Thoughts on Tata Motors design direction post Bose exit
Am I among the minority few who think that TATA MOTORS is losing the definite edge in design superiority after the exit of Bose.
From what I see, Tata motors have always had great designs right from the old sierra, the og indica, sumo, og safari and even the Aria in mpv terms. I remember as a school kid, picking up a copy of autocar india i believe, with design of the indica revealed and Hormazd Sorabjee stating that even if they make the final product half as good as the pictures suggest, it would take off. The fact that they couldn't make it even half as good in terms of reliability was another matter. But here I am sticking only to design.
Now coming to the modern day, two designs took me by dismay, one against popular opinion : the newly launched Sierra and two : the yet to arrive (I hope it doesn't see the light of the day) Avinya model showed early whose design inspiration is from a yacht.(The model in the sand/silver colour that they showed as the first model of the Avinya series)
I happened to see a program on car design link below :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dcBIIwlstRY&pp=iggCQAE%3D
All photos that i am posting furthur on are screengrabs from this program. Due credit to the original uploaders.
Remember the 2020 Sierra concept, what a stunner it was.
There you can see Mr. Bose and Martin and the entire team was very happy and talking eloquently about this particular design.
Cut to 2025, Martin had commented in one of the interviews of the actual launch of the Sierra that this particular design was like a sausage dog and therefore they went about cleaning it up.
Well to me, the current design looks too cleaned up, almost looking like a plastic scale model.
The "so called overhyped Pratab Bose" , one should not trivialise his achievements, under his principal leadership, they dished out blockbusters with incredible consistency be it the Nexon, Tiago, Altroz and OG Harrier and ofcourse the Punch. That's an exceptional record for a brand that was not among the aspirational buyers mind. His thought process that we should first reach the buyers mind was spot on and he achieved it with his impact design philosophy.
Today, I am not impressed with the Punch ev facelift, applying that black plastic panel end to end in the rear taillight section might have worked on a wide car like Safari but here it looks odd. The front of the ev, though thankfully they have removed the led light bar, still looks like any Chinese ev.
Coming to the Sierra, the back is too plain and the tail lights are devoid off any signature pattern. The front though better, is still faceless with tiny lights and end to end plastic applique.
Just to prove my point, have you noticed the number of Sierra owners opting for the external accessory pack. I believe that itself is a sign that the design is not aging well.
Your thoughts?