Suzuki targets TATA

As all we know about Tata’s Rs 1 lakh car here is new information. Suzuki Motor Corporation, 54% owner of India’s largest carmaker Maruti Udyog, is developing a 660cc engine and a new low-cost small car platform from scratch to counter the Tata Motors Rs 1 lakh car. With it, Suzuki hopes to provide the most formidable competition to date to Ratan Tata’s dream project. Being developed under a blanket of secrecy at its headquarters in Hamamatsu in Japan, the car will roll out of Maruti’s Gurgaon plant by the end of 2008—around the same time that Tata Motors plans to launch its new small car. “We are working on a mini car which would be lower than 800cc in engine capacity,” Maruti’s director, sales & marketing Shuji Oishi confirmed to FE. Suzuki believes it will be able to price the car in the same bracket as the Tata small car. Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant has admitted that his company’s car may be priced higher than the Rs 1 lakh target due to increasing raw material costs. “The Tata car would be higher than Rs 1.25 lakh. Our car would be priced competitively but the price won’t be Rs 1 lakh,” Oishi said. The Suzuki and the Tata cars will be the first sub-800cc cars in the Indian market. The Suzuki car will offer over 50 bhp power with a 660cc petrol engine. In comparison, the Tata small car is expected to offer 30 bhp with a 700cc petrol engine. The 796cc Maruti 800 offers 37 bhp, while the Alto 800 offers 47 bhp.Also fdaware.com.