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-   -   The next-gen Hyundai Santro (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/192671-next-gen-hyundai-santro-5.html)

Forgot to mention - this will slot in between the Eon and Grand i10. They asked my wife to guess the price and she said it will start from 4.99L and they just smiled.

Well summarized; thanks for sharing! Guess this will be aired soon?

Hyundai must be betting big on the Santro's revival.

Most likely it wasn't deliberate in this case but perhaps it is so by design during such surveys? The typical enthusiast will figure out which vehicle it is, even with the brand logos removed, and hence, perhaps that can create some bias?

Looks like this new Santro is filling up the gap left by i10 which moved up the ladder after introduction of Grand i10. I'm guessing an entry price of 3.5 - 3.8 lakhs.

On seeing the title on the Team-BHP homepage I guess I expected a few sneaky photos too stupid:
I can understand the level of frustration you would have been in, while waiting outside! Hope Hyundai can bring forward a well put car in the void that Santro left. With cars like Santro, Wagon R etc, it comes down to the maneuverability, economy and features on offer mostly.
:OT How do they select people for these types of reviews?

Hats off to your commitment! Incidents like these make me proud to be a part of TeamBHP.

The Santro has potential to kill the Kwid and significantly dent Alto / Wagon R sales. Hope it does come and does come quickly. The Maruti Alto doesn't belong to this era of cars and needs to be replaced by a worthy replacement. Santro can be that replacement.

Another test vehicle spotted at Dwarka-Gurgaon road and it borrows a lot of design cues from the old i10. It does not retain the old Santro's tall boy stance which gets me to wonder how is Hyundai planning to position it? Anyway, the price difference between Eon and Grand i10 isn't miles away, with the latter one always being offered with hefty discounts.
This way, is Hyundai following the Maruti-Suzuki way by cannibalising it's own models? Well, we will only know for sure once it's launched.

To me it seems like they would be using the same monocoque structure as the old i10 (from what shape is visible) with all the changes in the plastic exterior members like the grills, air dam, bumpers, door mouldings, etc. and rewamped interiors with an updated feature list.

For Hyundai this is a very important car. The Eon seems to have lost its battle long time ago, against the Alto and it is only the Kwid which posed a slight threat to the Alto. And with the old i10 out, Hyundai virtually has no entry level car ( well except the Eon which I think will be slowly phased out ) and compare this to Suzuki, which has the Alto, Alto k10, Wagon R, Celerio, Ignis ! So Hyundai needs to counter this and even if they did use the old i10 platform with new body shell it would work as a good alternative to the Celerio and the Wagon R.

No threat ,Though Hyundai or any other manufacturer may come up with a great car it can not compete with the Maruti volumes. Simply because of the Maruti presence in the rural market( tier 2-3 and beyond) The level of sales and service penetration of Maruti is incomparable.

While the Alto, Swift etall, sells 20k copies per model, the next best will always be 10-12k( if they do well in urban- semi urban markets or else it will be around 5k per month in just urban sales ). It is purely based on the reach rather than the capabilities. Also the Maruti brand rings a bell in every household ear. Long way for Hyundai to catch up on this front.

Reminds me of their Diwali campaign a couple of years ago, India comes home in a Maruti. So true.

They have some big shoes to fit into given the Santro's reputation of the car that made the company. Gave it the presence in the Indian market. The conical AC vents as described by the fellow member are reminiscent of the old Santro. If they price it right, the urban market will give it a welcome given the reluctance of many who don't go in for the Alto because of its outdated looks and dull interiors.

EOn was a lovely car when it was launched. I doubt if any other car at entry level has that kind of interiors with best fit & finish. Hyundai overlooked the potential of that car and it disintegrated in the minds of buyers within few years.

Looking at the maturity and expectations of Indian buyers, even the entry level car has be disruptive and that is what KWID did with mini / pseudo SUV stance and a touch screen, which was unheard in that segment, and became a success.

Santro has its own cult following and that is the brand which is as old as Hyundai's existence in India; they better play it right (look at what mess Maruti did with Zen to Zen Estilo). Let them do as many opinion surveys as they wish but it should not be a half hearted attempted and most important they should not leverage the "brand Santro" unless the product cannot live up to people's expectation.

Let there be another champion at the entry level to give choice to buyers !

The i10 could very well have been called the next Santro variant as well, but they went with a different naming convention as they had probably run out of the Santro monikers. I dont see anything radically different between the i10 and Santro. It's almost like trying to justify the difference between a Baleno and a Swift when both run on the same engines with differences in styling. Sometimes it just the name of the product which carries the brand recall. Santro might just help them do that

Thanks to Venkatesh Chinnasamy for sending these images & details in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing them with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

The Santro has amazing brand recall here in India!

It is still such a treat to see 98 model Santro's which still look immaculate with tight panel gaps and interiors in excellent condition.

Truly an outstanding hatchback at the time and put paid to the mutterings of cheap Korean cars !

This new car seems to have one-piece seats - while the original Santro had adjustable headrests.

We've had 2 Santros with us in different time frames. First one was Santro Xing XE variant which stayed with us from September 2005 to October 2012 and second one was a GL Plus from October 2012 to October 2013. Two things that I think is worth mentioning,

1. The first Santro's build quality was much much better than that of the second one. The panel gaps , the feel of solidity, the robustness was there in earlier one. I could take it anywhere, second one was not the same.

2. Whatever great car Hyundai would come up with, the service centers that I've come across would screw it up. Till the time Hyundai doesn't improve on this front, getting world class products won't help. So much so I wanted a Creta, I needed up with a Brezza.