Monthly Archives: August 2009

Wait for the Evo-X

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Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution-X
Since the time it was displayed in 2008, it will take two solid years before Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution-X will be launched in the Indian market. The Indian car lovers now have plenty of options and this car, which was almost been forgotten, because of the surprising number of car launches, will now find its place in the wish list of the Indian car customers, especially the young crowd.

Mitsubishi had showcased its motor sport derived car, the Evolution-X, in India at the Auto Expo in 2008. The question still lingers as to what took so much time for the company to launch this trendy high speed car in India; it might put the blame on the economic slowdown. Well, now it will be a hardly a year before which the Indian will have this sophisticated machine on road.

The Evo-X will be powered by a 290bhp engine at 6500 rpm and 407Nm torque at 3500 rpm. And the fuel efficiency of the car also looks descent; it has a mileage of 12 kmpl in the city and 15kmpl on the highway.

With the spacing capacity of five, the car has extreme safety features, which is very necessary for a high-speed car. The list of safety features could begin with ABS that has EBS and a whole set of curtain SRS airbag for passengers and driver.

The car will be imported to the company as CBU and till now does not have plans to manufacture the car in India. The car can be afforded by only those who can spend Rs 30 lakhs. And this does not seem to be a welcoming factor, but you never know to what extent the Indians’ car craze can surprise us.

Currently Mitsubishi has sedans like Mitsubishi Lancer, Mitsubishi Cedia and SUV’s such as Mitsubishi Montero, Mitsubishi Outlander and Mitsubishi Pajero in its product lineup for India.
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Tata Motors Eyes Pininfarina

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The famous Italian car design house and coachbuilder Pininfarina is up for sale. If things go right, our desi car maker Tata Motors will secure it. This will be icing on the cake as Tata Motors has recently acquired the luxury marquee brand Jaguar Land Rover.

The company Pininfarina is struggling with financial problems and is losing its influence and command over as one of the most successful car styling companies of the world. So, the decision to put it up for sale came as a part of an agreement to restructure the company’s debt.

Currently, the Pininfarina family holds a 50.6 per cent stake in the company and has hired a bank to help it sell its shares. Indian car maker Tata Motors is a strong contender among its potential buyers.

One of Tata Motors’ contenders is a French industrial company called the Bolloré which is presently developing the Bluecar EV with Pininfarina. It has also been rumoured that Ford is also looking at the deal.

Tata Motors is in partnership with Fiat, which has its Ferraris and Maseratis designed by Pininfarina. So, the Indian car company is expected to have a better stand compared to others.

The car styling firm was established as the Società anonima Carrozzeria Pinin Farina in 1930 by Battista “Pinin” Farina. It has designed Ferraris and Maseratis and also other models such the Ford Streetka, Peugeot 406 Coupe, Fiat Coupe, Alfa Romeo Brera and Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin. The famous Pininfarnia has also worked with other major car companies like Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Cadillac, Jaguar and Volvo over the last seventy-eight years.

Pininfarina also worked on the Tata Prima concept car that was presented at Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.
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Logan in the Path of Change

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New Mahindra-Renault Logan Cars in India
Mahindra Renault Logan, an offspring of the joint venture between the Indian car manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra and the French car manufacturer Renault though fetched good prospects initially for the company, has soon run into trouble and is hardly selling 500 units per month.

The company started realizing that the much hyped model of theirs is not bringing them profit and that their future is at stake. They had realized this some time back but did not bother to look back to rectify the problem as they did not want to figure out the problem!

But now the company is finally ready to accept it and is getting ready to revive the sagging sales of Mahindra Renault Logan. The company currently is in the lookout for more and more options to revive and boost the sales of the car. Of the many options that the company is considering are, to bring in a new model, abandon the Logan, and refresh the Logan and so on.

This mid-sized sedan, which has supported the existence of the joint venture, will not be deserted by the company but instead will be given little tweaks here and there to make it a small car; in fact little tweaks will be too little to do the magic so perhaps some major ones.

Mahindra and Mahindra is in talks with the Renault to see whether they can dress up Logan as a small car and thus reducing the excise duty of the car by including it in the small car sector, which piggy backs on low duty.

