To try and push the sales of its monster SUV, the Endeavour, Ford India has introduced a Limited Edition version with the Hurricane gear which adds a ladder and side cladding among many things to make the already butch looking vehicle even more aggressive. The price of the Hurricane version is Rs.20, 13, 244 ex showroom Delhi.
After being indecisive about bringing the Mini brand of cars to India for sometime now, BMW the owner of the Mini brand has finally decided that it is time to bring the brand and its cars to India. That Mercedes Benz has announced the intention to launch the B Class and A Class of cars in the Indian market, may have something to do with BMW’s making up of its mind. The Mini could against the Mercedes Benz cars and it should be interesting to see how the Mini range would be priced, though most expect it to be over the Rs. 25 lakh mark.
BMW and Mercedes Benz are earnestly at war with each other in India. Mercedes dropped anchor in India way before BMW did but once BMW got serious it left Mercedes Benz behind in sales. The other German Audi is also serious about the Indian market and is making no bones about the fact that it wants a bigger piece of the action. Mercedes Benz is trying to make up for lost ground with a new model assault plus adding additional dealerships. BMW has not been slow to respond; it has also started adding more dealers and is also showcasing the capabilities of its products. As a part of that BMW India has organized the X Drive campaign where the off roading abilities of the BMW X range of vehicles viz. the X1, X3, X5, are being showcased. All this is part of the BMW Xperience.
Picture courtesy: Indiancarsbikes.in
The erstwhile Premier Auto Limited which is now Premier Ltd is testing a facelifted version of its Rio compact SUV. The vehicle which is a Chinese Zotye based on a Japanese Daihatsu was being sold with the old XDP engine from Peugeot to which Premier had the rights. However the vehicle has not sold at all well and therefore Premier seem to be trying a facelifted version which may come with the now ubiquitous Fiat Multijet engine. Whether this will help sell the vehicle is anybody’s guess.
Picture and news courtesy: Indiancarsbikes.in
Paul Bird Motorsport, headed by Paul Bird were fronting the factory effort of Kawasaki in World Superbikes till the end of this season. However, PBM was fired by Kawasaki for not producing adequate results and also for controversies that involved smuggling of drugs and guns across the Italian border. Paul Bird has been stung by Kawasaki’s dropping his team like a hot potato and now has switched his attention to the CRT category in MotoGP. It is believed that Dorna has welcomed him and granted his effort a slot on the grid. However, PBM is yet to decide on the engine-chassis combination for its CRT while Tom Sykes will in all probability be the rider. This is early days yet and Dorna is struggling with the number of bikes on the MotoGP starting grid and thanks to the machinations of the Motorsport Manufacturers association (Honda mainly) the CRT category too is not flooded with entries even though Dorna is claiming that there will be eight CRTs.
Dorna, the rights holder of the MotoGP series has decided that from next year on, there will be no restriction on the number of days for testing during the season. However, Dorna is not relaxing the tyre allocation saying that if that is also relaxed then MotoGP will become very expensive. Riders like Valentino Rossi have welcomed this step of Dorna’s since Rossi has suffered most due to not being able to test the Ducati properly and that has compromised his season completely.
This year the ParkinGo team participated in the World Supersport category as a representative of the Yamaha effort. Now Yamaha have pulled out of the World Superbike series and ParkinGo who have won the Supersport world championship with rider Chaz Davies, has decided to become ParkinGo Ducati and contest the World Superbike races as one rider team with Chaz Davies. However, the official announcement is due even though this news was leaked openly by the ParkinGo team itself.
The new duty structure that has come into being this fiscal where in completely built engines and gearboxes attract more than 30% as import duty has meant that prices of the Hyosung bikes launched by Garware are higher than they need to be. This has meant that the sales of the motorcycles have been slower than what Garware expected them to be. In order to ensure that their sales targets are met it has now emerged that Garware Motors will start assembly of engines and transmission system at Wai in Maharashtra. This should help in reaching targets.
This is the first product to come out of Hero’s stable after its split with long time partner Honda. However the product is a Honda sold in Brazil as the NXR 150 Bros, but it has been launched in India purely as Hero Impulse 150 and is a result of a new agreement wherein Hero simply pays royalty to Honda without using the Honda name. The Impulse is traillie type of motorcycle suitable for on and off road use. The price of the vehicle is Rs. 66,800/- ex showroom Delhi. That makes it marginally more expensive than some 150cc motorcycles but cheaper than some others. Hero needs to be complimented for this brave foray into a segment that had hitherto been tapped into almost reluctantly by Bajaj in the form of the SX Enduro, which was a mish mash of the KB100 from Kawasaki. The bike generates 13.2 PS of power and 13.4 Nm of torque.
Suzuki has served a legal notice to Volkswagen claiming that VW has reneged on a number of provisions that exist in the agreement that facilitated VW taking a 20% share in Suzuki while giving Suzuki a 1.5% share in itself. The alliance has been very uneasy and Suzuki approached Fiat for new engine technology. Osamu Suzuki also said that he wants to buy back the VW stake in Suzuki but VW have not been willing to oblige. Now Osamu Suzuki says that the agreement between Suzuki and VW envisaged transfer of technologies to Suzuki by VW and that has not happened. Therefore Suzuki claims that he wants his company’s shares back and that he will give back VW’s shares as well.