Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to my special place. This is where I come
to calm down, to chill and watch some trees and until recently, there was no phone network here, which was
great because now there is and I get bombarded by the same messages every day. What SUV should I buy
for Rs. 20 lakh and until recently I would just say, go buy something that everybody buys, buy
a Creta, buy a Seltos, but people don't want to wait that long or there are some people put off by
well, should I say current events slightly unfairly. Okay, then, go buy a Skoda Kushaq,
but some people are still put off by Skoda's after sales service, although I think that's a
little unfair, because they've done a big leap and bound in that department. So you don't want to buy
the Koreans, you don't want to buy the Czech, you want to buy the alternatives, do you? So, I have
assembled two of them with my secret wisdom, the new MG Astor and the Volkswagen Taigun
in my opinion, the two best looking SUVs that you can buy at Rs. 20 lakh. Both of these are
turbo petrol, both of these are automatics and which one is best, that's what we find out today.
My clone brother from the planet Kamino, I didn't expect to see you here, what's up?
And have you seen my awesome red leather interior from the MG Astor? I mean, wait wait wait, where's
your leather? You seem to have cloth seats there. How do you manage to put a Star Wars reference
in a car review? And look, yes, I do have cloth seats, but they're more comfortable because they
get cooler...what? And yes, of course, they're more comfortable and I mean, you know, GTs and GTIs
in the past, they've never had leather seats, it's a cool thing. Wait, you can't pull out that
GTI car all the time and say, oh, cloth seats are cooler, no, they aren't, I mean, at Rs. 20 lakh
you need leather, and that GT variant should have had some really cool leather it doesn't and look
at this, don't you feel like you're in like a, like a Porsche or a AMG-Mercedes, it's so cool,
I mean, you're the German one, but I'm the one that looks like a German on the inside and look
at this quality, look at this red stitching here and all the perforated leather, it's just so cool
and I'm sorry, how big is your touchscreen, again? Well, if you want to talk about big or not big,
my car is definitely definitely more spacious than yours is it, it's a no brainer and my screen I
think has a better user interface than yours and I think it's better sort of put into the dash. Wait,
you're saying your user interface is cooler than all the features I have in this car? I
highly doubt that, I highly doubt that. Both of us have the connected car features but my instrument
cluster is much larger and cooler, my screen is much, much bigger and cooler and of course, pièce
de résistance, do you have a little robot on the top? No, I don't have the gimmick. I do have the
space and space is what every Indian family needs. I mean look, it's more spacious in the back,
I have maybe less headspace than you because you do have that panoramic roof up there, but I
just do have more space, I mean, I'm sitting more comfortably, not slouching. No this is spacious as
well, I mean, look at all the headroom I have, do you have that much headroom? I mean look at this,
you don't even have a panoramic roof and I have all of this headroom cause, the pano roof
has been closed right now with this little cloth thing because it's so sunny but look at the size
of this, it's one of the biggest pano roofs you can buy in this segment, it's gigantic and again
forget all of that, when you sit inside what makes you feel more special? This or your car come on,
that's not even a...it is not an argument, it's this, let's just, look, deal with it, okay,
this has the better interior, you've lost this one, let's move on. You know what, you think you
won this battle okay fine, I'll give you this one, if your interior's nicer looking or nicer feeling,
the next battle though, that goes to me because that's where real warriors battle, on the road.
Our SUVs engines undergo a lot of stress, both in city driving and on tough terrains particularly
during warm up in stop-start traffic and of course while carrying heavy loads. Ordinary car oils may
not be enough for your SUV and that is why we recommend fully synthetic Castrol Magnatec SUV
for nonstop protection. You know what the latest complaint of people on the internet about the
Taigun and for that matter about the Kushaq is well, they say it isn't German enough,
from what angle is this not German enough? I'm sorry, but either you've never driven a
car that is German or you're just going with the few and like bad mouthing things, but
this is quintessentially German, I can tell you for a fact that
this feels as German as my eight year old Polo does and that is a German product by all means,
I mean a big thick steering wheel, nice and chunky everywhere, simplistic design, it's German,
come on, and what do the Germans do really well? Performance, 150hp of performance, but this
1.5 TSI engine, oh you know what, I'm gonna put it in manual, and enjoy this a little bit.
This 1.5 TSI EVO engine does this to my face every time, every single time that I've driven one of
these car, but it's not just the 1.5 that does it to be honest, even the 1.0-litre with the
manual gearbox, the base base, entry level Taigun will also put a smile on your face, that's because
they just do this so well, they do platform engineering so well, they do performance so well,
they do handling so well and inherently they also do ride comfort really well too, that's what this is
this is a driver's car and being a driver's car isn't all it does. There is something here for
everybody, the 1.0-litre base model gets both a manual or a torque converter automatic and the 1.5
gets a manual too or a dual-clutch transmission. The Astor too has multiple engines on offer,
the 1.5 naturally aspirated gets a manual or CVT and the 1.3 which is of course this one, gets
a torque converter six-speed option only, but how does this compare to the Taigun to drive?
You know one would expect with all this inherent sportiness built into the Astor with these red
seats and the cool looking interior that this will be some sort of a benchmark in handling. Sadly, it
isn't, they have sort of slightly missed the plot. This car is well it sort of handles decently well,
but it sacrifices ride comfort a bit to get to that handling, you know what? It's a little
crashy on bad roads, it just feels a little too stiff sometimes. As I said in the standalone
review of this car, it's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, which is strange, because
with MG's sporting heritage and history, you would expect them to be able to set up a suspension to
absolute perfection. Sadly though, it isn't the case, I mean, I would have really liked
if this was one way or the other, make it really sporty or make it well, comfortable and
squishy that we'd like to sort of be chauffeured around and driven very gently around in. But this
is somewhat in the middle and it just sort of just about doesn't work for it. Of course one
can't help but notice the fact that the Astor does offer a lot, lot more for your money,
ADAS for example and if that helps you avoid an accident even just once, just once,
that one time is all worth the sacrifices you make in terms of ride and handling. So we're back
back at my little forest of solitude, my little peaceful place back to square one and I'm back
here for a reason I want to talk about the thing we talked about right in the beginning of the
video which is the way these two look, now I know that design is something that's a bit of
a personal preference and beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I like the way this grille looks,
but I prefer the wheels on that and I prefer the paint quality and the paint colour on this
I mean look at this it's spectacular but I prefer the way this thing sits, the stance,
honestly, I'm confused maybe I need to flip a coin. There we go.
Tails it is.
That was tails in my head, so it seems I like this a little bit more. You know what, this is
really that close, I had to actually flip a coin which I'm going to take home now, quietly.
Right, but let's give you a verdict okay, because that's what we do, but this time, it is a bit
split, if you are going to buy it with your heart, buy this because this is a driver's SUV, no wait,
this is a driver's car, so if your driver's man or woman or well if you just, you like
driving let's keep it gender neutral, this is the one you need to buy, partner's a package,
I mean this ticks all the right boxes, fills that first supplement out then takes another
supplement and makes you gasp, it is unbeatable for what it offers for the same amount of money.
Head over heart then, heart, head, you guys decide because I genuinely can't
drive a wedge between these two, it's up to you, because of what you want.