The new Santro brought in by Hyundai India twenty years after the first one is a different car than its predecessor but in a good way

The streets of Bhubaneswar are an ideal testing ground for a small car, traffic is chaotic, pedestrians often go jaywalking and be assured the cattle problem on our roads is not confined to the northern states. In this mess, driving the new Santro was quite revealing. But a little more about the car before I start.

This is Hyundai’s twentieth anniversary of their entry into India with the original Santro. The bug-eyed and honestly, not quite pretty car from an unknown Korean carmaker caught the nation’s fancy. Part of that was to do with Shah Rukh Khan prancing around in the car. The other part was that the Indian car buyer found the Santro not just value for money but a good family vehicle thanks to its shape. In 2014 however, with the Eon around, production of the Santro stopped. However, with the old i10 not in Hyundai’s lineup anymore, the carmaker saw a gap in the small car space for a new vehicle. And that car was given the Santro name, which does carry a lot of pressure with it.

Now to the car, the new Santro is longer and wider than the original and despite being 30 mm shorter, genuinely feels more spacious inside. Rear seat legroom is more than adequate for three adults on a short run inside town. The interior fit and finish, particularly the plastics are excellent. The higher-specification variants have champagne coloured inserts around the air-con vents and infotainment screen. The driving position, like in all smaller cars is not quite what I would like it to be, but is more than comfortable. And despite the shorter appearance, headroom is fantastic even at the back. Incidentally, the new Santro is also available in a colour called ‘Diana Green’ and that has a matt-black interior finish with body-coloured inserts. Pretty cool.

What Hyundai has done well, as it always does is load up the higher variants with features that users want. I was driving a ‘Sportz’ variant with the clutchless AMT which has an introductory price of Rs 5.47 lakh, but it comes with a 7-inch touchscreen with support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and it isn’t some laggy, horrible touchscreen. It is a positively snappy screen and when you’re playing music, the sound system is quite good. On both these fronts, the Santro beats the competition. If I’m not quite fond of a feature, it is the centrally-mounted power-window controls. But, Hyundai does do things a bit differently and a space on the dashboard is flattened out so that you can place the statue of a diety as is common in India.

Outside, the story is a bit different. The new Santro seems to be a clearly inspired not so much by the old one but by the car it replaced, the i10, at least from a front profile. Sure the front fascia has been changed and massive fog lights have been placed, giving the impression that the car is bigger than it is. The kink on the window line for the rear window is something that seems inspired by the Honda Mobilio/BRV. But the exterior feature that irritates me is the reversing curve that comes through the front panels and front doors, it just feels aesthetically wrong. The rear-end, is not the Santro’s strongest suit but it isn’t a bad one either.

So how does it drive, especially the new Automated Manual Transmission fitted on this car? Well, first impressions over a 60-kilometer drive is that like other AMT cars you will need to learn to modulate your right foot, particularly on faster roads. And while the AMT offers a manual override, it does not need to be used in the city where it does very well indeed, while maintaining a surprisingly decent fuel-economy. With a little bit of highway and city driving, the Santro returned 15.5 kilometers per litre. The 69PS 1.1 litre engine can make the Santro go fast, but even on the highway it feels happiest at just around the speed limit.

What I did love about this new Santro was the lightweight steering, it might feel light but it responds excellently to inputs. I found a small section of road outside Bhubaneswar where the roads were a bit twisty and this car seemed to revel in it.

Sure, the car I drove was a brand-new piece, so they tend to do everything a bit better. But, Hyundai is going all out to promote the value of this Santro against its rivals. Not just the interiors, Hyundai claims the car is the cheapest to maintain and is also throwing in a three-year 100,000 km warranty. They also hype up the value-additions that they have made which make Santro slightly more expensive than the competition .

This car could change the market's ? Impossible to say, but prima facie this car could change the car.