Tata's fresh assault in premium hatch and compact sedan segments

Tata Motors today unveiled two production ready models named Zest and Bolt. While the Zest is a compact sedan, the Bolt is the company's latest hatchback. Not completely new cars though, Tata Motors has made a lot of changes which make these cars appealing and take the quality a notch higher. Tata Motors says that the cars will go on sale in the second half of this year, so we expect a launch somewhere close to Diwali.

The cars - Zest (pictured here below), a compact sedan, and Bolt, a hatchback, will be powered by the company's new Revotron series of petrol engines. Both the cars are based on the company's enhanced X1 platform, on which the existing Vista and Manza models are built. The company has no plans to stop the production of the Vista and the Indigo CS, even if there is a possibility of cannibalisation with the two new products. (See pics)

Tata Motors is currently focusing on getting the volumes up and with these cars hopes to see a spike in that sales figure. "These cars have been engineered for global markets, through global teams across India, the UK and Korea to set new standards in their respective segments," said Tata Motors' president - passenger vehicles, Ranjt Yadav.

Both the new cars are a result of collaborative design inputs from the three Tata Motors design studios in Pune, Coventry (UK) and Turin (Italy).

The Zest will be made available in both the petrol and the diesel avatars, while the Bolt will be powered by the new Revotron petrol engine. The cars will be produced at the company's Pune plant.

Both the cars come feature-packed and with EPAS (electronic power assisted system) which is a move over from the hydraulic assisted ones used in earlier models. The infotainment system on both cars is touch screen based with a voice assist system and even the infotainment system is powered by Harman. A new feature on the Zest is the 5-speed automated manual transmission that will be used on the diesel model, a segment first.