Tata’s chief designer Pratap Bose: What he has to say about the Hornbill micro SUV [Video]

One of the models that grabbed attention of the viewers at the Auto Expo this year was Tata’s HBX micro SUV Concept. Tata’s HBX will compete with cars like Mahindra KUV 100 NXT, Maruti S-Presso, Maruti Ignis  and so on. The HBX or Hornbill as we know it will be putinto production later this year. Here we have a video from Tata Motors’ Vice President, Global design, Pratap Bose who takes us on a tour and explains every bit of the upcoming Micro SUV that is now known as HBX.

The video starts with chief designer speaking in Italian and he goes on explaining why he did so. The HBX concept was completely designed by Tata Motors global design centre in Turin, Italy. The concept car showcased at the expo looked rugged and speaks loudly about the latest design language that Tata Motors has chosen. India is market where there is a huge demand for cars from the SUV segment or at least for cars that look like one. With HBX Tata Motors wants to offer Indian customer an SUV in every size and price.

HBX will be the entry level SUV that manufacturer will offer and on the other end will the recently unveiled Gravitas which will be the biggest SUV in terms of size and price. In the video, Mr. Bose can be heard saying that the model displayed at the expo is an almost production ready concept and 95 percentage of the elements in the concept would be carried forward to the production version. Like other Tata cars, HBX is also likely to be a strong and safe car and that is depicted by the rhino shape on the hood and other places.

He then expalins about the bold character lines and chunky wheel arches along with the contrasting matte and gloss paint job that the HBX gets. At the rear, it gets the tri-arrow designed LED tail lamp and similar design on the lower part of the bumper. It also gets a spoiler at the rear. Front of the car gets Harrier like LED DRL with indicator next to it. The headlamp is placed on the lower part of the bumper.

On the inside, it gets features like a touchscreen infotainment system, semi digital, semi analog instrument cluster, push button start and so on. The interior also inspired by the tri-arrow design elements. The tyres and the roof carrier in the concept with many other elements won’t make it to the production version of the car. Tata Motors might launch Hornbill or HBX micro SUV with a petrol engine only. It is likely to get a 1.2 litre, 3-cylinder petrol engine producing 84 Bhp and 115 Nm of torque. It is likely to get a manual and  an AMT gearbox as an option when launched.