Archive for the 'India' Category

3 new Yamaha Bikes for India in 2008

Globally, Yamaha Motorcycles has a performance oriented brand image and is known for their technological excellence. But thats not the case for Yamaha India with their damp and not so exciting current line-up of bikes. Realizing the power and growth potential of the Indian 2-wheeler market, Yamaha is bent on re-establishing themselves in India, only this time aiming for the brand image rather than going after mass market sales. As part of their strategy YMI recently launched the world class YZF R1 and MT01, furthermore Yamaha will be launching 3 new bikes in India in 2008.

Yamaha YZF-R15

2008 Yamaha yzf r15 India

Sports oriented, Yamaha YZF R15 is a track ready, made for India bike inheriting from the Yamaha R1. The new single cylinder, 4-stroke, 150cc engine has 4-valves, is liquid cooled and will have Fuel Injection. The bike also has front and rear disc brakes. R15 will be launched in India some time in June-July of 2008. Though price and performance specs are not available at this time, current speculation is it’ll be priced around Rs 90,000 and the power output will be around 18 bhp.

Yamaha FZ (150)

Yamaha fz 150 India 2008

IMO The best looking among the 3, the Yamaha FZ is a mean-looking naked street bike, again made for India inheriting from the European FZ1. FZ will share R15′s 150cc single cylinder engine but will be air-cooled, no further specs available right now. Yamaha FZ 150 will to be launched in India by November 2008.

Yamaha Gladiator Type SS / RS

Yamaha Gladiator 2008 SS & RS India

Current Yamaha Gladiator will be available in two new variants – Type SS (Stylish & Sporty) & Type RS (Racing Sports) and these bikes will have the 125 cc engine block. Yamaha says SS & RS have 26 improved features to make them dynamic and best performing bikes in their class. Gladiator Type SS / RS are to be commercially launched in India by the end of February 2008.

CNBC-TV18 AutoCar Awards 2008 – Car of the Year (COTY)

AutoCar India, one of the country’s premium automobile magazines in association CNBC-TV18 has come out with their auto awards for 2008. After a series of tests on a total of 13 cars that came out in 2007, judged by a 7-member jury, these are the ones that are the best of 2007.

AWARDS

Best Design and Styling

  • BMW 5-Series

Best Car Variant

Value for Money

Manufacturer of the Year

  • Maruti Suzuki

Viewer’s Choice

Best Auto Commercial

  • Bajaj Pulsar 220 by Lowe India
  • Bajaj XCD 125 by Ogilvy India

Best Compact Car

Best Midsize Car

  • Maruti Suzuki SX4

Best Executive Car

  • Honda Civic

Best Premium Car

  • BMW 3-Series

Man of the Year

  • Jagdish Khattar

Bike of the Year

  • Bajaj XCD 125 DTS-SI

CNBC-TV18 AutoCar Car of the Year 2008 (COTY)

  • Hyundai i10

Full details of why each one deserved its award have been published in the AutoCar February edition.

Details of the new Skoda Fabia in India

Skoda Fabia India top

News about Skoda Fabia making it to India has been going on for about 6 years now and finally the second generation 2007 Fabia has come to us now in 2008.

While bookings have been open for quite some time, cars are now being delivered to the buyers. My neighbor was one of them and I got a chance to look around.

Fabia Impression

Design wise, Skoda Fabia is definitely a looker. Its quite long for a hatchback (almost 1-foot longer than Maruti Swift) and very well proportioned. Looking around, my admiration of this Skoda’s looks grew with each of its design details – its wonderful headlights and grille, the prominent bonnet ‘V’ thats carried onto its bumper, all its wonderful curves and character lines.

Indian Skoda Fabia Interior

Getting in and sitting in the drivers seat, if anything had doubled my appreciation for the Fabia. With all the storage spaces and high quality plastics, the interiors were top class. The steering wheel, gear stick, door levers were all very contemporary. There I was sitting inside, getting all hopeful and dreamy, unable to find anything to complain about.

And then, without closing my door, I started the car. The engine came to life, I got out and *pop* went my bubble. I was like “what the F*@*!” the sound from the engine was pure cacophony. It was grating on the ears and what bothers me even more is the fact that its a friggin’ 3-cylinder PD diesel.

And then he told me it’d cost 8.3 lakhs on the road for the Ambiente variant. All the enthusiastic wait for Fabia to make it to India and whatever praise I’ve had left for it went up in smokes. Now, I doubt if I’d even wanna consider Fabia an option, if I were looking to buy a hatchback in the Indian market.

Skoda Fabia Variants

Fabia for India is being offered in 4 variants. Starting from the base variant Skoda calls them Active, Classic, Ambiente and Elegance. Airbags, air-con and height/reach adjustable steering are standard on all the variants. Leaving the minor details out, following are some of the important feature differences between the all the versions.

