On Friday, while I was commuting to my work place, I spotted two Chevrolet Cruzes being tested here in Chennai. Going by the number plates, the vehicles are test mules put together at the company’s plant in Halol.
As there was too much traffic and noise, I was unable to get anything from under the hood of these moving mules. Possibly one vehicle could have been petrol, while the other, a diesel.
The Chevrolet Cruze will be launched in India in October and according to sources, only a diesel engine with manual and automatic transmissions will be launched during this event. The powertrains are borrowed from the Captiva, which we had been driving the whole of last week, and it will soon be joined by petrol models with automatic transmission later this year, possibly at the Auto Expo.
The D-Segment model billed as the Cruze to Camry challenger will attract eyeballs once it reaches roads, regardless of the latitude and longitude.
The Kizashi sedan will reach destination India by 2011, by then people would have given up on the existing line of cars which fall on the other side of 10 lakh rupees.
Spied near Arizona, this is a production car which we infer by the lack of any major camouflage or ill-fitting components. The interiors are of quality unseen in Suzuki‘s products. The centre console imitates the front-end design and is made of high quality materials.
Ishaque Valasseri, an IAB follower, has sent us an email with 10 images of the Tata Nano, which he photographed testing somewhere between Pune and Mumbai. We present you these images a few days after Vinayak sent us some of his Tata Nano images, snapped on the NH4.
Ishaque also informs us that the Nano’s petrol engine comes with a governor that limits engine’s top speed to 110 km/hr.
We have treated you to one image of the Mahindra XYLO previously. Now, we have two more images which show the front profile of the vehicle completely.
The Mahindra XYLO is an MPV that’s supposed to put an end to the life of sedans in India. I don’t think that’ll happen with Mahindra themselves developing a 4-seater electric car which might be a sedan and JV partner Renault sells the Logan, with more sedans in the pipeline.
What the XYLO will do is provide customers with a big and stylish car at a low price. We also think this will be Mahindra’s trump card to pull them out of the situation which the economic conditions in the country have got them into. Whether the XYLO’s platform will be used to churn out pickup trucks (As building a sedan on it will contradict Mahindra’s claim) is yet to be seen. The XYLO will be sold in many countries abroad, ones even as far as Egypt.
We’ve seen a lot of the 2010 BMW 5 Series testing with camouflage which will come off in 2010. Notably the 5 Series will borrow design aspects from from the CS Concept and the recently launched BMW 7 Series.
The BMW 5 Series’ sibling- the 3 Series is getting ready for an overhaul. It made it’s global debut in 2005 and subsequently found it’s way into India. The test mule photographed here is the 2010 or possibly a 2012 model. Similar to the next-gen 5 Series, design elements will be lifted from the CS Concept.
The Porsche Panamera will be Porsche’s first 4 door sedan, but what’s more exciting is the fact that markets such as India and China will be given priority over Europe and America which was made clear after Porsche shifted the car’s launch from Geneva to Shanghai.
The 2010 Mercedes Benz E-Class as you must know by now, is Mercedes Benz’s next and most talked about car. It will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this year and the original plan was to display the car to the public for the first time in Geneva lacking any camouflage.
One of our Indian Autos Blog readers emailed us an image of what he thinks is the soon to debut Mahindra XYLO. The image is low-resolutionbut the signature Mahindra grille and emblem with a new and unseen headlight and bumper design confirms that this is after all the XYLO.
Look closely at the number plate, you can view the letters I and O, and the word “project” just above it. What this could be is “Project Ingenio” indicating the picture must have been taken before the XYLO name was christened to this vehicle.
From what we can see, Mahindra have pinned the fit and finish aspect. The bonnet line looks neat and the headlamp design head-on is similar to the Tata Sumo Victa. The portion of the bumper where the fog lamp sits, is fitted with plastic conveying this is a base model. The brown color adds appeal which both the Scorpio and the Bolero are offered with.
