[padmrajravi]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Sumo Grande says Hi.. Grande was worse than Manza. I find Indigo CS much better comparing to many sub 4m compact sedans came to the market later.

It is all personal preferences I guess. I found Sumo Grande to be a good enough design. Indigo CS and Aria were hideous designs for me.

In the final note, Bose says Storme was his first work at TML. I just lost a bit of respect for him there. Dicor to Storme was a disastrous design transformation in my opinion. Storme is a good-looking SUV in isolation, but considering it evolved from Dicor, it did not rise to its potential.

[theroadrunner]

Working in Tata is not an easy thing. Particularly if the company is accredited with carrying the Logo of Tata. That is reserved for only a few of the companies with stringent evaluation. With that comes the pressure. Couple that with the limited scope of navigation within a legendary organization, I would say what Pratap Bose has been able to achieve is incredible. If TaMo is speaking in "design" terms of their cars, it can be attributed to Pratap Bose and his team.

I have interacted on the social media quiet a number of times and I have found him to be quiet affable. I read somewhere about his work stint in Japan in his early days as a designer. At least he has set the company in the right direction and there will be great expectations from his successor. Wish Pratap and Martin Uhlarik the very best.

[agelesstravelle]

Tata Motors has to go to the next level in design. In my personal opinion, Hyundai, Kia and MG are doing much better design job than Tata Motors and growing in scale faster than Tata. I don't think PB's last 14 years performance stand comparable to that. He has brought in improvements for Tata Motors but he may not be the guy to take it to the next level. In my opinion it is good if the next guy can transform Tata designs. However, it won't be a cake walk knowing the culture of Tata as a company and it will also depend a lot on who they appoint as their next CEO. A CEO from typical Indian companies (consider Reliance) may not work for European design heads.

[chittybang]

Pratap Bose leaving may not impact TATA as his vision with Impact 2.0 was pretty much realised. Sure he would have been involved in the future designs but since we are not privy to it, we will never know how much it would deviate without him. I must admit though that he had a quality that was hard to ignore. How many other design heads in India do we know by name? He did make a mark. Today people mainly talk about TATA cars with regards to two elements , safety and design. That is a big change from the more car per car ideology where it was all about value proposition and not the quality of the car.
I am curious to see where he will end up next. He surely has inspired a next generation of designers in India and that is only a good thing.

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Sumo Grande says Hi.. Grande was worse than Manza. I find Indigo CS much better comparing to many sub 4m compact sedans came to the market later.

To each his own, but I never found the sumo grande bad at all. It was boxy, but cohesive. On the other hand, the manza had a boot which looked a little disjointed from the rest of the car. Anyway, all in all Tata has always had a history of decent and clean designs. I hope they will carry it through irrespective of who heads their design team. Maybe they need to get a bit futuristic and slightly quirky at times to cater to the new generation, but I think the Nexon and the Altroz shows that they will adapt to the changing times.

[Turbo_head]

To me this changes nothing. He was just a boss who took credit of all his team's work without letting them in the lime light. He portrayed himself as face of new age Tata cars in social media whereas the end product was a combination of technically advanced and aesthetically designed, for which he cannot claim full credit.

Social media and the way he approached it might be the only differentiator. Buzzard-Gravitas-Safari row and his statement on having Safari moniker from day one itself talks how hollow this person is when we all know the actual situation.

[kpkeerthi]

So, can we expect a better looking Tata cars in future? I, for one, feel the design is overall in-the-face (except may be Tiago).

[animus_me]

I am not sure if all those pitching Pratap for MD position at Tata Motors even understand the overall automotive value chain and the position design holds in it. Tata motors did had a image overhaul in his term for sure, but Tata cars sold for safety, ergonomics and economy besides Style and also because of marketing and aftersales. And Pratap (and his team) had no role to play in either of three. Besides, the acclaimed tata styling (which is just a small piece in a big puzzle is yet to reach the maturity of the global tata brands, despite a good amount of learning coming from JLR brand.

Talking of probable candidates for MD position in Tata, I personally know quite a few. People who understand overall automotive business manifold than Pratap and are loyal to the brand. Pratap has been marketing himself well, and he definitely deserves a fair bit of attention that he got.

But he is still overrated, as a designer and an automotive guy. One need to ask, if the impact design language will stand the test of time or will undergo change in next 5 years itself.

As for his exit, I think he overgrew his shoes, himself stepping forward to take credit for Tata cars success. And it was unfair to the people who got the NCAP starts for these cars. Leaving Tata for any greener pastures puts him at loss more than Tata itself...

