Under the skin, the Vista is a far cry from the Indica. Twenty-five percent stiffer and built using hi-tech tailored blanks of steel that vary in strength from section to section, the Vista’s  chassis is far from basic. It forms the basis of Tata’s new car platform and as a result has a lot of sophistication.

The nose of the car is compact and starts low, the car has a tight-fitting, modern skin, and stylistic details are very subdued. The wheel arches have only a hint of a flare, there is a subtle crease along the door handles and the front bumper is fused seamlessly with the car’s rounded nose section. The rear of the car with the tall tail-lights is difficult to tell apart from the Indica, though the lights are much narrower and the rear considerably wider. The only telltale sign, if you can’t compare, is a crease that runs across the hatch. The Vista, however, looks severely undertyred and excessively raised — a Tata signature if ever there was one. 

The Vista has been engineered to pass stringent European crash test norms and even the bonnet height has been optimised for pedestrian safety. Other areas that have been optimised include a fuel tank large enough to cater to a number of body styles, wheel wells can take 15-inch rims, suspension towers that have been strengthened, and a steering rack that is now placed on the front subframe to isolate it better. The design of the front suspension is an evolution of the MacPherson strut system seen on the current Indica, but Tata has opted to go for a non-independent rear. It uses equal length driveshafts for improved refinement and minimising the effects of torque steer.