When Chevrolet introduced the Chevrolet Captiva in India in 2008, it was hailed as the one car which would challenge the might of the all mighty Honda Civic. It did but for a short time with buyers flocking once again to Honda’s show rooms. Now to add more pizzazz to the value for money proposition that the Captiva brings to the equation, General Motors very soon brought in a Chevrolet Captiva automatic variant to the Indian shores. While at the recently concluded Geneva Motor Show, GM had showcased a new look Orlando, many didn’t realize that this would be the Captiva that would be coming into the Indian market in 2011. No, this time around, we haven’t managed a scoop or something and it is the old 2010 model that we have here for the test drive. It actually surprised us that we hadn’t covered the Captiva on our blog except for one comparison test.

The 2010 Chevrolet Captiva in India is a winner as far as its looks are concerned. The Chevrolet bowtie sits proudly atop the two tiered grille. The head lamps are huge rectangular slabs while the fog lamps sit very close to the head lamps signaling its soft roader roots however belying its looks, the Captiva performs better off road than on the road. We will get onto that just a little bit later. The 16 inch alloy wheels have the usual design norm attached to them. The outside rear view mirrors however boast of having the turn indicators embedded in them. The door handles however aren’t body colored and are instead chrome ones. The rear end in the meanwhile is a plain unit unlike the front end. What livens up things is the twin tail pipes, which though, could have been done a bit more tastefully. The tail lamps are more or less shared with the rest of the Chevy brigade in India.