  • Skoda Fabia Active: This base variant is stripped out of power windows and cd/mp3 audio system.
  • Skoda Fabia Classic: Second in line, this variant quite obviously has power windows and audio system.
  • Skoda Fabia Ambiente: feature differences on this version over the Classic include front fog lamps and alloy wheels on the outside. Inside its got height adjustable driver & front passenger seats and dual-tone onyx/grey interiors. On the safety side, this Fabia gets ABS and remote key-less entry.
  • Skoda Fabia Elegance: This range topping version has sunroof, projector headlamps and rear parking sensors with inside display.

Skoda Fabia Engines

As of now, there are 2 engine options – a 1.4 petrol and 1.4 diesel.

  • The 1.4-litre diesel engine is no modern day marvel and is a disappointment in terms of refinement. Its got no VGT nor is it a common-rail and it has only 3-cylinders! with 2-valves! per cylinder. But, according to many testers this noisy engine is quite famous for its frugality and averages a 17 km/l. Its maximum power and torque are rated at 69 bhp at 4000 rpm and 155 Nm at 1600 – 2800 rpm. Fabia with this engine does the 0-100 km/h run in 15 seconds and can reach a top speed of 163 km/h.
  • The 1.4-liter 16v petrol on the other hand, supposedly returns a fuel efficiency average of 12 kmpl. Max power output is 86 bhp at 5000 rpm (torque is 132 Nm at 3800 rpm) about the same as the Suzuki Swift but with all its safety features & luxuries is heavier than the Swift. Fabia with this engine takes 12+ seconds for its 0-100 km/h dash and can reach a top speed of 173 kmph.

Right now the 1.4 petrol is offered only on Elegance variant. The word is Skoda will introduce another 1.2-lire petrol in addition to the above engines.

Skoda Fabia Prices

On road Mumbai price for Fabia petrol offered in Elegance trim is 7.9 lakhs. Here are the Indian on road prices of Skoda Fabia diesel in lakhs INR.

Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Hyderabad
Skoda Fabia Active 6.65 7.00
Skoda Fabia Classic 7.05 7.42 7.52 7.43
Skoda Fabia Ambiente 7.95 8.34 8.46 8.35
Skoda Fabia Elegance 8.50 8.96 9.08 8.96

Skoda Fabia India front

Indian Skoda Fabia Side

Skoda Fabia India rear

A Lifestyle Pickup truck for India: Tata Xenon XT

Tata Xenon pickup

Wheeeeee!! finally a lifestyle pick-up truck for India, and thats from our very own Indian TATA in the form of Xenon. Sure, there is Mahindra Getaway but this Tata is the closest we can get to a true pickup truck. Although Tata has released Xenon last year for the international market, they only revealed the details about the India launch at the 2008 Auto Expo.

Xenon is the second generation Tata Mobile and it is to be made available in two body trims – Xenon single cab & Xenon crew cab and with a choice 4×2 or 4×4 (with an LSD) drivetrains. The single-cab is called Tata Xenon and Tata Xenon XT (cross terrain) is the double-cab 4×4 version with all the features like power windows, power steering, Air-con, central locking and the lot.

It shares its platform with the Tata Sumo Grande but gets the 3.0l DICOR engine from the older Tata Safari instead of the 2.2 dicor. Xenon pickup with this engine is good for 115 bhp power and 300 Nm torque and is expected to go on sale by the end of 2008 .

I am more curious about the Xenon single-cab and like it better. A simple mod like slapping on some wider rubber and a good set of SUV alloys to go with those wheel-arches would do wonders here.

Also check out the video below for some good footage of these pick-up trucks doing their thing but in Italian.

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Bavarian Brute comes to India – 2008 BMW M3 Coupe

2008 BMW M3 India

I wasn’t quite happy with the looks of the new BMW 3-series and wasn’t expecting the M3 to change anything. But, everything changed the day BMW released the details of the E92 M3 coupe last year.

And from that day, I have been Dreaming… I have been Drooling… I have been Restless… like a 15 year old teenager going gaga for Angelina Croft.

I cannot say M3 is beautiful. Its a thing of lust. It looks mean and menacing – It appeals to the rebellious side of the personality.

As if that wasn’t hard enough, BMW put in a brutal V8 – a first time ever in an M3. This engine is not a lazy one as we’d expect a V8 to be, it can rev all the way to the moon… and back!. The redline starts at 8300 rpm.

And now, BMW India has launched this Bavarian brute at the Indian Auto Expo 2008. E92 M3 coupe will be imported and sold in India as a CBU and that means we pay a premium price of 7,500,000 in Indian currency.

The engine in the M3 is a 32-valve 4.0L V8 that makes 420 bhp power at 8300 rpm and 400 Nm torque at 3900 rpm. BMW M3 can do the 0-100 km/h in 4.8 secs and the top speed is electronically limited to 250 km/h. BMW even gives us the fuel economy figures, a combined fuel efficiency of 8 km/l.

But hey! if you’re thinking about the M3, you don’t really care! do you?

more pics and video after the jump

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