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November 10, 2010

Bentley Mulsanne bags the Gulf Connoisseur award

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Super Luxury gets a new name… Move over Rolls Royce and Maybach. It’s the new Bentley Mulsanne which has won such a coveted award recently. The new Bentley Mulsanne has won the ‘Best Limousine for the Red Carpet’ prize at the glittering Gulf Connoisseur Awards ceremony, held at the Armani Hotel in Dubai. Bentley’s new flagship car was chosen as the winner over the Maybach 57 and the Rolls Royce Phantom.

The Gulf Connoisseur Awards are decided by a panel of six judges, and set out to recognise the very best in outstanding luxury products. The panel chooses from a small group of nominations in each of the various categories, which range from jewellery and fashion to private jets and exotic destinations.

“Bentley is really happy to receive this award from Gulf Connoisseur,” said Chris Buxton, Bentley Director for Middle East, Africa and India. “The car has been incredibly well received since its launch earlier this year and this is further confirmation of our efforts in producing the very best in luxury motoring.”

The new Mulsanne, designed and engineered at Crewe from the ground-up, reaffirms the marque’s intent to create a new flagship Bentley with refined performance, unparalleled levels of interior luxury and coach building skills to the fore.

Chris Buxton receiving the Gulf Connoisseur award from Twenty First Century Publishing director Hadi Al Abbas.

“In the category of Limousines for the Red Carpet, the new Mulsanne from Bentley has proved to be a powerful and elegant driver’s car,” said K.N.Ned, Sales & Marketing Director, Gulf Connoisseur. “The all-new Bentley flagship sets new standards in terms of comfort, effortless performance and hand-crafted refinement. No other carmaker can offer such a blend of performance and refinement in a single vehicle.”

Though the car will be available in UAE from December 2010, Bentley has already received a large amount of orders for the new Mulsanne in the UAE, with the 2011 model already sold out.

posted by carazooblog @ Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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November 9, 2010

Piaggio NT3 to take on Tata Nano in the near future

The small car market in India gets better and better like old wine. But here we give special emphasis on the micro car market which in India is currently spearheaded by the Tata Nano. The league of micro cars gets another entry with Italian scooter maker, Piaggio, planning to jump in the bandwagon.

Now this part of the news comes as a pleasant surprise as Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio, just like India’s Bajaj Auto also wants to venture into the car making business. Piaggio unveiled its four-wheel, small car concept codenamed NT3, at the Milan Bike Show that has been “designed to meet mobility needs in its major markets like India, Vietnam and South East Asia”.

Piaggio has a Indian connection through its fully owned subsidiary, Piaggio India Ltd, which is also a market leader of three-wheel commercial vehicles in India, with its flagship Ape as the market leader in terms of sales.

The Piaggio NT3 is a 3-seater car and is based on the Ape platform. Going by what we hear from some Piaggio top executives, the NT3 should be production ready by 2013. The three-seat configuration is similar to the one seen on the McLaren T.25 City car, driver in the center with passengers sitting on either side. The car was conceived in India, primarily to take on the Tata Nano.

The car which is 2.4m long might be powered by a 200 cc engine offering 60 km/h or a 300 cc engine that could provide a max speed of up to 80km/h. The car is expected to carry a price tag of Rs 1.5 lakh. The yet to be launched car is conceived to overcome traffic congestion in Asian and European cities is expected to be a low-consumption, low-polluting vehicle capable of travelling over 30km/litre of fuel.

The micro car market seems to be the next best thing as other global car makers like Hyundai Motors, Suzuki, Volkswagen, General Motors are in the fray to launch their small cars while French car maker Renaut is jointly developing a low-cost car, ULC, jointly with Indian two wheeler major Bajaj Auto.

posted by carazooblog @ Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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November 9, 2010

535 Hyundai Santa Fe’s booked in just 3 weeks

Hyundai Motor India Limited, the country’s largest exporter and the second largest car manufacturer, received an astonishing 535 bookings for their new car – the Santa Fe. This is quite a feat considering the Rs 20 lakh plus price tag the SUV carries.

Hyundai is already on cloud nine with this sudden success and wants to take the success rate forward. Commenting on this feat H. W. Park, MD & CEO, HMIL said, “It is a matter of great pride for us to have received such an encouraging response for our recently launched luxury SUV – the Santa Fe. The globally acclaimed luxury Santa Fe has class leading features and our Indian customers have received this SUV with unparalleled enthusiasm and affection. Looking at the initial customer response, we might even consider importing larger numbers for the next year.”

It seems Hyundai has got the equations right this time around with the Santa Fe after it failed miserably with earlier SUVs like that of Terracan and Tuscon. Now that Hyundai has come out with this winning product, they should also consider assembling the vehicle locally in India to cater to the evergrowing customer base.

Hyundai should feel happy to come across the problem of SUV capacity constraints that was earlier and still Toyota’s forte with its Fortuner.

It must be noted that Hyundai has opened the bookings for Santa Fe on October 18, 2010 and closed it on 30th October 2010. It is brought to India as a CBU directly from the parent company in Korea. Hyundai India had earlier set a goal of selling 500-600 Santa Fe‘s every year. But with its recent bookings exceeding the company’s expectations beyond its wildest dreams in just 22 days, Hyundai probably would have to set a new target.

posted by carazooblog @ Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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November 9, 2010

Silence of the Lamborghini: Murcielago ceases production

The era of the Lamborghini Murcielago has ended. The last of the super car numbered 4099 rolled out of the Sant’Agata facility recently. The New Lamborghini Jota will replace this outgoing model.

The Lamborghini Murcielago LP-670 SuperVeloce clothed in Lamborghini Orange rolled out of the production line recently. This is the last of the V12 models from the house of Lamborghini until the New Jota comes out. Other Lambo supercars which Lamborghini has retired are 350GT, Miura, Countach and Diablo.

This last Murcielago will make Switzerland its home as the car has been delivered to a Swiss customer. The SuperVeloce was the most flamboyant of all the Murcielagos, featuring flares, wings and scoops in abundance. It also features a 6.5-litre V12 outputting a whopping 485kW of power.

Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, addressing the farewell ceremony hosted for the car said “The Murcielago embodies the ure, unadulterated values of our brand. It is truly extreme, uncompromising and unmistakably Italian. This already makes it one of the legends of the sports car world. But the Lamborghini story continues. In 2011, we will take a huge step into the future with the successor to the Murcielago – with the most innovative technology and, once again, truly stunning design.”

The Murcielago was launched back in 2001 and has since carried the same, low, sleek design throughout the years. There’s been a few different variations of the car, such as the LP640, but in essence they’ve all been serious mid-mounted V12 supercars.

This was also the first model Lamborghini released as a partnership effort with Volkswagen/Audi Group, and was the first Lamborghini to feature German-made parts. The New Jota will soon fill the void left by Murcielago some time in 2011.