Buoyed by the excellent response for Zest compact sedan, Tata Motors is now aiming to further enhance its market share by introducing a series of new products in the country in 2015-16. The company is gearing up for the launch of much-awaited Bolt hatchback, which is scheduled to go on sale on January 20, 2015. The homegrown automaker is also working on a new compact hatchback and sedan for the Indian market. Just like the Falcon project, the upcoming hatch and sedan comes under the company’s new “Kite” project.
While the Tata Kite hatchback will go on sale in the second half of 2015; the compact sedan will be launched in the early 2016. Both models are likely to be developed at the company’s Gujarat manufacturing unit, which is currently used to develop Nano. The small hatchback will come as a replacement for Indica, and is based on the thoroughly modified Indica platform. It will rival against the likes of Maruti Celeiro, Hyundai i10 and Maruti WagonR.
The Kite compact sedan will come as a replacement for the Indigo eCS, and will site below the Zest compact sedan. Both models are likely to get improved styling, and shares its design cues with Zest and Bolt. The vehicle would share its interior components with Bolt; however, the steering wheel and seats are likely to be lifted from current model to keep cost down.
The Tata Kite siblings will be powered by an all-new 1.05-litre 3-cylinder common-rail diesel engine that produces 64.01bhp of power. Power is transmitted to rear wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox. The gasoline version will get the standard 1.2-litre unit.
