[blackwasp]

Rockford Fosgate has heavily customised the ICE of a Tata Nexon. We thought of checking it out. The car would be travelling across the country as a part of various roadshows and dealer displays.

The matte wrap looks really nice. Open the doors and they feel heavier than usual. The damping and extra speakers bring that extra weight. The black & red interior colour scheme looks too loud, but then, it's a show car that has been built for attention. The seats are custom made, while the speakers are mounted on modified door pads.

While I'm no audiophile, I can appreciate good sound. Apart from the crazy bass, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall clarity of the system. The engineers & installers have done a great job of tuning the overall setup. That said, the bass can be too strong for most people (the system has an independent control knob to turn the bass down). I also learnt from their tech team that installing the speakers and other components is only half the job done - it is the tuning that makes the system sound great. The damping plays an essential role as well.

Looks like a regular Nexon, minus the wrap job & branding:


When stuck in traffic, a few curious people knocked on the window and asked me what "Rockford Fosgate" meant :


The matte colour along with the white and piano black inserts looks great:




The red & black combo inside really stands out:


Lower portion of each door is reworked to accommodate the 2 woofers. These are T1650-S 6.5-inch component woofers (4 of them were used - 2 per door). The doors have damping materials installed, which reduces resonances in the door panels and improves the NVH of the car. Compared to the stock car, the wind and road noise is significantly reduced! Further, despite the deep bass, the ORVMs never vibrated:


A closer look. Notice the while ambient light rings as well:


Custom-made housing on the A-pillars for the tweeters of the T1650-S components: 2 tweeters per channel.


The white ambient light rings can be turned on or off by the user:


Lower part of the rear door is custom moulded in fiberglass to accommodate the large T1650-S component speakers. They are also heavily damped like the front doors:


The stock tweeter pod is left empty. There is good reason for this: the stock tweeter pod would put the rear tweeter closer to the ear of the front driver/passenger than the front tweeters (which are on the A pillars):


Rear components are mounted on the bottom part of the door using custom fiberglass housings:


The boot is completely filled with neatly-arranged goodies. It gets two subwoofers, three 400 Watt Class-AD 4-Channel Amplifiers, two 500 Watt Class-BD Mono Amplifiers and in the center is the brain - the DSR 1 8-Channel Signal Processor:


A close look at the 12-inch Punch P3SD4-12 subwoofer:


The ambient light in the back can change its colour; here it is in a shade of violet. The T400X4AD is rated at 400W. It can send 100W (RMS) per channel at 4 and 2 Ohms, while the dynamic power is 128W and 152W at 4 and 2 Ohms respectively:


In the centre is the DSR 1 Signal Processor. It has 4-channel RCA inputs, 4-channel high level inputs, 18-pin analogue and 16-pin digital harness, a micro USB port for updates, an AUX RCA and SPDIF inputs, 245 bands of equalisation and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity:


While the major tuning is done by the installer, you can still tweak things a bit from the settings screen. But again, with after-market ICE, tuning is of paramount importance:


We played songs via Apple CarPlay. Since the stock head-unit was not changed, it was easy to connect our phones:


A knob beside the steering to control the gain of the two subwoofers installed in the boot. The switch above controls the ambient light on the speakers and rear amplifiers:


A look at the custom seats:


The seats get perforated leather in the middle:

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[selfdrive]

Interesting setup there. Do they intend to provide such builds for customers? Though it seems a bit too much for my tone deaf ears, I am sure they will pack a punch. I guess this will be a win win situation in terms of promotions for both Tata and Rockford Fosgate.
Did they also share any details about the damping or any estimates on cost?
Matt black is an underused colour on our cars. It would be good if manufacturers can offer this as an option.

Thanks @blackwasp for the pictures and detailed account.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

Do they intend to provide such builds for customers?

Don't think the company would, although its dealers could attempt something similar.

End of the day, this is a show car & hence the flash & mega nature. It would be impractical as an everyday ride. Not to mention, IMHO the cost of this ICE would be close to / equal to / more than the car's cost.

Matt black is an underused colour on our cars. It would be good if manufacturers can offer this as an option.

I saw the car in person. The wrap looked awesome .

[Alfa_Romeo1]

Originally Posted by GTO

I saw the car in person. The wrap looked awesome .

Wrap work looks awesome than ICE work! Perspective will change if I can experience the setup. (I wish so)

[navin]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

Rockford Fosgate has heavily customised the ICE of a Tata Nexon.

Lovely. I wish many more manufacturers built showcase cars like this one.

11 years ago a slightly mad man in orange pants commissioned a pair of Swifts nicknamed the Evil Twins (see teaser picture below). Not since then have I seen any significant showcase car in India.

[FourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by navin

Not since then have I seen any significant showcase car in India.

I seem to recall this one ... from Auto Expo 2010.

Source : https://www.motorbeam.com/jbl-tata-n...010-auto-expo/

The slightly crazy gent you've mentioned actually drove up from Mumbai to Delhi in this car, before it got modified there for the show.

He was accompanied on the trip by normally_crazy, and they wrote about their journey here https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...ive-delhi.html (YetiBlog® - The Yeti®, Normally_Crazy and The Tata Nano drive to Delhi!)

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

[quickfox11]

Looking at the whole setup and not able to hear the sound is making me restless!!

[McLaren Roxx]

That's an extremely well done install. I'm sure the sound output would be awesome.
I particularly liked how they've retained useability of the vehicle interior space. Such installs otherwise completely take away the boot and/or the rear bench space.
A competent installer can definitely pull this off, custom door pads not being a must. Ofcourse the main challenge would be the custom woofer/amp install.

Any idea if they've upgraded to a better battery, added a capacitor to handle the extra power demand?

Originally Posted by GTO

Not to mention, IMHO the cost of this ICE would be close to / equal to / more than the car's cost.

This honestly does not look like a 10 lakh or thereabouts setup to me. With labour probably in the 6 lakh range.

[Intelsingh]

Love the setup.
Wish I had the money and the time to get something like This in terms of a seamless custom job