Isuzu has announced that the MU-7 SUV and the D-Max pickup truck will be manufactured under contract by Hindustan Motors at the latter's heavily under utilized facility at Thiruvallur, Chennai.
Hindustan Motors has been assembling the Mitsubishi vehicles at the mentioned plant. Now that Mitsubishi has discontinued the Lancer, Cedia, Pajero and Outlander models, the plant caters only to the Pajero Sport and the Montero.
It's a known fact that this is not the first time the two firms are joining hands. Isuzu has been supplying engines to HM Ambassador for years. Now, the CKD kits of the Isuzu vehicles will be imported from Thailand and assembled in Chennai.
On the other hand, Isuzu has been test marketing its two products in Coimbatore and Hyderabad. The company has proposed to build a factory in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, it will use HM's plant to assemble the Isuzu MU-7 and Isuzu D-Max.
The two automakers signed an agreement today in Chennai. Commenting on the development, Mr. Takashi Kikuchi, President, Isuzu Motors India, said:
The collaboration with Hindustan Motors will support us by carrying out assembly of our products at Thiruvallur which is about 70 kms from Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, where our own local manufacturing facility is planned to come up. We can thereby advance the scope of our sales operations and increase the scale of supply volumes without waiting for our local manufacturing facility to be ready.
