I love the idea of estate cars. Call me a family man, or better still, a trendy outdoors guy, I love the idea of estates for just the way they look. Then there are poster-boys of the estate world like the Subaru Outback and Audi RS which give me goose-bumps. No, it is not just me, apparently the Sultan of Brunei loves the idea of estate cars too and in his collection are a bunch of Ferrari and Bentley estates – cars that the respective manufacturers specially built for him at astronomical prices.
Unfortunately, we Indians don’t romance estate cars much. A fully loaded Tata Estate based on the 207 platform was launched in 1992, complete with coil spring rear suspension, and it did reasonably well – it was diesel powered and could carry five to six people in reasonable comfort. What I liked the most was its Mercedes T-series inspired body style which, despite the manually cut dies, still managed to look good. That Estate did play the luxury car for a while – well, it had the size and the comfort. It was grossly underpowered, not very reliable and was axed well before the turbocharged motor came through. Then we have had a series of estate cars like the Rover Montego, the Fiat Siena/Palio Weekend /Adventure, Maruti Baleno Altura and the Opel Corsa Swing – nothing, dear reader, has done well in our market.
So why should Tata launch the third variant of their I.de.A-conceived Project Mint platform? Especially when they are struggling to meet the demand for the Indigo? I attended the press conference and the test drive and returned with the belief that the only possible reason for Tata to launch the Marina is because... er, it was there to be launched.
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