The Fast and the Luxurious

If the good folk at Detroit ever need a placebo to forget the pains of recession, all they have to do is look at the Indian car market.

If the good folk at Detroit ever need a placebo to forget the pains of recession, all they have to do is look at the Indian car market. Robust festive season sales and a spate of new car launches—nearly a dozen in two months—have erased memories of a few troubled months for the auto industry. It’s perhaps an indication of that confidence that recent launches range from premium hatchbacks, to a beefed-up SUV to ultra-luxury sports cars. Ford, the lone Detroit denizen with its head above water, finally realised the importance of selling a small car in India. Its CEO Alan Mulally unveiled the ‘made-for-India’ Figo, a spiffy hatchback likely to be priced between Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh. Tata Motors’ Manza ( Rs 4.8-6.75 lakh) and GM’s Chevrolet Cruze ( Rs 11-12.5 lakh) are the new entrants in the sedan segment, and if you have the cash to splash, consider Porsche’s luxury sports powerhouse Panamera that’ll cost anywhere between Rs 2-4 crore. “Consumer sentiment in India was never really down. It was just that the banks put a lid on auto lending for a while, but that’s changing now,” says Sumit Arora of Synnovate Motoresearch, an automobile consultancy.

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