Review: Mahindra Verito Vibe

Mahindra is familiar with chopping the boot of its cars and having tasted first blood with the Quanto, the guillotine now falls on the Verito sedan. Mahindra chopped the boot but not fully, made the sedan look like a hatchback, added some Christmas tree tail-lights and called it the Sporty Vibe!

The Vibe is a compact sedan but Mahindra thought it would be better if the look varied from cars like the Indigo CS, Honda Amaze, Swift Dzire and the like. Hence the look is that of a hatchback, but the essential DNA is that of a compact sedan.

One thing you cannot complain in the Verito Vibe is the lack of space. It's got acres of it. The rear seat is large enough for three people and it's got enough leg and headroom.

The centre console comes with a faux carbon-fibre finish, the steering wheel cannot be adjusted for reach or height and the AC and the audio controls on the centre console cannot be operated without taking your eyes of the road ahead.

Even on this top-end variant only a driver's side airbag is offered as a safety feature. The car has a 330-litre boot space, but the loading area is high and the aperture small to load the luggage.

The Vibe comes powered by a tried and tested 1.5-litre diesel mill from Renault. On paper it produces 64bhp and 160Nm of torque and that is enough power to get you around the city and on highways. Mahindra says that it has infact tuned the engine for efficiency and we all know how efficient the Renault engine is.

The Vibe is priced at Rs 6.49 lakhs (ex-showroom, Mumbai), for the top of the line D6, it's just 80k shy of the Verito Sedan with a huge 510litre of luggage space. Even though it's under the 4-metre bracket, it's still heavy on the wallet.