Dearth of SUVs!!

While the developed world is avoiding SUVs, Indians are increasingly catching up to the idea of owning one. As the middle class and upper middle class has more buying power, they are warming up to the idea of owning a SUV. The demand is so high that the auto manufacturers are having orders for the next SIX months! Yes, that’s right, the waiting period to own a SUV from world renowned manufacturers like Honda and Toyota range from three (for Honda CRV) to six months (for Toyota Fortuner). Honda CRV is imported as a CBU and is expensive at USD50,000!, whereas Fortuner is assembled in India and priced at USD40,000. There is a huge gap between demand and supply and a good opportunity for other companies to take benefit. Hyundai is planning to launch Santa-Fe for quite some time, but due to some unknown reason they have yet to do so.

A Four Door Porsche!!

A thorough-bread sports car manufacturer coming out with a four door sports saloon is surprising. Car lovers around the world associate the brand with two door coupes and convertibles. While Asia is playing a bigger role in the world economy, world car makers are thinking out of the box. Four door Panamera makes perfect sense for the Indian market where the majority of luxury cars are chauffeur driven. Panamera will have a much wider audience compared to a two door sportser. Look out Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi……

Jaguar Land Rover

Tata launches JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) in India. Yes, these iconic brands are now available to the Indian motorists! Tata of India bought these brands from Ford of US, and recently launched them in the Indian market. Though Indian market is very small for such luxury brands, it holds good potential in the long run. Tata Motors has wide range of vehicles on the Indian roads, from the worlds cheapest car - Nano to large multi-axle commercial vehicles. It is to be seen though whether these luxury brands are sold from new exclusive outlets or through existing outlets for other Tata cars (which should NOT be the case!).

Nano - Greek word for "dwarf," is a small, affordable (at USD 2500), rear-engine, four-passenger car aimed primarily at the Indian market. Tata Motors has developed this car indigenously. Tata has already proved its car designing and manufacturing capabilities with their earlier launch - Indica. The design is cute and inspiring and the launch promises to fulfil dreams of millions of Indian families to own a car. But the question on everybody’s mind is that by fulfilling those dreams, are we not putting more pressure on the infrastructure (read roads) which is already chocked? It takes two hours to cover 50 km in peak hours on the roads of New Delhi. Even if 25% of two-wheeler owners in New Delhi become car owners, it will be a nightmare to drive through Delhi. Probably, Nano should be sold only in rural areas and small towns.

Xylo – a new SUV in the Indian market. A home grown design by an Indian manufacturer - Mahindra. Indian auto design has shown tremendous improvement over the last few years. But it may take some more time before they can match upto their European counterparts. Xylo is surely attractive, but lacks that true design integrity! The headlamps, the grill, and tail lamps may need re-work in the next avatar.

VW came up with a modern design for the Jetta....good news!! May look sleek and sexy to some.....but what happened to that German flair?? The old Jetta (top) looked very German, very inspiring.....with it's own identity!! But designers these days just want to mix and match few successful designs and hope for a hit!!

The new Jetta to me looks more like a Japanese imitation....and far less German!!

Does one need to serve every category?

More and more car manufacturers are entering SUV and Minivan categories……highly profitable they are. Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, SAAB, Cadillac - all GM US brands offer multiple choices in SUV and Minivan categories. I wonder if GM could have benefited by a couple of brands serving these categories, instead of all competing.

Even Porsche could not resist……..

Inspiration!!

The top one is Toyota Solara and the bottom one is Pontiac G6. I wonder which one inspired the other..............

I came upon this car, which is currently in production. The looks of this car date back by a couple of decades!! but still can't beat Aztek below.

I don't believe this, do you??

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3158452/

There is a very good reason the nation’s auto showrooms are filling up with models that strike a lot of would-be buyers as just plain ugly. As it turns out, ugly sells.
Vehicles that make a mark with “extreme” styling — like the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Chevrolet Avalanche — move off the lot faster and generate a significantly higher profit margin than their plain-vanilla brethren, according to a study from J.D. Power and Associates...........

This is a Pontiac Aztek (same vehicle as below). It seems that the company gave a pot of money to a bunch of employees to design and manufacture a cross-over!! no objective what-so-ever. What do you say?

What do you think of this design?

It works!! Great. I am sure we gona have lots of fun here. Wait...........

Hi, I am testing this new blog!

DISCLAIMER

These are sole individual personal points-of-view and the posts and comments by the participants in no way represent the official point-of-view of any organization. This is a discussion about automobiles in general. These posts are provided "as-is" with no warranties and confer no rights. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.