[Psycho]

Given a choice any Indian consumer would go for a car that provides him / her the most bang for the buck... the only difference here the bang typically means lower total cost of ownership (including fuel and maintenance costs). I really do not know if safety is such a critical feature in the buyers minds here as most of the small segment cars fall poorly short of it. I still personally know people who would prefer cars without airbags as it costs a bomb to get them replaced once they have been inflated.

One of the key reasons for the lack of choice/awareness is the hefty prices of the cars in India as compared to the worldwide pricing. As for the survey the result almost always turns out to be skewed, on great example I personally found when I was researching in 1995 about the dismal sales of the Bullet, I found most of the market ( 18- 25) wanted to own one, however in a follow up a month later about purchase decisions found that they still dreamed of owning one but the costs turned out to be too high for a purchase decision.

Personally I too love building fast and reliable cars however I drive a conti as I my current income does not permit me to look at a new vehicle for quite some time to come, and yes my purchase decision for the next car is still not towards FE or maintainability, on the other hand my brother is on the lookout to replace his esteem and FE means the world to him, as for my dad he still thinks that his premier padmini was the best car he ever owned as his total cost of ownership for the car never crossed 1.2 lakhs in the 14 years he owned it( he only did 30,000km in 14 years), his obvious choice for a car still happens to be a M800.