera

Does the name ring a bell? Of course, it does because the Santro lived till not too long ago in a guise that was strongly reminiscent of the first path breaking budget car that Hyundai built for itself and a new emerging market it had just entered – India. Interestingly, that car was different from whatever we had seen before. A bit of an odd-ball to look at, not exactly feature-rich but practical as hell albeit in a sterile way. All that changed a bit with the variants that followed as Hyundai developed better understanding of the way an Indian budget car owner’s mind worked. While the Santro was always meant to be a global car, India was where Hyundai hit the jackpot as we ended up accounting for more than 70 per cent of worldwide sales. With such strong inroads, the name had to return. Hyundai’s massive carnaming campaign too suggested the same and although there was to be nothing in common between the out-going and incoming car, Santro is what it was christened as.

The name has a certain old-world charm to it unlike the new-gen ‘i’s that Hyundai dabbled with for hatchbacks. I am sure there is some theory back at their India HQ that it would probably have been better off calling the X-cent, Accent but that’s another story. While the erstwhile Santro was discontinued a few years ago, and Hyundai started its onslaught on bigger car segments, it lost its momentum a bit in the budget segment. Interestingly, the car has moved up the segment. In theory, the original i10 was actually the true successor of the Santro (well, that’s another story too). This new car is positioned much higher, closer to the Grand i10 than what the i10 was to the older Santro. The reason for doing so is also because this is a grounds-up new car, starting from the platform.