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Four corporates vie, produce circus on four-wheelers

Veeresh Malik

Diwali has been an unusually busy time with the top managements at all the automobile companies currently vying for the small car market crown in India. Far from bursting firecrackers and ushering in the goddess of wealth, the huddles they seem to have gone into have more to do with burning the midnight oil. A brief overview:

Tatas:

The Tatas are getting ready for the launch, later today, of the Indica at the Birmingham Motor Show in England. Topgear magazine has voted the Tata stall as one of the 25 best to visit. "With Tata SUV (Safari) and Supermini (Indica), the Indians are trying to put their cowboy image to rest. Here are Tatas' latest efforts, a Europe-aimed 4 x 4 with air-con and seven seats, and the Supermini, which will be takeaway-cheap when it arrives in 1999."

Why would you want to launch a car for India in the UK? Because it seems you don't, as yet, have an organisation to help you sell and service your otherwise likely to be successful car in position. One wonders whether the Tatas are waiting for dealers from other manufacturers to come their way.

Hyundai:

The company has already broken the first of their many promises. Full-page newspaper advertisements talked of commencement of sale from October 18 and collected full payments in advance, totalling upto almost Rs 5 billion.

But, alas, a tiny-weeny advert appeared saying, uh-oh, we are kinda sorry, but we can't give you the cars till October 28 because, maybe, our computer has not been able to cope up! This is amazing, coming from somebody that was, till a few days ago, sounding off about good business practices and low prices.

Seems like the Santro is now delayed. The media test cars are delayed, the Hyundai office worked through the long Diwali weekend, its managing director is not contactable because he is, apparently, under high stress and cannot even come on the phone, and, best of all, even the display cars have not been registered as yet.

One wonders whether the fact that the Government of India has come down on the import of kits has something to do with the delays.

Daewoo:

Financial institutions are breathing down its neck. So is Big Daddy, General Motors, that, apparently, wants a share of the virtual pie.

Amazing behaviour from these people -- first they try to do an illusionary trick by trying to convince people that the Matiz, built on the platform of the Maruti-800, is to be rated against the Zen. Next they announce the likely sale of their cars from October 17 onwards, but do not tell anybody the price.

And nobody answers the phone at Daewoo anymore, either. Daewoo has always built its cars to a price. But in India it seems to have done one better: it built their car first and will decide how much the market can pay afterwards.

Current joke: Guy walks into Daewoo showroom, asks: "How much does the Matiz cost?" Is told: "How much are you willing to pay?"

Maruti:

The best of the lot! Knee-jerked into reacting, they have launched promos, offering higher interest rates, new colours, and launched a run on the marketplace. Its R&D section hardly ever goes home, so busy are they with upgradings. Want a 4-valve 3-cylinder 800cc engine with MPFI? How about a diesel Gypsy King or Esteem? Looking at the 16-valve 4-cylinder 1600cc engine from the Baleno for the Esteem? Or maybe four versions of the Wagon-R?

Hang in there for a few months. And, hey, whaddayou know, you're going to get longer warranties as well as more free services! As an aside, Maruti has suddenly been flooded with enough export orders, mainly for the Zen which now commands an impressive waiting list in India, for which you get 20 per cent interest. (Savings bank pays five or six per cent tops, deposits pay 11 to 13 per cent).

It is apparent to anybody that the Koreans, in their bid to outdo each other for publicity and hype, have shot themselves in the foot, while the Tatas steal a march, today, at Birmingham. Maruti, as usual, carries on as sheer inertia motivates it; but, it is inching out of its sloth.

The car wars are, currently, loaded heavily against the Koreans, and most of it is their own doing. In a country like India, where price is everything, you cannot play with that one factor, and that, it seems, will take some time for them to learn.