The Tata Harrier is one of the most anticipated SUVs in the Indian market. Scheduled to be officially previewed in December 2018 followed by a launch in January next year, the Harrier will be Tata Motors’ new flagship SUV. What will a top-of-the-line Expedition variant of the Tata Harrier look like? Here is CarToq’s rendering specialist Vipin Vathoopan’s take on the same.
If there is sufficient demand, a 4×4 version of the Harrier is a definite possibility. And with or without 4×4, we can expect car customisers in India to try to make the Harrier more butch – for purely stylistic reasons sometimes, and for turning it into a machine that can look and play the part of an occasional off-roader.
As the render shows, the Expedition variant of the Tata Harrier will be a full fledged on-off road SUV. From a snorkel to butch cladding all around, the SUV gets features and styling bits that make it look quite macho. The front bumper gets two LED auxiliary lamps while the bumper mounted headlamps gets protective mesh to ensure that they survive debris hits during off road driving.
The daytime LED DRLs get finished in yellow, while the Tata logo on the grille is finished in bright red. The tyres are mud terrain units shod on blacked out alloy wheels while the roof has rails that host a top box. The wing mirrors also get a new design that give it a rugged appearance. All in all, the Harrier Expedition edition is properly ‘want-inducing’.
The regular Tata Harrier will be powered by a 2 liter turbocharged diesel engine that has 140 Bhp-320 Nm on tap. A 6 speed manual gearbox will be offered as standard while a 6 speed torque converter automatic gearbox will join the line-up later. The SUV will get an all wheel drive option on the top-end trims. If Tata Motors ever comes down to building an expedition version of the Harrier, the all wheel drive option is expected to get additional modes.
From rock crawling to sand modes, the all wheel drive system of the Harrier Expedition is likely to be customized with more off-roading chops. In fact, the system is borrowed from Land Rover, which offers similar modes on most of its SUVs. So, offering such options would not be difficult for Tata Motors, which has based the Harrier on the Land Rover D8 platform.
Apart from multiple off roading modes controlled by the Terrain Response switch on the center console, the Tata Harrier Expedition is expected to get revised suspension with additional travel and articulation. The new suspension will be made ready to cope not just with off-road conditions but also be strong enough to take the additional stresses from the larger mud terrain tyres.
Coming back to the regular Harrier, bookings for the flagship Tata SUV have already commenced at dealerships across the country for a token amount of Rs. 50,000. Actual deliveries of the SUV are expected to begin from the end of January 2019. Prices of the new SUV are likely to start from about Rs. 15 lakhs for the base variant, going all the way up to Rs. 20 lakhs for the top-end trim.
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