by Ross Finlay (08 Jul 03)

With the trail of MG Rover's possible links to China having currently gone cold, there's no doubt about the Indian connection. Effectively the replacement for the Metro/100, and right in the heart of a market sector where the company used to do big business but hasn't had anything to offer for the last seven years, the CityRover is a revised version of the Tata Indica.

Tata, of course, is a huge Indian industrial conglomerate, and its full name of Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company - often contracted to Telco - indicates its origins, nearly 60 years ago, as a train manufacturer. It will build the CityRovers at its Pune (Poona) factory and ship them to the UK, in time for an autumn launch here.

Like the Indica, naturally, the CityRover has a compact exterior and a quite roomy passenger cabin. The bodywork is fairly high-set, with the rear seat passengers sitting a little higher than those in front, and it has the advantage, especially down at the bottom of its price range, of coming exclusively with five doors.

It's ironic that what we're seeing with the CityRover is a back-to-front version of the Hindustan deal. Still being produced in India, the Hindustan Ambassador is basically a very old-style Morris Oxford from one of MG Rover's predecessor companies. Even more ironic, perhaps, is the connection with the famous Peugeot advertisement in which a Hindustan is panel-beaten into roughly the shape of a 206. The CityRover will be introduced with a Peugeot-sourced 1.4-litre petrol engine.

This alloy-head single cam unit produces 84bhp, and much the same lb/ft figure of torque at 3000rpm. A five-speed manual transmission will be standard.

Moderately restyled for the UK market, and using a revised version of the familiar Viking badge, the CityRover will come in at prices from £6500 to £8500. There will be Solo, Sprite, Select and Style models.

Equipment Levels Build Up

From the entry-level Solo, the Sprite specification adds alloy wheels, front fog lamps, a rear spoiler, power steering, remote locking, a rev counter, a radio/CD unit, a leather-trimmed steering wheel and similar gear lever knob. Select adds air conditioning and electric windows all round. Top of the range, the Style model provides ABS, and is the only version with a front passenger airbag as standard, to go with the driver's.

There will be two standard solid paint colours plus eight extra-cost metallic options.

Rover's chassis engineers have worked on the basic Indica set-up to change it to something more suitable for the UK. The wheels and tyres are bigger, the damper and spring rates have been altered, and the CityRover sits lower to the ground.

Once the CityRover turns up for UK testing, the big question will almost certainly be about build quality. Before that, though, Rover's marketing take is quite optimistic:

"Analysis of the city car market shows that there are a number of target customer groups who require a budget size car and/or cost, from first-time motorists to multi-car families. There are considerable differences in the buyer profiles for existing products in this sector, but a key pointer for the overall class is that a majority of main drivers are female, and there is an even distribution of age bands.

"Approximately half the cars in this sector are purchased as second cars in a household, and buyers tend to be open-minded, with around 60% of purchasers having no loyalty to specific brands."

So maybe the next Metro generation is ready and waiting.

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