Tuesday 29 July 2014

The Indian Car Market Scene: A Review As Of the 29th of July, 2014

So, the Indian car market's been bubbling with numerous new launches. The latest, was the Mercedes Benz CLA AMG. It's truly an impressive product with a whopping price tag of 68.5 lakh Indian Rupees (EX-SHOWROOM DELHI). The CLA AMG's positioned a notch above the stock C class, and below the C63 AMG. The highlight of the CLA's spec sheet which will surely turn heads is its 2.0 litre, 4 cylinder, turbocharged petrol AMG engine which churns out 360 Bhp of power accompanied by a whopping 450 Nm of torque. On flooring the accelerator all the way down, Mercedes Benz boasts that the car touches a 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds. The engine is truly the most powerful 2 litre engine available in the Indian Market. However, the CLA was supposed to be a baby C Class which was supposed to be affordable compared to the rest of the Mercedes Benz range. Hence, I do hope that Mercedes Benz also brings along the stock CLAs to the Indian Market. If aggressively priced (between 25-30 lakhs) the CLA could take the sub 30 lakh car market by a storm.

However, strictly speaking about the sub 30 lakh premium car segment, the only car which I consider to be the best when it comes to value for money and the number of features loaded from the factory is Skoda's Superb. However, for those looking for brand value, the Mercedes A class also seems like a worthy proposition.

Another recent launch is Porsche's Macan SUV. Size wise, it's smaller than it's elder sibling, the Cayenne. The shocker here is that thee Macan is actually costlier than the Cayenne in India. The Macan comes fully loaded. It costs between 1.0 - 1.1 crore Indian Rupees. But, I still feel that Porsche should have launched the lower end Macan models in India at lower price points.

I had recently reviewed the Volkswagen Polo before Volkswagen introduced the new model. The new models have similar bodies with slight revamps in the headlamp design and a few more splashes of chrome here and there. Another highlight is the new steering wheel which looks a lot better. However, the greatest highlight on the new Polo (the diesel variants in particular) is the new 4 cylinder 1.5 liter diesel engine. Volkswagen is offering the 1.5 l Diesel at similar price points as the previous 3 cylinder 1.2 liter diesel engines. The new engine in the regular diesel Highline model churns out 90 bhp of power and 230 Nm of torque. That's a bump up of 15 bhp of power over the older Polo diesel variants ! The reason I'm excited about this new engine on the new Polo Diesel is the endless possibilities of tuning the engine with ECU mods and churning out better performance figures from it.

I also happened to read up about the new Toyota Corolla Altis. I really miss the times when the Toyota Corolla was a mass seller in the Indian Market (the Asian Spec E120 Sedan Models). However, now, the Corolla seems to have lost it's sheen completely. It actually seems overpriced. The Diesel variants of the Toyota Corolla seem ridiculously over priced. Nearly 16 lakh Indian Rupees for a 1.4 litre diesel engine which produces just 88 Bhp of power seems like a pure over kill. At a similar price point, the Skoda Octavia diesel seems like a lot more value for money compared to the new Corolla Altis.

1 comment:

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