People say diesel is the new petrol. Today, diesel cars are not considered downmarket and there’s nothing wrong if your car is seen hanging around with commercial vehicles at the fuel pump. With common-rail technology going mass, the sticky fuel has become everybody’s favourite. And we now have the diesel equivalents of petrol cars for anyone who’s interested. After all, when you are getting virtually the same kind of performance as petrol and yet saving about 30 per cent on fuel costs, who’s complaining? Here then is a bunch of happening diesel cars that you just can’t ignore if you are in the market for one.
Chevrolet Optra Magnum
what will your neighbour think?
‘How come his car is bigger than mine and he is still smiling?’Sure, the big diesel from Chevrolet has got nouveau riche suburbanites in India smiling. The Optra Magnum lets them have a car that is bigger than that dime-a-dozen cab-forward thing called the Honda City and then lets them enjoy it at half the running costs. Okay, slightly more than that. But the Optra is considered a ‘big car’ while the City is not. There!
what is so cool/uncool about it?
‘Magnum’, now isn’t that a cool name to begin with? Okay, there is a Dodge wagon in the US that answers to the same name and which has a hemi V8 under the bonnet and 340 bhp to boot, still. The image of a certain gun comes to mind too. The car has an old world charm despite the Daewoo genes and occupies a larger footprint on the road. It has got presence and gives the buyer that very important ‘I got a lot of metal for my money’ feeling – without making his pocket bleed every time he visita a fuel station. The 119 bhp diesel is not a natural fit for the car, but bury that throttle on a straight line and you will forget the stupid secretary and nagging wife all at once. The uncool bit would be to toss the keys to the chauffeur – even though it’s a role that fits this car to the T.
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