Tata Motors, the country's largest automotive manufacturer, discontinued its three door Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) Tata Sierra in Indian passenger vehicle market in the year 2000. The sturdy built SUV seemed slightly ahead of its time but failed to entice domestic car enthusiasts due to its noisy engine and high maintenance requirements.
Reportedly, the Sierra SUV competed against Maruti Suzuki's Gypsy and Mahindra's Willy Jeeps and was actually Tata Motors' first indigenously designed and manufactured vehicle in the country. The three door SUV was powered with a 1.9 litre turbodiesel power-mill and came with an Four Wheel Drive (4WD) option on a special request.
Considering the prevalent market tide towards compact SUVs in the Indian auto market, one wonders if Tata Motors' has what it takes to again introduce a failure model in a new refreshed and appealing avatar. It is going to be an interesting thing to see if Tata re-launches Sierra in a compact SUV guise, so as to check the rampant emergence of Renault Duster and Mahindra Quanto on Indian turf.
At present, the compact SUV segment is breaking all sales and booking records in the country. Top industry boffins have pinned the small engine equipped to deliver big power performance along with superior fuel efficiency characteristics as prime reasons behind the smashing success rate of compact SUVs on Indian turf. Hence, a compact SUV version of Tata Sierra makes much more sense, especially when the utility vehicle has no product in the segment, at present.
