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Posted on: Jun 07 2007

Hyundai Santro Xing

A car that I for one believed would simply bomb at the box office, but a car that has in its various forms made sense to so many small car buyers and captured the imagination of so many others. A Korean beauty that pioneered the Tall boy era in India. Although we had driven the santro many a times on pleasure trips, we hadn't yet done a complete test that could be used for a review and thus the delay. Nonetheless, we wish not to leave any stone unturned and what follows aims at penetrating from the silhouette lines of the exterior all the way to the very core of this little car.

Design and interiors

The Santro that was originally launched got many make overs, mostly the kind we see on the New maruti wagon R; just few shinier bits here and there(I'm referring to the older 1.1liter model of course) but, the Santro Xing is an all new car. The makeover gave the car a very suave and upmarket look. Although I personally continue to believe the designer seemed to lose interest as far as the rear end of the car goes, as it looks like the car was originally bigger and got a bit chopped off. Save for that little anomaly, Xing impresses everywhere with light changes in the curvature, small bolstering here and there and so on which do give make the car look and feel well thought out. Though the headlamps are bright and provide excellent illumination, the tail lamps almost seem like they are going to outdo the ones in front. One was reminded of the palace of Mysore when a fully loaded santro owner stepped on the brake pedal! All in all, the exterior is not just nice, it appeals to a wider audience when compared to slightly more eccentric designs the competition offers.

The interiors of the santro are what I would call a real mixed bag. There are far too many pluses as well as minuses. For starters, the santro has very high quality plastics used in the dashboard and although these plastics will age a bit fast, they will definitely not be prone to rattles in the course of time. The texture will also not trap as much dirt. Then there are the small niches provided in the dash, such as the one on the left bottom of the steering wheel which is a great place to keep your cds or a shining cloth and so on. The small holes and coin trays are also very useful. especially useful are the map pockets on the sides of the door . The limited edition that we drove also has more storage compartments under the seat. These are quite nice, but the quality of interior plastics did leave much to be desired. The interiors also do not feel as spacious as the Wagon R and certainly no match for the Indica Xeta. This is felt most in the front 2 seats where you will find your legs a bit cramped for comfort. The rear seats are firm and comfortable, but support could have been more both up front and rear.

Apart from the previously mentioned underseat storage, the limited edition santro also has two tone upholstery along with a tachometer included into the instrument console. The spoiler and the alloys are also limited to the limited edition and not available as standard on the other models.

The Santro comes standard with a 1.1 liter petrol Engine that generates 63Bhp. It has an excellent suspension setup,rides and handles much better than other similar designs.