It was waiting to happen but no one did it, a small diesel in the small hatchback category. What makes it even more interesting is that none other than a company with its back to the wall plucked deep within itself, thought logically and smartly for a change and came up with an engine and matching aggregates to not just put new life into the funkiest of its global minicars but that this exercise was done in India, predominantly for our needs and from there on to the rest of world, which as they say is its universal dancing ground. Adil Jal Darukhanawala taps into the smallest diesel-engined car in the country, saying that Chevrolet has changed the rules of engagement forever
When the Chevrolet Beat first hit enthusiasts’ minds as a concept car many moons ago, it was right there as a funky youth-oriented global offering and this bit yet stays true. Of course, while the product was A-OK, the perception levels regarding its parent were anything but and many of GM’s products suffered on this count as the company had to fight raging fires on so many fronts. In this period of global turmoil, the Indian arm of GM made itself financially secure with some deft footwork. Immediately from thereon it set into motion a series of product development initiatives which focused on product, product and even more product so as to be a complete portfolio player in the Indian market. As is a no-brainer in this country, diesel was paramount in the thought process for the GM India team.
Karl Slym and his team knew that they had to consider a small capacity diesel engine sooner rather than later if GM had to not just get critical mass to be in the reckoning but also that its efforts would have a spill over effect in the Asia-Pacific region as well. What marked out GM’s way of working out a small diesel engine was its going against prevailing convention to come up with not just the country’s smallest passenger car engine but also to make it work. Where others have dabbled with engines ranging from 1.3 litres and upwards, the GM team (including specialists at GM Europe and also GM R&D in Bangalore) went through the existing hardware within the GM empire and zeroed in on the 1.2-litre four-cylinder Opel SDE motor. The idea was to put into motion the downsizing mantra which has energised every car maker on the planet but without sacrificing torque and driveability and thereby ensuring high fuel efficiency and low tail pipe emissions.
DRIVETRAIN
Many a time I have experienced small petrol and diesel engines, which have been poorly developed for fuel efficiency just because they displace less volume. In doing so they also compromise driveability and that is the key to good fuel efficiency. The new GM engine, designated the 1.0 XSDE Smartech, is a departure from this line of thought. First the basic architecture of this unit consists of a short skirt cast iron block for its three cylinders, the GM boffins lopping off one cylinder from the 1.2-litre base SDE unit. This long stroke engine, with 936cc displacement (courtesy bore and stroke dimensions of 69.7mm x 82.0mm) has an alloy cylinder head packed with double overhead camshafts operating four valves per cylinder.
The engine works on a 16.5:1 compression ratio and employs the latest Bosch CP1H common rail direct injection technology, squirting diesel into the combustion chambers at 1600 bar and working in conjunction with a Borg-Warner KP31 fixed geometry turbocharger to provide a punchy 150Nm of torque (at 10750rpm), which as it stands does all the talking and more to make this Beat dance and sing. For the record the engine makes 58.5PS at 4000rpm and these power and torque figures are impressive in themselves for they make the Beat deliver best in class outputs: 62.5PS per litre and a whopping 160.3 Nm per litre of displacement!
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