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The West, the East, and the Indians at the Auto Expo

Kevin James in Delhi

It is being billed as the biggest event of its kind in Asia, a meeting place of the world. Auto Expo 98, to be held in the capital from Thursday, will play host to the unveiling of an entire range of new vehicles by global car manufacturers.

The biggest names are to set to launch new products: Hyundai's Santoro; Toyota's latest version of the Corolla; Daewoo's D'Arts; General Motors's Corsa, Vectra, and the all-wheel drive Frontier; Mitsubishi's Lancer; and Ford's world car Mondeo.

A host of small cars are also set to roll out from the stables of General Motors, Daewoo, Ford. And joining the global giants is the Tatas's flagship, the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company, expected to launch its small car on Thursday. Most of the cars introduced are expected to be in the Indian market within the next 12 months.

The show, which has become an annual feature in India, is jointly organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, and the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.

The biggest event in the show is the small cars that have been targetted at the Indian market. All the new entrants in the small car segment have resegmented their cars between the economy segment (the 800 cc class) and the luxury segment. These vehicles will be priced between Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000, thus putting them in direct competition with the Zen manufactured by Maruti Udyog Limited. This is the only segment in the Indian market that has seen a growth of 36 per cent despite the slump in the passenger car industry in fiscal 1997-98.

Besides, the proposed D'Arts, the Daewoo pavilion at the expo will also showcase three other luxury and midsize cars developed by this South Korean chaebol: the Compact Nubira, midsize Nubira and big Leganriza. All these cars are scheduled to hit the Indian market this year. Thus, Daewoo will have cars in four different segments within twelve months.

Korea's largest chaebol Hyundai will unveil, besides the Santoro, the Atos model. The company is also planning to introduce its Accent cars in India.

General Motors will display the Opel Corsa, a small car that aimed at India in the future, and the Opel Vectra, a luxury car. It is also unveiling an all-wheel drive utility vehicle Frontier.

General Motor's arch rival Ford will display the Mondeo. The company also plans to introduce its Fiesta and Ka models in the country, besides a more powerful version of the Escort.

Mercedes Benz, the German luxury car giant, will introduce its E-class car which, incidentally, failed the Elk test in Europe.

In the commercial vehicle and two-wheeler segments, exhibits by overseas manufacturers would include Volvo's trucks and buses, trucks from the renowned Czech company Tatra, buses from Scania of Sweden, the Pajero of Mitsubishi, and a host of contemporary two-wheelers.

Besides these launches, there would be a range of automotive-related seminars covering themes such as alternative energy-driven vehicles, recent trends in automotive technologies and vendor development in India.

Overseas buying missions from Spain, Germany, Sri Lanka, Italy, France, Australia, Pakistan, Canada and Britain are also expected at the show.

The exposition would also cover accessories, machinery, materials, equipment and tooling, garage and service equipment and environment and safety equipment.

Meanwhile, Australia's largest automotive engineering and production company Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG has chalked out plans to provide research and development and consultancy to automobile companies in India. Making a foray into India, the company has sit up a 100 per cent subsidiary in India-Steyr India Pvt Ltd.

Steyr India will set up an engineering centre in Pune to give technical cooperation and engineering services to automobile companies.

According to Gerrit Van Denoever, managing director of Steyr India, the company will operate the automotive engineering centre based on the companies core competence like technological leadership, industrial proficiency and quality consciousness.

Worldwide, Steyr is a cooperation partner of major automotive companies and has executed projected for Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Chrysler, Audi, Fiat, Volvo and Hyundai.