TOYOTA COROLLA ALTIS
The Corolla Altis has been quite a hit — such a big one in fact that it is the best selling car in its segment. Even though it doesn’t boast of the Civic’s 21st century interiors, it is quite practical with its high ground clearance, good seating position both at the front and the rear and fuel efficient motors. The new 1.4-litre diesel may lack punch but it certainly does keep your wallet intact, while the 1.8-litre petrol has decent performance to take you closer to 200 kph. We wish it looked better and had better quality interiors.
CHEVROLET CRUZE
No one expected the Cruze to be such a success story, but it has become one. Best known for its stonking 2.0-litre, 148 bhp diesel motor, there is no doubting that the Cruze is a straight line hero. It also boasts of having tremendous value thanks to its competitive pricing and honest to goodness feature list that is found on more expensive D-segmenters. The Cruze falls short in the area of dynamics, even though its ride quality is pretty good. The lack of a petrol option is hurting its ability to become the overall best-seller in the segment.
SKODA LAURA
When the new Jetta arrives, the Skoda Laura will become a generation old, but it won’t be hamfisted either. The current Skoda Laura is a lot of fun to drive, thanks to its 2.0-litre diesel and 1.8-litre petrol mills that boast some pretty good performance stats. The neutral handling, responsive steering and overall build quality are hard to fault — so is the space management. It may not feel as young as the new Jetta, but then again the Laura is based on the Jetta so the next Laura will more than make up for it.
(The writer was invited by Volkswagen to drive the new Jetta in the USA.)
|
