Tata Safari Storme review, test drive

Tata has drafted in a successor to the Safari after 14 long years. But is it good enough to revive the carmaker's fortunes in the SUV segment?

Published on Jan 21, 2013 07:33:00 PM

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New dash design looks modern and quality has taken a big leap over the old car.

The Storme gets the same longitudinally mounted 2.2-litre, 138bhp DiCor motor (which Tata has now dubbed ‘VariCor’) as in the old Safari. It gets the G76 Mark II gearbox, with improvements to the gearshift action. The minute you fire up the engine, you know that lots of work has gone into making the powertrain better. It’s significantly smoother than before, courtesy an inertia flywheel that damps vibrations. Good sound deadening also helps maintain relatively low engine noise levels in the cabin.

Unlike most turbo-diesels that are peaky and have a narrow rev band, this VariCor unit has nice and linear power delivery and can rev happily to 4600rpm. It does get quite vocal past 3000rpm, so you’re best off shifting earlier in the rev range. What’s nice is that there’s not much turbo lag to worry about, so you don’t always feel the need to shift down when revs go south of 2000rpm. While that makes the Storme quite easy in traffic, it’s on the highway where the Safari Storme can stretch its legs and come into its own. The punchy mid-range makes overtaking effortless and it can be deceptively quick (by traditional SUV standards) on open roads.

Flat-out acceleration is quite impressive, and 100kph comes up in 14.9 seconds, putting the Stome
on par with most of its rivals. The clutch is quite light and the gearshift has been improved too – it has a nice, short throw, it feels accurate, but isn’t exactly slick, and it still needs an extra bit of a push.