Tata GenX Nano AMT review, test drive

What is it?

Tata’s strategy with the Nano is to give it a small update every year, rather than one big facelift after a few years, as you might see with most cars. While that may not do wonders for resale value, it’s a good way to keep the car interesting. With every year, the car grows up a bit, shedding some of its budget car image and moving a little closer to being a desirable city car. The name gets longer each year too — the one we’re testing today is actually called the ‘Tata GenX Nano Twist Easy-Shift XTA’, in case you were wondering.

We said, after driving the 2014 Nano, that though we would’ve liked to have seen a few more improvements and features, the addition of power steering was a massive step in making this a great urban runabout. This year’s big addition is ‘Easy Shift’ — an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) — which only furthers that goal. The other part of the name — ‘GenX’ — implies that there’s a bit of a facelift too, and it’s the biggest change to the Nano’s appearance since the 2009 original.

At the front, the headlamps now have black surrounds, which really improves the way they look. Between them sits a black band with a chrome strip to liven up the near-vertical bonnet, and the Tata logo has been moved down to this band as well. The new bumpers have a little more sculpting and now house a big, smiley grille that, Tata says, is an interpretation of the ‘Humanity Line’ curve on the bonnet of the Zest and Bolt. This grille also houses new, round fog lamps, and if you look closely, the mesh is made up of tiny ‘infinity’ symbols. A similar grille as been added to the rear bumper, and then of course there’s the new hatch, which for the first time can be opened for conventional access to the boot; you need the key to do so, though. That boot holds 110 litres in the manual version of the GenX Nano (expanded to 500 litres with the rear seatback folded), but down to 94 litres in the automatic version, thanks to the added hardware of the gearbox.

Fewer changes have been made to the interior, with some sporty new upholstery also bearing the ‘infinity’ motif, and a black colour for the centre console. You also get a new steering wheel similar to the one on the Zest and Bolt, and in this automatic version at least, the gearlever and window switches sit on a tall pedestal, which makes for much better ergonomics.

There are some changes you won’t see — the radiator that’s been moved to the front of the car (part of the reason for the big new grille), added chassis stiffening, and a larger, 24-litre fuel tank (up by a whole nine litres), which is the result of feedback from heavy-mileage customers. The weight of the equivalent manual Nano is now around 25kg more than last year’s car. So how has all this affected the way it drives?