Friday 9th September 2005

Aston heads for India

AM to join upmarket carmakers bidding for mindshare

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V8 Vantage to grace India's roads

Aston Martin is going to India. It joins other upmarket car makers, including BMW, Porsche and Rolls Royce, who are bidding for the cash of the fast-growing numbers of India's burgeoning list of millionaires.

The economy is growing at seven per cent and, although India is still on the whole poor -- annual income per head is $500 (about £300) -- car makers see the potential for the future. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation's million-cars-a-year market consists largely of low-end models, with until now, the top end being defined largely by Mercedes.

While it seems likely that luxury cars will only be a halo handful of the 1m cars sold every year, carmakers are finally waking up to the country's potential.

Meanwhile, you might wonder how the driver of a posh car will cope on the country's largely appalling roads while avoiding the consequences of many of the other drivers' fatalistic behaviour, the rusting results of which litter the roadside.

[r988]

1 million cars out of population of 1,080,264,388 thats an awful lot of growth potential...

[aston67]

Transport 2000 should move quickly to India then and leave us alone

A67

[singh]

An Aston in india?.....Chocolate teapot,ashtray+motorbike etc.etc.come to mind.

>> Edited by singh on Friday 9th September 17:25

[Ashok]

It's really absurd when you see the state of the roads and driving out there. With VERY few exceptions, conditions are pityful and no place for a supercar.

I've seen (holy) cows, camels and elephants all sharing the carriageway with mobile quack dentists and soothsayers! That's before you add in the lunatic driven cars, trucks, buses and pedestrians.

The 'new' rich in India will lap up cars like the Aston, however, purely as status symbols.

[Twin Turbo]

Won't that be the V8 Vantage going full circle? I seem to remember the concept car was built in India.

[dinkel]

Ashok said:

It's really absurd when you see the state of the roads and driving out there.

Arr Aston Cayenne . . . I hope not.

[Lutz]

Hey, its about a tiny sliver of society that can afford these cars. And with the power of purchase they have, they can easily afford to have some race tracks built or a stretch of road made up in a way an Am would be very happy with.
I am surprised they did not do that earlier...commonwealth and all that....

[360stimo]

i didnt think you could import cars over there as the tax is too high. I remember seeing a programme, admittedly quite a few years ago, saying that if you wanted to import a Vauxhall Vectra to India, i would cost in total about £100k !!!

[g55dxb]

I'm in Bombay for two days on business and I wouldn't drive an AM here even if it was given to me for free! The roads are in such bad shape after the record rain/flooding last month that any sporty car would be difficult to drive, let alone enjoy.

I have yet to see a decent road/highway in India where you could enjoy a current generation Aston. Of course, there is so much wealth in cities like Bombay that people will buy one (with approx 100% import duty) purely as a status symbol even if they can never really use it.

[jas xjr]

the people who could afford to buy one would know who to bung in order not to pay the full amount.and they would get a receipt,probably.
years ago if you imported a car into india and you found that it had a broken headlamp, you could import it as scrap.