Let us all wait for a new Logan which will be not only seen in the green paint with a yellow number plate.
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Three Cheers to Maruti Suzuki

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New Maruti 800 Cars in India
India’s number one car maker Maruti Suzuki is in its 27th year. The company was established in 1982 as Maruti Udyog after Indian Government joined hands with Japanese car major Suzuki Motor Corporation to produce cars. Maruti Udyog was renamed to Maruti Suzuki India Limited on 17 September 2007.

The Maruti 800 was the flag ship and the first car from Maruti Udyog to be launched in India on 14th December, 1983. This small family car brought in an auto revolution in India. In all these years, the car company has been successful in driving out more than 80 Lakh cars from its Gurgaon and Manesar facilities.

The company began with producing 844 units in the first year in its facility plant at Gurgaon and now in its 27th year of producing cars and after 81,05,228 cars of its 14 models on roads, it is still going strong with the backing of the people of India.

The Maruti 800 alone accounts for over 27 Lakh units and more than 25 Lakh units of this model were sold in the Indian car market and the rest were exported.
Maruti Suzuki achieved the benchmark of one Lakh units in the month of September, 1986. In the next twenty years, it manufactured 40 Lakh units and was effective in making another 40 Lakh units within a period of six years.

Last month the Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) built 86,630 units, which is the highest ever in a month.

The Indian car giant has contributed about Rs 50,000 Crore to the national exchequer. The company is now undertaking an investment programme of Rs 9,000 Crore which includes adding a new facility at Manesar and increasing the capacity of the Gurgaon plant, besides ramping up Research and Development (R&D) activities and coming up with new variants.
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“Star of India” To Fetch 10,000,000 Euros ?

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This car that you see above is the 1935 Rolls Royce Phantom II 40/50 HP Continental “All-Weather Convertible” which was custom made for the erstwhile Maharaja of Rajkot. This is a car which is also known as the “Star of India” amongst the Rolls Royce aficionados.

This Rolls Royce will soon be auctioned for an asking price of 10,000,000 Euros. While you keep counting those zeroes suffixing the numeral One and breaking your head hard to convert it into Indian Rupees we will quickly brief you about this Phantom, er, Car.

This car is one of special cars in the vast private collection of cars belonging to Hans-Günther Zach. Zach has a private museum in Mühlheim, Germany which houses around 27 cars (24 Rolls-Royces and 3 Bentleys) many of which belong to the pre-war period. Mind you, Zach is one crazy Rolls-Royce buff and yes of course it shows.

But now, probably recession has really hit everybody real hard as that shows too because Zach is planning to sell the entire private collection of cars and it is the “Star of India” which will be auctioned for this astronomical sum. If sold at the auctioned price, this Rolls Royce will be the costliest car ever sold in the face of earth.

The body of this Rolls, as we have earlier mentioned was custom built by Thrupp & Maberly and is painted in saffron ochre finish and aluminium. This 7.7-liter pushrod straight-six is a seven-seater with the interiors also decked up in saffron, a colour regarded as auspicious in India and carries a whopping fourteen headlights, which gives the car a superior appearance.

To top it all, this car has on it an inscription which reads “An impartial ruler of men of all faiths.”

Now for the real puzzle, If Zach, being aware of the economic slowdown, still puts a huge price for his Star, then he should be equally confident that he will get a buyer for his precious procession. But, who could be the buyer, who is least affected by the economic meltdown.
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VW Polo to be seen in India by 2010

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The Volkswagen Polo is expected to be in the Indian car market by the end of next year. Indians have been long expecting the launch of this supermini car. But the wait just a little longer.

It has been reported three years back that the car will be available to the Indian car customers by 2009 and it will be competing against the Maruti Swift, Hyundai Getz and Tata Indica. But when the promised time has just arrived the wait is extended by another one year and the car will have a new set of rivals in the Indian market by the end of 2010.

Let us hope that the wait will finally end this year. The bookings have already begun in Europe for this fifth-generation of Polo. For the European customers, the Polo is a very familiar model and a much loved one also. But for us Indians, we have to wait until Volkswagen plans to deliver this cute hatchback to our shores by sometime in 2010.

