Tata Punch Engine & Performance

Powering the Punch is a 1.2 litre naturally aspirated three cylinder petrol engine from the Revotron family, that makes 86 horsepower and 113 Nm of torque. Tata says that this engine uses the new Dyna Pro tech that offers better low end performance. The air intake has been reworked for better drivability.  And its true. Low end is quite strong on the Punch. As you climb up the revs, there’s a nice mid-range as well. Go further than that, and the engine starts losing steam and gets audible too. That said, the motor works well in urban city driving with moderate throttle inputs. Hopefully Tata plonks the turbo version of the 1.2 motor into the Punch, which will give that extra.. well, Punch. Tata offers a 5 speed manual and AMT gearbox with the Punch and we drove both. The AMT from a convenience point of view works really well. Yes the infamous AMT head nod is present, but drive in a relaxed manner and the gearbox shifts well. On the flip side overtaking with the AMT does require some planning. The gearbox is slow to respond to a kick down, and once you get moving, it upshifts quickly making you lose momentum for a second. It also gets a little tricky on speed breakers. The car goes over them in second gear, suddenly downshifts to first, and then over revs the engine when you start accelerating. Also the AMT tends to creep forward from a stand still rather quickly, so that might catch you off-guard, especially if you are a first time AT buyer. But as said before, the AMT works well as a daily driver in the city. I also got to drive the manual version briefly and it is quite fun. The shifts are fairly smooth and the throws are short. Even the clutch is light making driving effortless. The engine is very tractable and as I mentioned before, the low end is good. That makes pulling from low revs in a higher gear easy. Both the transmissions get City and Eco modes and the manual variant gets Auto Start/Stop as well.