Peugeot will start work on its India manufacturing facility from November of 2011. This is the second coming of Peugeot to India, the first being in collaboration with Premier Automobiles Limited. Peugeot left the country then, leaving a very bitter taste in the Indian consumer’s mouth since those who bought the sole offering of them, the 307 found themselves saddled with a competitive but expensive to maintain car. This time around, Peugeot like compatriot company Renault will have to come on its own and wipe out the negative legacy that it left behind the last time. Peugeot is bullish about what it can do in India and have top down strategy where in they will launch a car possible the 508 in the Honda Civic, Renault Fluence category and come down a few segments.
General Motors is in the process of developing the Ecotec range of small capacity petrol engines from one litre to 1.5 litres. These engines will be built to a three and four cylinder architecture. These engines will feature direct injection, turbo charging and alternative fuel using capability. The engines will have modular construction and different manufacturing plants in different parts of the world can change the components that go into the manufacturing of the engine, depending upon regional demands.
Over 350 passionate clients, Ferrari tifosi and collectors participated in yesterday’s charity auction held at Zojoji, the main temple of the Jodo-Buddhists, which makes for a spectacular sight at the foot of the Tokyo Tower.
At the Japan Premiere of 458 Spider, the Ferrari’s new exclusive 8-cylinder model, Ferrari held a special charity auction to further support the city of Ishinomaki, the region severely hit by the earthquake in Japan last March.
Joined by surprise guests, the F1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, who had just finished the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka at the weekend, the auction was a great success. Special items, including the nose cone of the 150th Italia, the F1 car with the famous “Gambare Nippon” message displayed at the opening Grand Prix of 2011 season in Melbourne were auctioned.
Following the charity auction held in July at the FF Japan Launch at the Italian Embassy where Ferrari raised over 53 million yen, over 12 million yen was raised by the Ferrari Owners Club of Japan, which will be added to this event’s donation of another 8 million yen. The total donations collected by Ferrari has now reached over 70 million yen, which will enable Ishinomaki to build two after-school facilities.
Sebastian Vettel of Germany driving a Red Bull Racing car overcame Lewis Hamilton right at the beginning of the race to win the F1GP of Korea and also ensure that RBR won the Constructor’s title as well. Second place went to Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and third to the second RBR car of Mark Webber. Jenson Button overcame a poor start to finish fourth in the race will Fernando Alonso took fifth and Felipe Massa took sixth, both in Ferraris. Seventh place went to Jaime Alguersuari who drove a brilliant race in his Scuderia Toro Rosso and eighth to Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes GP car. Ninth was taken by Sebastian Buemi also of STR and tenth and final point scoring position to Paul Di Resta in the Sahara Force India car.
Casey Stoner of Australia riding the Repsol Honda clinched the World Championship for himself and for Honda at the Philip Island circuit in Australia. Stoner took off from the start and stayed at the front of the field till the end even while carnage was happening in the form of riders crashing all over the place, some assisted by a small cloud burst of sorts. It helped Stoner’s case that his title rival Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo could not participate in the race due to having hurt his ring finger that necessitated immediate surgery. His teammate Ben Spies who had a scary crash yesterday but went on to compete in the qualifying was declared not fit to race thereby ensuring that both factory Yamahas were absent on the grid. The grid was further reduced when Damian Cudlin who was a replacement for the injured Hector Barbera on the Mappfre Ducati fell in qualifying and ruled himself out of the race. The grid was therefore reduced to a farcical fourteen starters and as the race progressed the size of the grid diminished further with Valentino Rossi crashing out even as he was trying to fight Bautista for fifth place. A little while later Bautista himself crashed. More crashes happened in the form of Cal Crutchlow on the Tech3 Yamaha and Hiroshi Aoyama on the Gresini Honda. All was not lost for Gresini Honda as Marco Simoncelli battled rain and Andrea Dovizioso to take second in the race, his highest finish this season. Dani Pedrosa continued his lacklustre form to finish in fourth place. Colin Edwards on the other Tech3 Yamaha and Randy De Puniet on the Pramac Ducati finished fifth and sixth respectively while Nicky Hayden and Toni Elias took seventh and eighth on the Ducati and LCR Honda. Ninth and tenth place went to Pramac Ducati’s Loris Capirossi and Karel Abraham on the Cardion AB Ducati. Elias and Capirossi finished one lap behind the leader while Karel Abraham who recovered from a crash finished two laps behind.
McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has broken the run of pole positions that Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel had been having. This year thus far pole position has been the exclusive preserve of Red Bull Racing team and for the first time Hamilton has beaten Vettel to qualify in pole position for the Korean GP. Vettel qualified second and third place went to Jenson Button of McLaren while Red Bull’s Mark Webber took fourth. Fifth and sixth places went to Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari and seventh place on the grid went to the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg while Renault’s Vitaly Petrov took eighth on the starting grid. Ninth and tenth places went to Force India’s Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil.
Casey Stoner of Australia riding the Repsol Honda has taken pole position at his home race in Philip Island. This is Stoner’s fourth straight pole at the picturesque circuit that is loved by all riders. Second place on the grid went to the gritty Jorge Lorenzo on the Yamaha and third to Marco Simoncelli riding the Gresini Honda. The big surprise perhaps is the Suzuki with Alvaro Bautista in fourth place on the grid and fifth is Andrea Dovizioso on the Repsol Honda. Ducati’s Nicky Hayden has sixth on the grid and seventh was taken by Ben Spies who had a massive crash and had to be taken to the medical centre. He came back to complete qualifying. The second surprise of the day is the eighth place qualifying effort of Dani Pedrosa. Colin Edwards and Loris Capirossi rounded up the top ten in ninth and tenth positions respectively. Valentino Rossi’s woes do not seem to have an end in sight as yet with him qualifying in a lowly thirteenth place. The race should be a cracker with Lorenzo claiming that Stoner is beatable.
The motoring press has been going ga ga over the recently launched Honda Brio and singing praises of it endlessly. All auto magazines have been carrying articles about how “spacious” the car is and how wonderfully engineered it is. Though we have not driven the car, we have sat in it and we find that the car is more competition for Alto as far as space is concerned but comes with the price of an i20 (especially the top end variants). That it has garnered five thousand bookings is no surprise considering the brand equity that Honda has in India, but how the car performs in the longer run will be most interesting, since the Indian car buyer needs value for the money he pays and we don’t see the Brio being a value for money proposition at all.
After reaching the shores of Sri Lanka and scaling the mountains to reach Nepal, the cutesy Tata Nano has looked east and is headed for Bangladesh. The Nano has generated quite an interest internationally thanks to the design that maximises internal space will the external dimension are small and therefore a boon in crowded cities. There also has been some interest in the Nano in Brazil and some African countries. In Europe too the Nano has seen a lot of interest and better put together and more powerful versions of the car are likely to launched in developed markets such as Europe.
Maruti has launched a limited edition of its popular Alto called the Alto Xplore. This will be available in the K10 and the 800cc LXi models. The Xplore will come in six colour options and will feature body coloured bumpers, winged ORVMs, leather seats, blue tooth and USB equipped 2 DIN music system, body graphics and roof mounted spoiler. Needless to say this effort is mainly to dilute the impact of the Hyundai Eon’s impact on the small car market.