The Tata Indigo has been around for almost a decade, it was launched way back in 2002 when the majority of us thought that it was a stretched version of the famous Indian hatch – the Indica. Over the years we have seen more than a couple of up-grades on this model, which included a refreshed look followed up by a chopped down version – called the CS.

When I first saw the CS – courtesy of my friend who happened to buy it back in 2008 – I thought to myself that it was yet another product made for India and to be driven by the economy conscious customer. Frankly, during that period, I thought that the Indigo CS looked average with a chopped off bum – which kind of takes time getting used to, and I wasn’t much impressed.

I did not expect to find myself in such a bewildering spot! I was handed over the keys of a brand new Indigo eCS courtesy of Tata and the generosity of Ashish who declared that ‘Chotu’ – which is what they call me at times – would be the owner of this car for the duration it stays.

Before the handover, Tata gave us a technical briefing and we were told that there’s been intense research that’s gone into the latest variant of this car. Clearly, I can’t get my head around that. Since it’s new and has hardly done a few hundred kilometers, I must say it feels great. However, I’m not impressed with the overall finish of the vehicle. There are panel gaps the size of a small country and the NVH levels are – well, there’s no NVH level really.

The engine is surprisingly zesty for driving around town. The five speed manual transmission is decent given that there are no vibrations for the time being and gear shifts are not as temperamental as before. Tata has painted the town red with stickers saying the eCS gives 25km/l. We’ve been able to only get 16 km/l within the city and we’ll soon know the highway figures as we’re planning to take the eCS on a long-ish roadtrip. I guess it is just the beginning as the car is still brand new and the engine still needs a few more hundred kilometers to actually open up to its potential.