[romeomidhun]

Source: http://www.indiancarsbikes.in/cars/i...v-range-68164/

"The front end of the facelifted Sumo Grande will see a big makeover with the styling clearly taking cues from the new Range Rover."

"the MUV will have an aggressive new look that dumps the smiling Tata family face for something more butch and imposing. Under the hood, the 2.2 Liter DICOR turbo diesel engine with the variable geometry turbo charger will be retained, along with the rear wheel drive layout that the current version of the Grande comes with."

Future SUVs in Tata Motors’ range will not just borrow design cues from Land Rover’s range of luxury SUVs but will also have plenty of engineering inputs. The inputs will be used to reduce the weight of Tata UV range and also add a bunch of more feature These changes reflect Tata Motors’ aggressive push to take on Mahindra in the utility vehicle segment, a sector in which the former has been floundering for quite a while now."

I have doubts that whether this will add brand value to Tata, or dilute the value of Range Rover. If Tata wants to take advantage of JLR acquisition, they have to develop new SUVs in the upper segment of the market, IMO.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

I have doubts that whether this will add brand value to Tata, or dilute the value of Range Rover. If Tata wants to take advantage of JLR acquisition, they have to develop new SUVs in the upper segment of the market, IMO.

If you look at this year's performance of Tata Motors, they are doing well with JLR and Jag despite the depressed world economy. They suffer only in India. Tatas didn't put the brand Tata on their acquisition. If they borrow from their marquee acquisition, it can surely ramp up their sales here. So far their USP is VFM. If they can work on the quality issues, they can win.

[ACM]

The Grande needs to and probably will lose the Sumo tag totally.

The existing Grande itself is quite good looking on the outside and with some work on the door pads and the dash could have competed well with the Scorpio.

I guess now they do need a complete face lift and taking LR design help is a good Idea. It needs to retain the macho feel.

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by ACM

The Grande needs to and probably will lose the Sumo tag totally....

+1. That's the case with almost all products in TATA line up except Safari. The new styling is good; am sure it's NOT going to look a lot similar to LR, but bits & pieces.

Everyone will ONLY appreciate the new design cues from LR than the typical TATA fascia. Hope they improve reliability and quality of materials too along with this.

[Mr.Beat]

I saw a Sumo Grande test car in peak hinjewadi traffic yesterday evening. It did not seem much a of face lift. I am pretty sure it did not have any design inspiration from any of JLR cars. It was dark beige in color.

[vinair]

Along with the design cues, TATA should also keep in mind the overall weight of the new models in check.

Also, they should revamp the interiors and get the scales up on the plastic quality.

If TATA can do magic to the ride quality (striking close to what the safari offers) of the new SUMO (or what ever it is going to be called..), I am sure it will have a winner in its hands soon!

[nkrishnap]

The Sumo platform is quite old in the tooth. They better get a MUV on the Manza platform and have 3 row seats with decents bells and whistles, rear wheel drive. And more importantly give consistent quality. They have a product bang in the Ertiga category to rake in decent numbers.

Or get an altogether new platform (ladder on chasis) to have a product competing with the Scorpio.

[1100D]

Mod Note : This thread is closed until more concrete information is available. Thanks!

What Grande needs is a better rear look (redesigned rear D pillar, rear window, tail lamps), apart from that, it also needs coil sprung rear suspension. Upfront, the Xenon front end, with Xenon fenders (the simple Xenon wheel arches). It will appeal to a much wider audience than it currently does.