[puneeth2]

I think he's been an important factor in making Tata cars attractive and appealing. Of course, he's not a single person involved in designing all the cars, but the direction the design team takes is handled by him.

A few here even have an opinion that he's overrated and compare him to the well known and even legendary designers. He might not be as great as those, but I think introducing a cohesive and consistent design language on mass market cars is commendable. I see that even the global automotive giants struggle to get a cohesive and consistent design for their cars. But Tata have a very clear design language and better proportions on their cars.

I don't see why people are still upset about Gravitas being named a Safari. While it is clear that Tata named it Safari to cash in on the popularity of the brand. Mr. Bose's claim that he had Safari in mind while designing it is believable. The stepped roof, as we know is a distinctive Safari design feature. The controversy with the name aside, it still looks proportionate given the limitations and that's great design in my books.

[CkmGowda]

Prathap Bose is certainly overrated designer in general. Like Steve Jobs once famously said - Design is not about how it looks, but how it works. Tata cars still work the same way even in the new cars - rough edges, ergonomic issues, inconsistent panel gaps, broken parts, unoptimized interior space etc... This was my experience with Harrier and new Safari. For such big cars, there was hardly any boot space. If this big dimension car was designed by Honda Jazz designer, he /she would have created a boot space for fitting an elephant.

Pratap did try to make some changes to aesthetics and design branding. That's all he made, I guess.

[400notout]

The reason I started liking Tata cars is due to its designs. And designs have a huge role to play in today's Tata lineup. Before the Zest I used to deplore how Tata cars looked (Indica, Vista, Manza). The Zest showed me that an ugly car (Vista) could still look decent.

If Mr. Bose was the design head then credit surely goes to him. No matter how big a team he had, the leader is always responsible for its failure and should get due credit when it gets success.

He made the new gen Tatas desirable. A lot of my peers have put their money on a Tiago or an Altroz. Sure Tata have a long way to go, but design wise they are surely in the present.

Other than being a designer, Mr Bose has a good idea of showmanship and added dazzle to the cars presentation. So we have bull terms like "impact design philosophy" which upgraded to "impact 2.0" and of course the "Humanity line". He kept the viewers engaged and gave the writers something more to describe for what was in the end, a budget car. Sure these might be words of a marketing mind but he delivered it in style and pampered our attention. He was not just design but also sales. For comparison just check out how dull any ceo/management guy bores us during highly awaited launches.

Now that's hes left for "greener pastures" it is not until we see the next generation Tata cars that we can gauge his impact on design in totality. Maybe we will see that in the next gen of the Nexon, Tiago and Tigor.

Anyways all the best to Mr. Bose in his future endeavors and Goodluck to Mr Uhlarik

[Shabz47]

Originally Posted by srh

I agree that PB was over rated. All those cuts & creases on the outside are a pain to clean. The choice of textures & colours & plastic gloss on the inside makes it a nightmare to maintain. The protruding dashboards create obstructions in the footwell. Access to ports is pathetic. It is clearly a case of form over function/ substance.

I personally got blocked in instagram by PB for commenting regarding poor interior color selection of new altroz.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by puneeth2

IMr. Bose's claim that he had Safari in mind while designing it is believable. The stepped roof, as we know is a distinctive Safari design feature. The controversy with the name aside, it still looks proportionate given the limitations and that's great design in my books.

It's like Ghosts , they exist when you believe in them.

OG Safari was not known for it stepped roof, it was a common design for UVs back then to provide some headroom for rear passengers.

New Safari does not have a stepped roof.

[udaikalra01]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

New Safari does not have a stepped roof.

The variants of Safari that don't come with a sunroof have stepped roof. Pratap Bose told this on Twitter.

[puneeth2]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

It's like Ghosts , they exist when you believe in them.

OG Safari was not known for it stepped roof, it was a common design for UVs back then to provide some headroom for rear passengers.

New Safari does not have a stepped roof.

But it was known for that specific design feature, wasn't it?

Yeah, it doesn't have the actual stepped roof, but that kink at the rear is sort of trying to mimic that. I think that's quite clear. That was quite evident even when it was showcased as Gravitas.

It's not like only I'm seeing it right, like your ghosts analogy. The roof rails mimicking the older Safari's design is right there.

Originally Posted by udaikalra01

The variants of Safari that don't come with a sunroof have stepped roof. Pratap Bose told this on Twitter.

I think none of those have the actual 'stepped roof'. It is just the roof rails trying to mimic the stepped roof. That's what I was referring to.