Porsche Panamera Launched In India !!

Precision Cars the official importer of Porsche in the country has launched the Panamera. It is already selling the 911, Cayenne, Boxster and Cayman in India. The Porsche Panamera is available in three variants – S, 4S and Turbo and is capable of hitting a ton in just 4.3 seconds. Porsche also plans to open 3 new showrooms with full service support in Chennai, Bangalore and Ludhiana by next year taking the total dealerships to 6. Though the car has a lot of tech, we would have loved if it looked decently good.
“Panamera will increase our volumes in terms of sales in the country. It is evident from the fact that the dealers have 13 confirmed orders of Panamera before it arrived in the market,” Precision Cars’ MD Rod Wallace said. “Precision has ordered 50 units of Panamera to sell in the country over the next nine-months,” he added.

Maruti temporarily halts production of SX4 !!

Maruti Suzuki India , India's leading car maker , has temporarily stopped production of its mid-sized sedan SX4. According to industry sources , it was done to change the engine configuration which would be in compliant with the Bharat Stage-IV norms.

Eleven cities in India have to upgrade to the Bharat Stage-IV emission norms from April 2011 onwards. As of now , Maruti SX4 is compliant with only Bharat Stage-III norms.

Ford Figo Coming in 2010

Ford India has just announced and given the world at large a preview of the upcoming Ford Figo which should be launched early next year. The Figo is part of Fords ‘One Vision’ and ‘One Team’ and ‘One World’ project.

The Figo is based on Ford’s Global-B platform and promises to offer, economy, safety, driving dynamics, value for money and hopes to establish new benchmarks as the vehicle goes on sale next year. The Figo - roughly Polo sized - will be powered by a 1.2 litre petrol and a 1.5 litre diesel engine.

The Figo follows Ford’s kinetic design theme with the front end getting more of the family face. The sides are rather Fusion-like but much smaller and the rear is also Fusion-esqe. The light catchers on the side and the waistline and Ford’s new ‘bullet’ - this time as a side indicator light - makes the Figo look sporty. The car is currently shod with 175/65 R14 tyres and there should be sporty alloys on offer - considering that the car is meant to have a sporty and youthful appeal with a little bit of maturity in the overall design and packaging.

With Ford’s 500 million USD investment into India and the Figo’s announcement today, Ford is quite serious about grabbing a chunk of small car sales for itself in India. Transformed with a production capacity of 200,000 units, the integrated Chennai manufacturing facility is now positioned as a Ford regional centre. Ford Figo models will be produced at the plant for export to international markets. The plant is also being groomed to produce diesel and petrol engines for local vehicle production and export within Ford’s Asia Pacific and Africa region. “Our exciting new Ford Figo shows how serious we are about India,” Mulally said. “It reflects our commitment to compete with great products in all segments of this car market. We are confident the Ford Figo will be a product that Indian consumers really want and value.”

Land Rover Freelander 2 Launched

Tata Motors-owned Land Rover has launched the Freelander 2 at the Jaguar-Land Rover showroom at Ceejay House in Mumbai. The base version costs Rs 33.8 lakh (ex-showroom, Mumbai without octroi).

The Freelander 2 will be powered by a 2.2-litre common rail diesel engine producing 158bhp@4000rpm and 400Nm@2000rpm. The Freelander 2 is one of the few SUVs which has a transversely placed engine; the only other SUV available in India with a transverse engine layout is the Volvo XC90.

The Freelander 2 features the ‘Terrain Response’ system as standard in all its variants. This system reduces or increases traction depending on the mode you are driving in viz. cement or tarmac roads, grass or snow, mud and sand.

The three available variants are the S, SE, and HSE. The S variant has 16” inch wheels whereas the SE and HSE run on 17” and have leather seats. The bi-xenon headlamps with auto-leveling beam adjusters are available as a standard feature in all the variants. The Freelander 2 has got a 5-star Euro-NCAP rating for Adult Occupant Proctection.

The Freelander possesses a warranty of 1,00,000km and to solve the after sales service issues, six major cities - New Delhi, Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune - will have service centres. Land Rover has plans to launch more models from its lineup in 2010.