This year’s Auto Expo (one of the exbitions that I love to love) looks like one of the more practical ones in the last few years…

Two things that I have been following and am happy about are…

1. The cheaper Car – Nano… The claims are that it costs a lakh, however when you add things like road tax, insurance, a few accesories etc this should be around 1.25 on-road for the base model… not bad at all for a 33bhp 600 odd cc engine… I think this should be a very practical buy for city driving… The only thing that will keep me away from it would be the poor Tata build quality in cars… except the Safari, the plastics of most cars are cheap, and they can start rattling in about 6 months of regular usage… Indigo is a delight to look at, and has one of the best ACs that I know of in Sedans in India, however the sound that it starts making after a few months is something that is a big put off… Ankur now has a Safari and I am really looking forward to some first hand reviews from him…

The sad part is after I have driven the FIAT, the build quality of almost every car that I have been into seems inferior…

2. The new SUMO… relabelled as the Sumo Grand… though the looks seem to be coming a lot from the LandRover, minus the headlights which still have a dated feeling… the first looks at the SUV made it look impressive… again.. the TATA build quality is something that I would really like to consider before I would recommend this to anyone… Mahindra seems to be much better in their engine refinement and the quality of the vehicles when it comes to a comparision between the Sumo and the Balero and the Scorpio and the Safari…

But with this new good looking Sumo, and the “I so want it but cannot afford it” Safari, things might be a li’il tough for Scorpio and likes…

Another news that I have been waiting for was the launch of SKODA Fabia… Its a premium hatchback, which personally makes a lot of sense to me, and comes with the SKODA tag… needless to say the safety, reliability, build finish and quality are the things that you can assume coming with this car by default… Not sure how successful it would be though in the very cost concious Indian market… We are not too keen on paying a premium for a smaller car which comes with added benefits… If the Fabia 1.4L Diesel engine delivers like the much higher and bigger Octavia does… they already have a customer in line for the car !!!

Honda also had on display the Honda Jazz which is a sleek looking 5 door hatchback… Another car to look forward to in terms of reliability and performance…

Oh, and yes I also saw a few pictures of the new Suzuki Dezire… the sedan version of the SWIFT ( which is a nice car) but Dezire is one of the most stupid looking cars that I have seen in recent times… Looks like there is a competition of sorts about who makes worse car backs between Mahindra Logan and Suzuki Dezire…

All in all, this looked like a good beginning for the potential car buyers, and people who are looking at decent upgrades for their existing vehicles…

I am looking forward to another FIAT though 🙂