It pays to stand out from the crowd and especially dealing with the cutthroat SUV segment, you need to. For Vietnamese carmaker Vinfast, their first products for India include the VF6 and VF7. The VF7 is their flagship SUV for the Indian market as for now and one that is aimed at the premium SUV space. Hence, it has to stand out and impress in many aspects. We drove the car for a short distance at the Vinfast plant in Vietnam and this is not a full review but a first taste.

In black, the VF7 did look menacing and has a different design which stands out. It is a big car with a length of more than 4.5m and a wheelbase of 2840mm means it is bigger than some other SUVs at its intended segment. The styling is cab forward, edgy and the slim lighting is on point. It looks cool and stands out while ground clearance is 190mm while Vinfast says that the ground clearance has been revised for India too. 

The same can be said for the interior which gets plenty of soft touch materials as you would expect at the price and the 12.9-inch screen is angled heavily towards the driver. That said, most of the controls are touchscreen based. Quality seems good but these are not the final spec cars. The space though is huge and that's the key aspect with a flat floor which means three can be comfortable.

These are not the final India spec cars so the feature list would be different but on the evidence we saw, the VF7 is decently equipped with segment must features like a panoramic glass roof, vegan leather, ADAS, dualzone AC, 7 airbags, HUD, ventilated seats and rear seat recline. There would be two versions on offer- a VF7 Plus and the VF7 Plus AWD.

The single motor version develops 204hp and 310Nm of torque while the dual motor develops 354hp and 500Nm. The battery pack is a 70.8kwh while there are regen modes, drive modes and an on-board charger up to 7.2 kW. Our drive time was limited but the small and compact steering wheel was different while the whole car felt sporty. 

There is a crisp European flair to the driving experience while the ride is slightly firm but the VF7 has been tuned to be more of a performance oriented SUV. Power delivery is quick but linear and we expect range to be around 450km although yet again, final specs are awaited. Based on the first drive, the VF7 looks different and has appeal there while the cabin is very spacious and feels premium enough. The driving experience though is different to the other SUVs which we think is the USP. Overall, the VF7 has potential but also Vinfast needs to price it well for our market considering the competition while also having a large enough dealer network to support that.