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Cars to be missed in 2014: Maruti Suzuki 800, Honda Accord, more

Blame the circumstances; unstable economy, depreciating value of Indian currency…

Blame the circumstances; unstable economy, depreciating value of Indian currency or the rising fuel prices, whatever it is, the year 2013 was the worst for Indian auto sector. Even the highest sale churners merely made their way out of showrooms. According to SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers), the year 2013 witness a drop of 9.59% in the selling of automobiles units and figuratively its a total of 18,07,011 units sold in 2013 as compared to 19,98,703 units in 2012. Now to cope up with the situation, manufacturers brought some new variants and facelifts of the existing one while they discounted the slow runners.

Among the many, is the iconic 800. The car that was around the Indian auto sector for more than three decades, was discontinued and the last one was rolled out from Gurgaon plant on January 18, 2014 to some dealer in Assam. It was a very well calculated decision from the management to discontinue it, as Maruti 800 in the past few months hasn’t been able to make any progress on the sales chart. The car was not even fulfilling the BSIV norms, required to be available in most of the cities. An average of 400-600 units were sold in the past few months so it was more economical to discontinue the vehicle than to manufacture it.?

Other products that were rolling out from the company’s stable were Zen Estilio and A-Star. Maruti Suzuki Zen Estilio was the second generation of Zen hierarchy which stands for Zero Engine Noise. The company brought the Estilio back in the year 2006 and it shared the same engine specification of Wagon R. However, Estilio failed to put a mark on Indian auto segment and finally the company has to stop its production. Another car that was ruled out this year was the A-Star. Under the hood, the car in-houses a 1.0-litre K series engine that produces a power of 66bhp. However, the key reason for discontinuing the A-Star is making space for company’s new hatchback Celerio and seeing the overwhelming response of 14 thousand booking in 14 days, one can say that their decision has payed off. Celerio is powered by the company’s tried and tested refined petrol engine of specification 1.0-litre, 12 V KB10, that does all the duty of producing a maximum power output of 67 bhp along with a peak torque of 90Nm. The car comes equipped with an Automated Manual Transmission, which is also a first of its kind.

The second manufacturer to shut the selling of two vehicles is Nissan. The Japanese automaker has discontinued X-Trail SUV along with the 370Z coupe in India. Until 2010, the SUV was brought via CBU (Completely Build Units) but then to keep the cost down, the company started manufacturing the vehicle as CKD (Completely Knockdown Units). To surprise company, that too does not happen to create any miracle in sales figures and finally the company stopped manufacturing X-Trail. Last year a total of 163 units of X-Trail were sold while the company failed to get even a single buyer for 370Z coupe. However, the company is bringing the next generation Qashqai in place of X-Trail by the year 2015. Unlike the X-Tail, the Qashqai will be made available in both the fuel trims. The petrol model will carry a 1.2 DIG-T turbo petrol engine while the diesel model will in-house a 1.5 K9K engine that will produce a power of 110bhp or a 1.6-litre engine that will churn out a power of 128bhp.

Among the aforementioned cars, Honda Accord, Volkswagen Passat, Skoda Laura, Skoda Fabia, Volkswagen Polo 1.6, Maruti Suzuki Kizashi, Honda Civic, Honda Jazz are some popular cars that bid adieu to its customers.

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First published on: 16-03-2014 at 16:33 IST
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