Compact Sedans are not meant to be exciting. Or are they?

It has become rather fashionable to blame former Finance Minister P Chidambaram for a lot of things. But one thing that those of us who write about cars can rightly accuse Chidambaram of is having inadvertently given birth to the Compact Sedan segment. By keeping cars below four metres in length in a lower excise category in a budget about a decade ago, Chidambaram thought he was promoting small hatchbacks. But Tata Motors developed the Indigo CS, a sedan with a boot that came in at under 4,000 millimetres in length, enough to get some excise benefits. This spurred several manufacturers to come up with something similar. Maruti Suzuki first made a sedan out of the Swift, the Dzire, and in the second-generation of the Dzire, it created what is by far one of the most successful cars ever made in India. The second-generation Dzire became the small taxi of choice across the length and breadth of the country. And other manufacturers cottoned onto this as well, which gave us the Hyundai Xcent, Honda Amaze and Ford Aspire.

But let me be honest, early design attempts at Compact Sedans were, well, pretty terrible. Designers stuck inside a tightly confined box, which just took a meat cleaver to the back-end of the car. Either that or they just added a little ‘third box’ to the hatchbacks, making you scratch your head when looking at the cars. To call them aesthetically pleasing would mean that one’s sense of aesthetics have gone awry. However, as they got more used to the restrictions and managed to work around the entire vehicle, they became better. The third-generation Dzire and second-generation Amaze along with the Tata Tiago and Ford Aspire are smart-looking cars. Yes, there is that sense that they’re trying to fit into a shirt, one size too small, but compared to previous iterations, they are clearly way better.

Then there is Hyundai and the new Aura. While I was never a fan of the original Santro’s look, and Hyundai has had some strange cars after that, I am looking at Eon as contemporary Hyundai cars are  extremely attractive. From the Venue to the Verna, the forthcoming Tucson and the third-generation i20, which will be showcased at the Auto Expo 2020, Hyundai’s design language has evolved to a nice place. My long-term car right now is the refreshed Hyundai Elantra as it stands out with its very sharp looks. But this is about the Aura, and I am afraid to say that the rear-end of the car is well, strange! I don’t understand the need for the blacked-out C-pillar and the reflector strip through the boot. While I would not be so extreme as to call this an aesthetic assault, let us just leave this here by saying that I am not a fan. Which is a pity because I really do like the i10 Nios hatchback that the Aura is based on.

But when you drive the Aura, specifically the one with 1.0 litre Turbo, you forget the way the car looks because it suddenly proves that Compact Sedans can move. Sure, there have been 100 horsepower compact sedans before but those have been diesel. And while I do not want to get into a debate on the merits of diesel and petrol right now, it suffices to say that petrol engines are more responsive that diesel ones. I have driven the Venue with the same turbo engine and just like in the Aura, Hyundai’s powertrain engineers have managed to work out the kinks leaving almost no perceptible turbo-lag.

This is a properly nice engine and when it is coupled to a car with great ride and superb handling, you forget about the rear-end. On the roads that lead to the Jam Gate outside Mhow, which is the entrance through the pass onto the fertile plains of Malwa, you begin to have some fun. And this was with three people and a lot of equipment in the car, which cannot be called a light load. It took all the corners with aplomb and while you do need to mash the gears in the lower end of the powerband, once you hit the sweet spot, it is a very rewarding powerband. Despite the ‘fun’, non-economical, I had driven the Aura, which still delivered a quite surprising 13 kilometres to the litre. The lightweight and good road handling qualities helped in delivering a decent fuel economy even when you want to have some fun.

Compact Sedans were born out of a lacunae in the rules. They have become a practical solution for those who wanted the convenience of a boot and there is a reason the taxi segment adopted it en masse. But Compact Sedans were never ‘fun’ and I never thought that I would see the day when I could describe one of them as fun. But the Aura Turbo is actually a fun car that is not just nice to drive but practical as well. And there are variants with a 1.2 BS6 diesel and a 1.2 BS6 petrol, which, though not as peppy as the turbo, share the great ride and handling characteristics. Having said that, the managing director of Hyundai India, SS Kim told me that almost a third of Venue sales have been of the car equipped with the same Turbo engine. We also know that Hyundai is fitting the same engine in the Nios and that the i20 could come up with an even more powerful power unit. And to deliver power and fun at a decent ex-showroom price — Rs 8.54 lakh — the Aura Turbo could be a game changer. Personally, I’d stick to a hatchback and can’t wait for the Turbo Nios.