Test drive of the sportiest Lada Granta

Striking appearance, colorful interior and tuned suspension - the sporty Granta remained budget, but no longer requires special filters in order to look cool in social media feeds

In the city of students Innopolis - the Kazan version of Skolkovo - there is quite a ceremonial drive from the M-7 highway, but the navigator stubbornly leads the gardens through the Agrostroy garden partnership and the Pustye Morkvashi settlement along the primers of the Volga forestry. The forest is transformed into a city in a stepwise fashion: first, the primer becomes wider, then it turns into a high-quality concrete road, which over the next three kilometers grows first with curbs, and then with asphalt.

All this way, the blue Granta with the Drive Active nameplate makes almost full speed - there are no passing and oncoming cars, and the car practically does not pay attention to the unevenness of the primers and potholes in the concrete. The energy intensity of the upgraded suspension remained excellent, the chassis seems to be more assembled, and at this very moment I really want to say that the budget sports car was a success for the VAZ team. If not for a number of nuances.

The road ends at a roundabout, behind which there are chic markings, design buildings of the university and campus, as well as residential areas of fashionable colors. Yandex unmanned taxis drive back and forth along the wide empty streets, which any resident of Innopolis can order from point to point through a mobile application. It seems that this is some other world, and you instinctively slow down so as not to disturb this idyllic picture.

The only pity is that the driver of the construction KamAZ does not think about the same thing, believing that he has a main road everywhere by default. The brakes of the Granta Drive Active remain standard, but even with the drums in the back they are in perfect order, as well as the volume of the sound signal. A taken aback KAMAZ driver is in a hurry to immediately get out, but the Yandex drone, which stopped behind, starts to move a little later - the electronics obviously decided to let go of the 40-ton truck and the nimble blue car with a bright red stripe at the stern. But the young passengers of the robotaxi have already managed to get their smartphones - the bright Granta will clearly appear in social media feeds today.

In principle, the Granta Drive Active can be painted in any of the eight standard colors, but the blue metallic seems to be the most harmonious for it, for which you will have to pay exactly 6 thousand rubles. It is with him that the contrasting red stripes on the front and rear bumpers look so great. The bumpers themselves are also new, with wide "skirts" and a fair amount of black plastic, which made the signature X-design a little more invigorating.

A black pseudo-diffuser appeared at the back, complete with plastic ventilation pseudo-slots and a chrome-plated exhaust pipe trim from Lada Vesta Sport. All of this is nothing more than pretty jewelry, but the chubby spoiler on the trunk lid, which provides a 40 percent reduction in lift, is already serious. Among other new items - a sill kit and really beautiful two-tone wheels.

But most of all, the change in ground clearance influenced the visual perception of the car - the Drive Active's ground clearance is 162 mm, which is 18 mm less than the standard one. As a result, the Granta no longer looks like a curvy sedan on small wheels, although it stands on disks of a modest size by modern standards of 15 inches, like standard cars in older trim levels.

In theory, the decrease in ground clearance, coupled with the appearance of protruding parts of the body kit, should have reduced the geometric cross-country ability of the car, but in most cases 16 cm is enough with a margin, especially if we talk about purely urban conditions. The main thing is that the updated suspension just as well swallows bumps and smooths out irregularities, but at the same time it shakes the body much less and, in general, makes the car more assembled in almost all modes.

Okay, even if the steering wheel is still empty at zero, and at high speed, the Granta still does not cling to the road with its teeth, but the zest in the management of the cheapest sedan on the market has already appeared, and there will be clearly less skepticism in conversations about its handling. The suspension was not rebuilt as noticeably as in the case of the Vesta Sport, but struts, springs and shock absorbers, as well as most of the elastic elements, were replaced - even the track became a little wider.

It is difficult to say whether it was worth offering such a solid upgrade to a car with a standard VAZ-21127 engine with a capacity of 106 hp. with. paired with a five-speed "mechanics" or a five-band "robot" AMT, but there are no other options and will not be. There is no need to wait for sports dynamics with these units, but if the task is not to move quickly, but actively, then there are no problems.

The light Granta accelerates well and even knows how to effectively penetrate the flow, since the switching mechanism remains clear, and in general there is enough traction in most modes. Cruising 120 km / h on the highway is also supported without difficulty, and in general, the duo of the 1,6 engine and the manual gearbox is perceived as more honest than, for example, the version with the 1,8 engine on the Lada Vesta. In the end, acceleration to "hundreds" in 10,5 s is quite a normal indicator by modern standards, allowing you to drive very comfortably.

With the "robot" Granta is expected to be slower, but the manufacturer claims a moderate 12 seconds and the comfort of a hydromechanical "automatic". Last year, VAZ employees installed a new controller on the box, rewrote the control program and changed the linings on the clutch disc. As a result, everything really became acceptable: there is a "creeping" mode for starting off and driving in traffic jams, and the switchings themselves occur smoothly with a barely noticeable break in the power flow. The main thing is that in a nervous urban driving style, the new "robot" responds faster to demands to accelerate and does not frighten with long delays.

VAZ employees emphasize that the Drive Active version should definitely not be compared with the Granta Sport, the production of which was finally discontinued a year ago. The question of whether Granta will ever get a more powerful engine immediately comes up against the cost: any such upgrade will increase the price, and after all, the previous sports modifications with an outstanding 118 hp engine. with. and so were sold in piece editions. Moreover, such a Granta will start competing with Vesta, and this must be avoided. Bottom line: the Granta Sport project is officially closed, and the Drive Active will remain the hottest version of the model. And the most expensive among the family sedans.

The Sporty Granta is sold only with a sedan body in the only fixed Comfort trim level. The cost of the car with the "mechanics" is $ 8, and the "robot" is $ 251. more expensive. The set includes two airbags, ABS, air conditioning, heated front seats, an audio system, front electric windows, electric drive and heated mirrors, and you can pay extra only for the metallic color.

Plus a generously but neatly decorated with red stitching interior, where sports front seats with marked lateral support are well soloed. True, they are not designed for fat people, and tall people all the time want to lower them lower, although this will not be very convenient in the standard Granta. The leather steering wheel is really not bad, but it is still adjustable only for the angle of inclination, and the "sports" instruments with red illumination in the manner of Vesta Sport scales are not for everybody.

In fact, the surcharge for a sporty environment and a tuned suspension is a hefty $ 1, and that's a pretty impressive sum for the opportunity to drive beautifully, but not too fast. On the other hand, the speed in social networks is almost invisible, and Granta Drive Active will be in demand among young photographers for a long time.

Body type	Sedan
Dimensions (length / width / height), mm	4280/1700/1450
Wheelbase, mm	2476
Curb weight, kg	1075
engine's type	Gasoline, R4
Working volume, cubic meters cm	1596
Power, hp with. at rpm	106 at 5800
Max. torque, Nm at rpm	148 at 4200
Transmission, drive	5-st. MCP, front / 5-speed robot., front
Maximum speed km / h	184
Acceleration to 100 km / h, from	10,5 / 12,0
Fuel consumption (mixture), l	8,7/6,5/5,2
Cargo space, l	520
Price from, $.	8 239 / 8 567