For the Indian car customers, there will be modifications in the car so that it will meet their needs the best. But from the master car builder it will be surely some great features, as the Indian customers also have now learned the trick of not getting settled for what has been offered but asking for more.

The exteriors of the car will match its siblings the Volkswagen Jetta and Passat, but mocks at the more serious look of these models with the dual indicators, which gives the car a sportier look. As for the engine options, the base model of the car will be available in a 1.2-litre petrol and there will be a more powerful engine option of 1.2 TSI petrol motor.

The price is expected to be between 4 lakh and 7 lakh which looks quite tempting, but wait and see, what this long wait has in store.
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Mallya’s Museum for F1 Cars

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Car manufacturer majors one after the other are withdrawing from the Formula One legion. Honda was the first, in December last year and it was followed by BMW just last month and there are speculations that the Mercedes Benz is also planning to quit the F1. These withdrawals are very shocking news for the F1 management, Formula One fans and to the world in general.

Indian business tycoon and Force India owner, Vijay Mallya too is worried about the recent Formula One debacle in his own way, particularly his collection of Formula One cars. Mr. Mallya who owns a collection of F1 cars wants to house his collection of cars in a museum.

He has approached the US state of California for the approval of his dream museum to be built in the city of Sausalito in California.

As per the plan, Mr. Mallya will be commissioning a huge 6,600-square-foot car museum designed to look like a wave. The constructional design of the building will be such that it will be using only natural light for illumination and the whole building would be using solar energy and green technology and would have seven car parking slots.

The general public would not have access to the building but people can walk around the museum probably to be constructed using glass panes.

Apart from the collection of Formula One cars, he also has a mammoth collection of 260 luxury and vintage cars. This collection of his does not include his collection of speed boats. Maybe we probably can write on his museum for these beauties also. Just keep a watch on this space for more!!!
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A New Sports Car From Toyota

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A new affordable sports car from Toyota’s mill is in the making.

The word is out that Japanese automaker Subaru will joins hands with Toyota to manufacture this “exciting” and “fun to drive” sports car, which is nicknamed the “Subieyota”.

This car will be initially sold in the United States and will be launched in the market by next year. The company is willing to introduce this sports car in the United States as part of an effort to inject more passion into Toyota’s otherwise conservative lineup.

This model is likely to have a rear-wheel drive coupe, which might be equipped with a choice of a 2-liter or a 2.4-liter engine. Moreover, the car is considered to be compact and lightweight.

Toyota is the largest shareholder in Subaru’s parent, Fuji Heavy Industries. Furthermore, Subaru manufactures the Camry sedans for Toyota at its plant in Lafayette, Indiana.

Toyota has sold sporty vehicles like the MR2 and the Celica in the United States so far. But it didn’t have a sports car in the American lineup of its Toyota brand for several years. Since 2004 , it has traded the Scion tC, a sporty coupe meant for the new young generation. The new sports car is expected to many features similar to the tC.

We are hoping that this sporty car will be unleashed in the Indian market soon after it makes its world debut in the United States.
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Honda -Toyota Look Alike

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The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius come from different car manufacturers all together, but they still come from the same country and that probably is the single matching gene in their design DNA.

They are so much identical in design but Honda probably felt a little offended on this allegation made by design critics and is now in a strict denial mode. Honda says that the design of Honda Insight is much of an accidental design and the Insight looking more like Toyota Prius is just coincidence.

Though the blame of copying the Prius design for Honda’s Insight weighs heavy on Honda, both the cars were introduced along the same time, early this year. And Toyota Prius, in particular, is doing a good job, selling more units than the Honda Insight. The Toyota Prius has been the topper in its category in the sales chart in Japan for the past three months. Honda Insight is not far behind, but there is a considerable difference in the numbers.

Honda Insight had its presence in the car market from 1999 to 2006, but it is the revamped Insight, which is first car to be built based on the Integrated Motor Assist.

Both Insight and Prius are hybrid cars and have been performing well in the market. There are more and more car lovers opting for these eco-friendly cars, which switch between an electric motor and a gas engine, for the concern of a pollution free tomorrow.

Both the companies make dynamic cars but uses different technology and designing techniques. The Honda has a completely different designing approach from Toyota called the “design DNA.” But these dissimilarities apart the onlookers feel both the car look alike.
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