Renault kwid super car. Review on Renault Kwid

We have known for some time that Renault would launch a one-litre variant of its Kwid in India. If anything I had expected it to arrive even sooner than it has. But better late than never, as the benchmark entry-level small car(and indeed our worthy 2016 NDTV Car of the Year title holder) has cemented that position with the 1-litre offering. Read on to find out why. The Kwid's existing 0.8 litre engine has been reworked - by expanding its bore and stroke - to produce more capacity and indeed an extra 200 cc.The power bumps up to 67 bhp and the torque is an impressive 91 Nm. Hold on to that figure. The first immediate impression you get when you begin driving the car is one of more apparent power. And here I have to unabashedly compliment Renault. It could very easily have chased the'best-in-class-mileage' tag and erred on power or driveability. But even as the Alto K10 retains the segment-best mileage crown(24.07 kmpl) the Kwid 1.0 still manages a very healthy 23.01 kmpl.The second thing you realise almost instantly is that the car's engine is undoubtedly a 3 cylinder - given away by its wheezy, whistley note. While on the subject of noise, overall NVH levels do seem to have improved. I probed the engineers on this in a post-drive interaction to find that the timing chain has been reworked, so has the clutch, and the engine mounts too - all making the car seem slightly quieter than the 0.8 Kwid.And the good news is these changes are being incorporated in the 0.8 variant too now, so expect that engine variant car to also get slightly quieter. I would like to see further efforts on sound damping though to drown out the 3-pot harshness and traffic noise that do still permeate the cabin.

The final thing you notice soon enough is how much torque the engine has. Now I was so curious about this, that I actually pulled over to look at the specs again. Peak torque kicks in only at 4250 rpm. But it feels like you are getting a lot of it early on. Again the engineers let me into why. Almost 20 Nm of torque is in fact available almost at word go, with a generous percentage then being available as low down as 1500 rpm.