Jason Plato, who drives a Chevrolet Cruze in the British Touring Car Championship, claimed that his series was the best in the world, better than even Formula1. We don’t know about Formula1 but the British Touring Car Championship has more number of entries and a wider variety of cars than the World Touring Car Championship. In the latter there are only three makes, Chevrolet and privately entered Seat Leons and BMWs. In comparison the former has more than half a dozen manufacturers and this year is running two engine formulae. One is the full blown S 2000 format and the other is the formula of the future, turbo charged cars of 1600 cc. That seems to be the formula for Formula1 as well from 2013 and one shudders to think of what sound the Formula1 cars will produce.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Saab which has been sold to Spyker cars by General Motors recently is still doddering around since it does not have enough funding. Spyker apparently is trying to find some banks who would give the funds. Spyker is one funny company. It always seems to bite off more than it can chew. It bought the Jordan F1 team from Midlands and could not find funding and ultimately sold it off to booze baron Vijay Mallya who renamed it Force India F1. Now we see that Saab is suffering under Spyker. Maybe Mallya can trade one of his booze factories for the car company.
Immodesty thy name is Jorge Lorenzo. Lorenzo takes after Rossi in more ways than one. The man is immodest, loves publicity and suffers from illusions of grandeur (Rossi does not suffer from the third problem). Lorenzo has already produced his second book which has been titled “Jorge Lorenzo: The New King of MotoGP”. He also seems to have an acute business sense and has seen that writing books is a great way of making money apart from self-aggrandizement. Apparently there are many references in this book to his bad relationship with Valentino Rossi in the Fiat Yamaha Team. Knowing Lorenzo there will be no tongue in cheek or any punches withheld. The book should be interesting to read. It is being released today, so check where you can get a copy and read it. It should be entertaining.
Chris Vermeulen’s problems continue to persist. He was side lined for the most of last year with a serious leg injury. Kawasaki his employers in WSBK were hoping to have his services fully this year. But alas, Vermeulen had to sit out the first two rounds of this year’s championship since he has not returned to fitness. He tried in the practice sessions though. Kawasaki is hoping that he will be able to race this weekend at Assen. Now Assen is a circuit that has made the best riders fall and injure themselves again and again. Is that a good place for making a return from injury? This weekend should reveal all.
More and more manufacturers are announcing a hike in prices. The latest to join the list is Nissan saying that is increasing the prices of the various variants of the Micra by about 2% and this will translate into anything over Rs. 11,000/- Rumour mills are also working overtime suggesting that Nissan’s American Luxury brand Infiniti will come to India since there is an exponential increase of sales in the luxury car market and all that has so far been cornered by the Big Three Germans – Mercedes, BMW and Audi. Volvo has been around for a while but has not been able to make any significant headway in the Indian luxury car market. Volvo, under new owner Geely of China, believes that it can now make a significant headway into the Indian market with the recently launched S 60 car and the XC 60 soft roader vehicles. Nissan thinks the pie is big enough for it to want to tear into since it believes that Nissan and Infiniti have a strong brand recall in India, is what the rumour mills say. Nissan is not saying anything about this.
The market for disgustingly expensive cars apparently exists in India. It is for this reason that players such as Bentley, Rolls Royce and Maybach have dropped anchor here. Ferrari, Lamborghini and even Bugatti have confirmed their plans for India. So it was only logical that Aston Martin also would come looking for some action and they are on the 15th of April and will be announcing the prices of their cars. The thing is that most of us would not even know what all those zeroes in the numbers mean.
The newly established Garware Motors has a tie up with the S&T Group of Korea, the owners of brand Hyosung which is familiar to Indians because of the tie up that it had with Kinetic and brought two lovely performance motorcycles in the form of the GT 250 Comet a sports bike and the Aquila, a powerful low slung 250 cc cruiser. Kinetic was not the best of manufacturers when it came to maintenance of quality and has since disappeared from the scene having been taken over by Mahindra. However, Hyosung sees potential in the Indian market and has announced a tie up with Garware Motors for the GT 650 and the ST 7 cruiser motorcycles. It is now believed that booking will commence for these bikes from the 20th of April, but one is not sure about the dealerships other than the one in Pune, where the bikes have already been seen.
Volkswagen’s relentless assault on the Indian market continues. It is believed that the new Jetta sedan which has just been launched internationally will come to India in the second half of 2011 around July. However it is unlikely that the Blue Motion Technology that is seen in the newly launched Passat will not make it into India, to preserve the exclusiveness of the Passat for a while. But right now that is just pure speculation and so do not be surprised if the new Jetta does come with Blue Motion Tech from day one.
The W 201 World SUV of the Mahindras has been spotted testing around various cities for a long time now. The Mahindras have a lot resting on this project and it is believed that the vehicle is going through very rigorous testing to make it problem free at the time of the launch. Yet again test mules have been spotted and pictures posted on the web and some sites are saying that the Mahindra dealers of Bangalore have said that a launch is impending on 14th of April. We think that the last part of the news can be ignored. It is more likely that the W201 will be launched towards the end of the year during the festive season. Force Motors is also extensively testing its own SUV based on a Chinese model and that it will also launch it during the festive season.
Another car that is being sighted regularly around Chennai is the i 45 Sedan also being called the Sonata in some markets. This car has been caught minus camouflage but sporting red number plates indicating that it is a test mule. Its launch seems imminent enough after the new Verna but one is not sure if it will continue with i45 nomenclature or will be called the Sonata. Remember the Sonata brand does not enjoy a very great reputation here in India and so could be called the i45. But this car is still a long way from launch so don’t get your hopes up too much.