Indiblogger meets are always a fun experience and this time around it was time for the Tata Nano GenX event at Tata Lake house – Pune, bloggers for Pune, Mumbai and other states were selected to have a hands on experience of the new Tata Nano GenX AMT with a day full of activities and action guaranteed. Luckily I was amongst the 24 others who were selected! I was excited and jubilant to say the least.

The event was on a sunny Sunday, bloggers assembled at common junctions where bus was going to halt and we started off the journey towards reaching Tata Lake house at around 10.30am, we had a fun time introducing ourselves, chatting with our fellow bloggers, taking selfies sharing and exchanging happiness on social circles, live feeding and keeping in loop of the event with everyone!

Time passed by like wind and we reached the destination, it was a warm reception reaching Pune as Indiblogger team members Anoop and Vineet welcomed us  followed by  paparazzi clicking and filming us, the celeb feeling was blooming from inside :),  we had breakfast at the ever so serene Tata lake house after reaching!

 After that we assembled at a common hall to hear from Tata Motors design team head, who gave us a brief about the new Tata Nano GenX AMT, sharing the amazing and versatile features below:

 The features are classified into 3 categories:

1) Designext, 2) Drivenext, 3)Connectnext

 Lets me just brief you on all the 3 categories:

 1) Designext

• Striking front and rare bumper with infinity motif grille
• Nano engraved headlamps and large circular FOG lamps
• Next Generation Tata signature steering wheel with contoured palm hold
• Sporty two shade color interior with cappucino finish
• Nano embroidered brown INFINIUM seat fabric with brown orange inserts
• Colour coordinated interior themes with 2 fresh colour introduced named SANGRIA RED and PERSIAN ROSE and more colour range then before.

 2) Drivenext 

• Easy Shift Auto Manual transmission (AMT)
• Sports mode for peppier performance that means if you are hitting an open road or a highway you can activate the sports mode and get a better feel of power compared to the automatic mode!
• Shift assist manual mode: If you choose this mode you get to choose to manually change the gears as per the traffic and road conditions, which I feel is a pretty neat effort by Tata design team to club both auto and manual mode in a hatchback entry level CAR!
• Creep for heavy traffic maneuverability and parking easy: In this mode the car is on 1st gear or on a set RPM and when there is bumper to bumper traffic all you need to do is just release the brake a little and the car moves automatically, this is a convenient feature considering the Indian traffic issue and perfect considering the EPIC Mumbai traffic.
• Other noticeable feature includes:
• ePAS (electric power assisted steering
• Speed sensitive power steering
• Steering with active return function
• Smallest turning radius of 4m for easy maneuverability
• Most Spacious car in its segment!

 3) Connectnext 

• New instrument cluster with new graphics
• Digital clock in the display
• Digital information display with Dual Tripmeter
• Instantgeous FUEL consumption and average fuel consumption
• Distance to empty: Now this feature comes very handy specially when you sometimes forget to refuel and all of a sudden you are stuck up in the middle of nowhere! Quite thoughtful of Tata team.
• Gear shift indicator: well that’s an add-on to all the perky bounty in this segment! 

After that we were briefed about the day activities/planner for the day:

1) A roughly 50kms drive one way drive across Chinchwad and Hinjewadi stretch, we were suppose to reach TCS as a touch point and return from there!

2) While returning we had to halt at Mezza9 for Lunch

3) During the drive we had to perform tasks, answers questions and what not, people could request us to perform a task through twitter with the hashtag #followthegenX , @tatanano_tweets and @indibloggers, it was upon us (as in our team) to decide if we shall execute a particular task or not, sounds interesting isn’t it !

 This said it was time to make teams! We had 8 cars and 32 people along with us, 24 bloggers and others from team Tata!

 We had pack full of drivers with valid license around 10 from the 24 bloggers, I was one in them!!

Some cars had 3 blogger, some had 4 bloggers, we guys paired up accordingly and were all geared up to go and experience the Tata Nano GenX ! But before that to happen some instructions were explained to us in regarding to the challenges, the how-to’s of checking the challenges, accepting them, posting them and all!

 Finally the teams were paired up; our TEAM was “C” and onboard were:

• ME , behind the Wheels,
• Kiran Acharya – dentist, writer, unconventional philosopher and a blogger,
• Apoorva – Beauty and Fashion blogger
• Tata motor personnel- Engineer!

 Let me quickly round up the challenges we accepted!

• Taking a group selfie inside the car along with driver while the car was on the move!
• Applying eye liner while the car was moving (Apoorva did well) so did the shock absorbers of Tata Nano Genx!
• Taking the drivers picture from the front mirror in the car.
• Buying a souvenir which depicts Tata Nano Genx (we bought an Indian flag)) truly custom made 4 wheel for every Indian that suits our taste!
• Call using the Bluetooth and connecting with the amphistream music system!
• Taking a picture depicting enjoyment, popping the head out, feeling the wind while the car was on the move, this was well executed by Apoorva!
• Chilling out and grabbing a soft drink of same brand and flavor and taking selfies
• Tearing a cigarette into 2 and placing towards the car silencer, a message to not smoke and drive!
• Romance with the car bending down facing the cars headlamp and capturing that moment!
• Stop under a tree shade; click a snap with the Nano and your team in it!

My Experience while driving the Tata Nano GenX:

• It is spacious in its segment!
• Feel of the steering is pretty solid.
• Functionality and usability of the features within the car dashboard is accessible easily
• The auto mode does not lack in pick up, the car is designed to catch up to your acceleration demands , and shifts the gears so very efficiently
• The creep mode is amazing, when it comes to bumper to bumper traffic, navigates without any hiccups
• For a speed junkie like me, a manual transmission option is just the perfect blend when it comes to playing with the cars power, and just not that the shifting pattern is just a simple up and down which is easy and a first in its segment !
• The car stays stable at high speed; I touched around 85 Km/hr considering a under 900 cc car engine, that’s not bad at all
• It was terribly hot in Pune and the a/c worked amazingly, it cools within few seconds and provides consistent performance.
• Leg space at the driver’s seat and also at the back is spacious and doesn’t cramp the legs, giving a comfort drive.

 Overall, the car feels comfortable, very easy while steering, good turning radius, nice power, some apt transmission feature, both in automatic and manual, a  sporty and youthful color combination with the infinity logo embedded finishes the car look so well  and above all doesn’t  feel like a entry level car by any means! Credit must be given to the Tata Motors team (concept, design, and engineering) for accomplishing   something quite credible!