The Toyota Innova has garnered a cult following of sorts in the country. Be it long distance touring or doing runabouts in the city, the Innova has been the favoured choice amongst people-moving cars in the country for more than a decade now. With the coming of the new-generation Innova Crysta last year, Toyota took a huge step forward in terms of design, quality, features and practicality. In fact, as a means of celebrating the first anniversary of the Innova Crysta in India, Toyota brought out a special edition model of the Innova which is the ‘Touring Sport’. In all honesty I believed that the Innova Crysta is one of the most premium-looking and feeling MPV but the ‘Touring Sport’ has taken it a couple of notches higher. Erm, maybe more! We got a chance to take the Touring Sport for a quick spin and here’s how it felt.
What’s new on the outside?
The absolute lovely shade of ‘Wildfire Red’ with which the Touring Sport is draped (It is quite a task to write Innova Crysta Touring Sport again and again, so we will stick to just Touring Sport). The colour looks amazing. The front end gets a lovely matte black grille with chrome inserts which make the car look really premium. The front and rear bumpers along with the side-skirts get chrome inserts as well. The headlamp cluster now wears a smoked look and it too gets chrome bits along with the fog lamp housing. Swing around to the rear and you will see that the tailgate gets a black garnish and the ‘Touring Sport’ badge as well.
And before we forget, Toyota is offering only 16-inch wheels on the Touring Sport as opposed to the 17-inch wheels on the regular Innova Crysta. The reason being that the 17-inch wheels were not holding up very well on Indian roads! So Toyota decided to reduce the diameter of the wheels. Having said that, the matte black alloys look really good with the overall red shade of the car!
Does the interior get updates too?
As a matter of fact, it does. Step inside the Touring Sport and the first thing that you notice is red-wood finish insert on the dashboard, which is actually plastic. The seats and the steering wheel are done in black leather with red contrast stitching, which we feel, is a nice touch. The instrument cluster behind the steering wheel gets red illumination instead of the blue that the regular Innova Crysta gets. Overall, the cabin definitely feels sportier and premium over that of the regular model. Ohh! And you also get ambient lighting whose illumination can be dimmed or increased as needed.
The downside, we feel, is that the fit and finish are not up to the mark. The material used for the dashboard is not soft-touch and the red wood-finish insert feels flimsy if you happen to knock on it.
The rest of the features remain as they are on the top trims of the Innova.
Is there a difference in the way it drives?
The answer would be no. and that’s not a bad thing at all. The Innova retains its good road mannerisms and is rather comfortable on long drives. The ride quality remains plush and the Innova is still a good car to drive around or be driven in. You get the Touring Sport variants on both the petrol and diesel engine options along with manual and automatic gearboxes.
toyota innova crysta touring sport(Toyota Innova Crysta Touring Sport- 2.8-litre diesel engine)
The petrol engine is a 2.7-litre unit which makes 164 bhp and 245 Nm of peak torque. The diesel manual is a 2.4-litre unit which churns out 148 bhp and 343 NM of peak torque. As far as the diesel automatic is concerned, it gets a bigger 2.8-litre engine and makes 172 bhp and 360 Nm of peak torque and comes mated to a 6-speed automatic gearbox, which is what we had for our review.
Honestly, I have never seen an Innova get so many endearing looks on the road. That in itself proves Toyota’s idea of bringing out the Innova Crysta Touring Sport to be right. It definitely looks premium and retains all the good characteristics of the regular Innova. Also, if 6-7 people wanted to travel in style, the Innova Crysta Touring Sport just might be the best option that they could have.
[“source-ndtv”]