Indian Autos blog

After more than two years of waiting, Honda finally has good news for all of us. Yes, they’ve gone on air officially confirming the Honda Jazz’s launch this June.

To make it easier to assimilate, bulleted are the features of the Indian Honda Jazz

• Will have a new 1.2-liter fuel efficient VTEC engine which will help classify it as a small car
• Will be one of the most spacious and comfortable hatchbacks in India
• No word on diesel engines or higher capacity engines so far
• 70% of its parts will be sourced locally to reduce costs
• The car’s ECU and suspension will be tuned to suit Indian conditions
• Dealers will right away offer navigation system, in-car entertainment, wider tyres and many other goodies

Source- Fasi at Motorbeam

After many recent launches like the i20, Sonata Transform and Verna Automatic, Hyundai Motors is getting ready for its next launch. Hyundai plans to bring its successful American SUV, the Santa-Fe to India.

The new Suzuki Alto (Indian A-Star) is ready to go on sale in the UK from the 1st of March and from where else will the car be sourced? Maruti Suzuki will export the first few Euro-spec units from right here in India (remember that the A-Star is not made anywhere else in the world). The base version will carry an on-road price tag of £6,795.

The BMW X3 has been declared as the Most relaible vehicle on German roads for the second consecutive year.

The result is based on the evaluation of over 2 million cases drawn from German breakdown statistics as well as a customer satisfaction study conducted on 43,000 participants.

Regardless of the lethargic sales of passenger cars in India and a forecast that’s even more cloudy, Ford has announced it’s small car plans remain undisturbed.

“We have a strong plan for India, and we intend to go forward with it,” said Nigel E Warke, executive director, marketing, sales and service, Ford India.

Ford’s new small car will be based on the Verve Concept, a sub four meter, 3-door hatch shown at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show. Earlier, reports claimed this small car would be produced in Ford’s other international plants such as the one in Brazil. The car will be available in both hatchback and sedan variants, meaning a platform would be developed to derive a range of vehicles.

The Italian car manufacturer Fiat has finally launched its Linea sedan in a glittering ceremony in Mumbai at Taj Lands End. The car was due in December but because of recent Mumbai terror attacks car makers like FIAT and Mahindra postponed the launches of their new products, Linea and Xylo respectively.

“Fiat has kept its promise of making this an exciting year for its customers. The launch of the Linea is the first in the line of three launches that Fiat will undertake this year, the other two being Bravo and Grande Punto,”Said Fiat India CEO, Rajeev Kapoor.

FIAT Linea is available in both forms- Diesel as well as petrol, the Petrol version comes with 1368cc FIRE engine which produces max. torque of 115 NM @ 4500 RPM, and the diesel is available with 1248 CC popular Multijet engine which is very new and refined and it produces Max. Torque of 203NM @ 2500 RPM, it has total of six gears including 1 reverse which is M/T type.

The Japanese carmaker – Toyota Kirloskar is all set to launch its popular MUV in India – Toyota Innova in CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) version by end – January 2009, hoping to stir demand amid sagging sales. The company is also conducting trials of Innova CNG.

Chevrolet Thailand has recently launched the Aveo E20 in an attempt to use its fuel economy as a selling point.