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a nice writeup sid.
my uncle has a 2002 DLE and since a trip to digha, i fell in love with it. the sound of that diesel motor is excellent.

Nice writeup Sid, it really dragged me to old days, when I used to buy every edition of Automobile magazine contains the Indica articles

great right up sid..!

Mine was the first BS 3 indica DLS to be on road in Thane.
It was my first car baught with my own money and i partied for 3 days in a row and drove with friends to lonavla.
I was over the top with the kind of sapce available insisde to fit in 5 hatte katte guys and great A/C.Great ride quality taking all the bumps easily and over all a diesel giving me 13-14 kmpl..!
As we stopped at panvel for a smoke i switched off the car and after 5 mins ..voila..the car just wont start.Tried again and still wont start.This went on for 10-15 mins.All those friends who were singing praises were suddenly poking fun and saying " bola tha...zen le, indica mein bahut problems hai ". We decided to eat and after half an hour as i cranked the car started as if no problem at all!
I continued having this problem for the entire 2 and half years of my ownership.
After a long drive when i switched off the car and tried to start it immediatly it failed to start.
Even the A.S.S was not able to do anything about it.They clamed to have changed my starter and plonked in indigos starter but things were good for a month and then again the same thing.
Some times in heavy bumper-bumper traffic with A/C switched on the engine would suddenly loose power and just conk off and then refuse to start.I had to dhakka start on so many occassions.
Still good fuel economy and comfortable seats made me have a false smile on my face.
Front suspension conked off after just 20k kms.
Alignment always used to falter.
power steering always used to be hard on first start up in the morning.

After all these problems i sold her off with a very heavy heart after just 28k kms of ownership.She was my first car and very dear to me inspite of my loosing my temper on her so very often.It promised a lot but delivered very little..

Good to know the Indica story in DETAIL. i never knew as many details. Thanks for sharing Sid.

thanks for the Indica History.I own a 2002 Indica DLE.Great VFM ,but Maintanence on pre -2005 models are a Little High?.

Lovely story Man! i was just like you that time. i still love tata more that any autoamaker. i remember when indica was launched, tata tea came up with the contest and the prize was TATA INDICA. we bought 5/6 tata tea packs to get maximum chances of winning Tata Indica :)

Great Sid awesome writeup. Indica (V2 and Turbo - not vista) according to me is the best looking car in the country. Somehow I feel Vista is bit out of proportion especially the side profile.

still a looker than v2, and 2007 indica

wow thats quiet a write up.even though i am no fan of the indica cause of all the niggling problems and the constant upgradations which left most of the people with severly depriciated cars .
all the same the indica is a truly affordable extremely frugal and very sturdy vehicle which is a big hit in the taxi segment for that alone the Tatas deserve a standing ovation

Very well written Sid.

I was there at the expo during it launch. It was an awesome launch, I liked the car. We booked the car and were lucky to get the car immdeditely in April/May as our allotment no. was 300. Where ever we went people would come and check the car and ask questions. Unfortunately we had lot of problems with the car e.g. clutch failure, tyres wearing out etc all in 3 months that we decided to sell it off.

Today I am having a 2006 Indica Turbo driven for more than 116000 Kms and am happy with this car.

Nice writeup Sid. Really enjoyed reading it and nice to know about Indica's history.
Thanks!

Awesome report on the best sold Tata car in the country!
Well, I had the pleasure of owning the Tata Indica Turbo DLG when it was launched. I had the option of going for Swift or the Indica.
Diesel option,Turbo engine, Large space inside the cabin, great pricing and a kool ad on all news channels drove me to get a Red Tata Indica Turbo DLG. I was completely satisified with my buy and recommended people to go for it. Had this one for nearly 4 years 50k kms and sold it before relocating to Australia.

Too many memories attached with this one and hence have sold it to my close friend who is looking after it well.

Great going TATA!!

Excellent write up Sidclap:

I remember Auto India (Or Autocar India) publishing a brilliant article on the evolution of the Indica from the design stage. It carried the different sketches and was very interesting to read. Sid have you saved that magazine??

I strongly recommended this car to my uncle who had to decide between the Santro, Wagon-R and the Indica in 2000. He got the the diesel version with 5 forward gears (Initial ones had only 4 forward gears?) and the car is still in the family.

Though the car satisfied majority of the car buyers requirements it never figured in my own shopping list ever for it was never a drivers car.

5 countries?

USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Malaysia, Korea, China, Russia, (many other East European countries), and god knows how many more I've forgotten.

Part 7: Environmentally friendly diesel re-energised with turbo power and the beginning of an Indo-Italian alliance

While the Indica was doing respective numbers and making cash registers ringing in the Mumbai's Cuffe Parade house, stricter Euro 3 norms were forcing manufacturers to upgrade their engines to cut down on emissions. While many companies were rolling out CRDi engines, still that time no small car was offered with this technology as it was too expensive in the price sensitive market.

So tata decided to upgrade all its existing powertrains to meet the current E-3 norms and here's what they did:

• For the Indica, the naturally aspirated diesel engine was finally given an electronic ECU controlled ignition and fuel delivery system including the ECU controlled fuel pump, similar to the Palio 1.9 D.
• It was aimed at making the engine more reliable and environment friendly, compression ratio was also increased and tweaks were made to the exhaust system and EGR system to drastically cut doen on emissions.
• The turbo charged powertrains in Indigo and Marina were finally given an intercooler, with incresed power (62 ps to 70 ps) and torque and fuel pump and ignition were controlled electronically with an ECU in an effort to increase reliability, refinement and lowered emissions.

Despite all of Fiat's troubles, it was still having the only competent rival to the Indica-the E-3 palio D but that time its price was touching close to Rs. 6 lakh mark. The car was slowly becoming extinct but continued to sell pretty decently in the southern part of the market.

Meanwhile Tata decided to finally give the Indica its first serious upgrade aimed at fuel sipping enthusiasts-that of turbo power or in simple words, plonking the Indigo's intercooled turbo diesel in the Indica and backing it by an innovative ad campaign-diesel reenergised.

Power was substantially up from 53.5 bhp to 68 bhp and torque from 8.7 kg-m to about 13.5 kg-m. The engine was one of the few IDI motors to rev beyond 5000 rpm. The refinement from tata standards was significantly improved and for that time, it was the only performance diesel hatch on offer, as it shaved off a massive 7 second 0-100 gap from the regular Indica and was even faster then its elder stablemates, the Indigo and Marina. It was also exclusively available in a new shade of blood red after a long time and finally, Tata plonked the Indigo's 14" wheels to make the car give less of a "standing on its toes" look. While the car was more powerful, the additional torque at lower rpms made overtaking far easy and the need to downshift that clunky gearbox was not required. It was more efficient too, thanks to the taller 4th and 5th gears.

End of 2005, Fiat was almost dying a slow death but rumours circulated abound that Fiat is on talks with Tata about a potential alliance and sharing its dealership network to sell and service some select Fiat products. While this was just beginning, it was actually a start of an entirely new era for Fiat India in the years to come. More on that later...

Meanwhile, Tata decided to get very, very serious at budget petrol segment. Because they told us-If you still miss it, you got to be dumb.