Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) may introduce its Daihatsu brand cars in India in the coming years. Daihatsu is a Toyota group company and is Japan’s largest mini-car maker with a presence in over a 100 countries. Its small cars are getting a very good response in markets like Indonesia and Malaysia, and Toyota officials are [...]

Tata Motors’ Chairman, Mr Ratan Tata, said at the company’s annual general meeting this week that the Tata Nano would soon be available with higher capacity engine options. He said that Tata Motors was in the process of developing upgraded engines for the Nano, to be sold in both domestic and foreign markets. The Nano [...]

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) launched its globally successful SUV, the Toyota Fortuner, in India this week. Priced at Rs 18.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), the Fortuner comes with a 3.0 litre D-4D diesel engine and 5-speed manual transmission. Toyota Motor Corporation’s senior Managing Director, Akira Okabe, told media persons that the Fortuner had already sold over [...]

German luxury car maker, Mercedes-Benz, launched a special edition of the C-Class last week. The car, based on the C 200 Kompressor and C 220 CDI variants, is available in both both petrol and diesel versions. It is priced between Rs 28.46 lakh and Rs 31.30 lakh. Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director and CEO, Wilfried Aulbur, [...]

Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) will be launching a new version of its small car, the Zen Estilo, on August 25, 2009. The company will equip all three variants of the car with its 1 litre KB series engine, compliant with Bharat Stage IV norms. The Maruti A-Star too comes fitted with the same engine, [...]

Car company Volkswagen will be merging with German sports car maker Porsche by 2011. VW will initially shell out 3.3 million euros to a buy a 42 per cent stake in Porsche. The firms’ supervisory boards announced that after the tie-up, VW’s Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn will head both Porsche and VW. The merger is [...]

Maruti Suzuki this week rolled out the 100,000th unit of its small car, the A-Star. The car was launched in November 2008, and is Maruti’s flagship export model. Over 50,000 units of the A-Star have been exported so far to 44 countries. These include the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Angola, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco, [...]

European auto major Volkswagen will be launching its iconic car, the Beetle, within the next three months in India. The car will be imported to India as a Completely Built Unit (CBU) and will be priced at around Rs 20 lakh. The Beetle, also called the ‘Bug’, will come equipped with a 1.9 litre TDI [...]

Maruti Suzuki will be launching its new luxury sedan, the Kizashi, in India next year. The car has already been launched in the US and is expected to be unveiled in India in the 2010 Auto Expo. It will come with a 2.4 litre engine, designed to comply with the Euro IV norms. With the [...]

Domestic passenger car sales in India grew from 87,901 units in July 2008 to 115,067 units in July 2009, up 31 per cent. Apart from the low base effect, the high growth percentage is also due to the continuing benefits of the government’s stimulus packages and cheap car loans. A number of new cars have [...]