Yearly Archives: 2011

The good folks at motoroids.com have reported that Fiat India is actively pursuing the development of a vehicle that is smaller than the Punto, for an India launch in 2012.  The car is being designed in Italy with inputs from Indian engineers.  Motoroids has quoted the head honcho of Fiat India as having said that the real volumes are in the Spark/Santro segment and that the penetration of cars into many pockets of India is still very poor and it is here that Fiat wants to move in quickly and garner numbers.  Fiat’s problems have been because of indifferent dealers and an image that took a battering thanks to erstwhile partner Premier Auto Limited.  Let us hope that Fiat can put these problems firmly in the past and move on to gather some good sales.  They make very sound products that deserve better than what they are today.

Speculation about Mahindra Maxximo’s passenger version launch yesterday turned out to be right with the company launching the product at a price point of Rs. 3.2 lakhs.  The Maxximo faithfully follows the Tata Ace and is hoping to break the strangle hold of the Ace. The more ambitious (in thinking) among the auto journalists fraternity strongly believe that it is only time before Mahindra does a Tata again by launching an equivalent of the Tata Venture on the Maxximo platform.  And why not, the ingredients are all there.

Motoroids has reported that the most aggressive of all racing teams in India, Red Rooster Racing has decided not to participate in motorsport anymore.  Red Rooster Racing cites the lack of sponsorship as the reason.  The team had come in with a budget for three years and hoped that its results would entice sponsors to come in but that has not happened.  While motoroids.com has cited that the management of Red Rooster Racing have said that India’s fanatical interest in cricket is the reason why all sponsors gravitate towards sponsorship of that game, we believe that the problem could also be because rallying is not very spectator friendly as sports go and that could be one of the reasons for their not finding sponsors.  In India rallying has always been propped up by either MRF or JK Tyres or both with other small teams of one car each finding personal sponsorships and racing on a shoe string budget.

That seems unbelievable right?  Left lane news has reported that Ford will be idling its plants in Taiwan, China and South Africa.  This is because Ford sources a number of components from Japan.  Even though there is no mention of the India operations, some websites are expressing concerns that the new Fiesta that shares its platform with the Mazda MX-5 could have long waiting lists if parts do not reach India from Japan.  But Ford thus far has not expressed any concerns and the fact that it revealed its car post the tsunami makes us feel optimistic that there will be no bottle necks in India.

Premier Automobiles Limited, one of the two pioneering car makers of India (the other being Hindustan Motors) was caught in a quagmire of a number of problems in the last decade of the 2oth Century and sank without a trace, or so we thought.  But over the last one year Maitreyi Doshi’s Premier is trying to stage a comeback with the Rio, which is a small SUV of Chinese design and using the old Peugeot engine which it has rights over.  But the aging engine does not meet pollution standards (BS4) or customer demands.  In order to stop itself from sinking again, Fiat has turned to its old partner Fiat, whose fortunes were sealed in this country when the Uno which was overwhelmingly booked had no deliveries because of  a strike that crippled Premier.  When Fiat finally came into India on their own diesel power, it realized that the Indian car buyer suffered from very bad memories of Fiat.  Also the fact that Fiat internationally ran into problems and had an indifferent set of dealers did not help.  But Fiat’s international fortunes have turned around thanks to its multijet diesel engines and the Grande Punto.  However in India, Fiat’s fortunes have bettered only marginally.  But its 1.3 multijet engine powers not just its cars but also Tata cars and Maruti cars.  Now Fiat’s old partner (or should we way nemesis) has decided to jump onto th multijet bandwagon it seems.  What will happen? That only time will tell, though we have an inkling, but we are not saying it aloud.

The Tata Ace has been a little bit of a wonder.  It created a segment which is entirely its own and has been dominant what with it becoming a darling of the traders who need to carry things into narrow lanes and by lanes of cities.  Tata’s chief competitor Mahindra was not going to sit around twiddling its thumbs when Tata was selling in big numbers.  So they created the Maxximo but by then Tata has upped the ante and moved on to create the Tata Magic which is a passenger version used in rural areas and outskirts of big cities as a seven seater shared taxi.  Now Mahindra has been playing catch up again and have been testing the passenger version of the Maxximo with speculation now rife that it could be launched in the market as soon as today!!! Lets see if this is right.

Indiaknowledge@wharton.upenn.edu has featured an article, which has also been quoted by Indian Autos Blog, that claims that Bajaj Auto’s Managing Director, Rajiv Bajaj has said that the ULC or the ultra low cost car project is in fact not going to produce a car but just a four wheeler.  For those of you who are confused, a four wheeler which is also called a quadricycle sometimes has four wheels attached to a platform that is originally from a three wheeler or sometimes even a two wheeler.  This means that this category of vehicle does not satisfy all the requirements of a car.  Rajiv Bajaj has claimed that should Renault not be interested in this product for marketing under its own brand, Bajaj will use the platform to create four wheeled cargo vehicles.  The Piaggio Ape Truk and the Force Trump are quadricycles as is the Mahindra Gio.

This news has been in the making for a long time now.  There have been speculations that the next Ninja from Kawasaki will be the 650R and the time has come to put an end to that speculation.  Bajaj Auto’s website (the part dedicated to the Ninja 250 R) has put a teaser out.  It says what is bigger, faster and more powerful than a Ninja 250R and shows glimpses of the Ninja 650R which is clearly seen if you watch it carefully enough.  The Ninja 650R is actually the Kawasaki Ef 650 in Europe which is the faired version of the En 650 which is the naked version.  It sells this bike as the Ninja in the USA because in the US, Ninja is almost generic for superbikes.  In fact the Ninja name came up as a suggestion from the marketing arm of Kawasaki USA.  Well, it does seem that the good times will certainly roll.  If the pricing is right, this could kill competition.  Lets see if “Green is the colour” of the future.

In what can be called fantastic news it has emerged that Harley Davidson Motorcycles India are working on an India specific model which will be manufactured locally here in India.  The bike is said to be of 500 – 650 cc capacity and Harley Davidson is keen to keep the pricing around 4 to 4.5 lakh of INR.  While the price is by no means affordable to all, it is still definitely great to bring in a larger group of people who can ride the iconic brand’s motorcycles.  Now for some dreaming, how about a 400 cc  for around 3.5 lakh of INR?