[Nanolover]

1. Fiat Uno
   Perfect Car ( sort of but her it was 96 and back then anything would look like Cameron Diaz on our 800 full roads) perfect size, perfect price.Sounds too good to be true?
   Unfortunately so it was. The story of Fiat in India is of missed opportunities. The spoon of success was at the tip of their mouth but unfortunately it disappered without a trace.

First of all they decided to tie up with PAL and set up shop in Kurla. Worse, they let PAL run the show. Labour trouble was waiting in the wings, Kurla went into lockout and customer confidence and patience soon started evaporating. Many couldnt wait any longer, cancelled and rightfully demanded their refund which PAL didnt bother paying anyway. Fiat wanted to step in and save the sinking boat but alas, PAL was in a long drawn and protracted battle with it other partner- Puegot!
Perfect recipe for a bollywood flick. The few cars that did emerge from the cash strapped PAL were available in a wide variety of colours-red or white!


That is not to say there werent faults with the product. The italinas in all their logic thought to power the indian uno with their acclaimed1.0 FIRE engine. Perfect ! They thought...good small engine for a nation obssesed with Fuel efficency. Somewhere along the way they forgot the need for an equally strong a/c to fend off the blast furnace indian summer. The orignal system they had designed wouldnt cool at all and so they had to retro engineer a system that could work. Well retro engineering never works and they lost valuable time and the intial lot of unos didnt even have A/c.


The new one had a huge Sanden compressor which sounded like a siren when on, was mounted on the cylinder head so it vibrated like a truck. Worse, in a mystery lost in time, Fiat had equipped the engine with the Weber carburateur that was NOT designed to take on an A/C ( unlike marutis mikuni). It was a single choke affair, had no a/c idle speed circuit, so the idle rpm had to be kept high to compensate for the a/c –the sideeffects of which were pathetic fuel consumption with a/c on and drivability /flat spot issues.


I shall go on..the initial ones didnt even have a temprature gauge, so the only sign of overheating ( for sure..because the wiring was done by apes) were a feeble light ( if it worked) and smoke from the bonnet. Lack of spares, their high cost,electrical issues,pathetic service attitude all gradually killed off the petrol version. FIAT steppd in finally with cash, more colours and better still improved the product with the mikuni carb ( it should have had this in the first place). But the damage had been done and it was too late to save it.


To be continued....

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by SILVERWOOD

Opel Vectra, Fiat adventure,Fiat Sienna, Fiat Petra,Ford Fusion,Maruti Versa,Hyundai Tuscon and Terracan,Grand Vitara.

This thread is getting really confusing now. Are we discussing cars with huge problems right out of factory or cars that failed in the market for non-technical reasons?

[shortbread]

Three quarters of GMs line up comes to mind like,

• Forrester
• Vectra
• Swing
• Sail
• SRV
• UVA

Not that these cars were bad but just did not click.

[GSMINC]

Originally Posted by Samurai

This thread is getting really confusing now. Are we discussing cars with huge problems right out of factory or cars that failed in the market for non-technical reasons?

I feel ''Flop cars of India" is the apt title for this thread, lets talk about all flops cars, doesn't matter whether they are lemons are not

[libranof1987]

Going by cars that didn't work in the Indian market :

Zen Classic
Zen 2-door (not sure if this was limited edition only though)
Maruti Versa
Ford Escort
Baleno (good car but didn't get the numbers)
Uno
Hyundai Tuscon
MS Grand Vitara
Hyundai Verna (the 1st gen)
quite a few others too actually.

Was Cielo a flop car?? It was quite a statement when it was in production.

[volkman10]

Cars considerd flop in the market based on sales:

Fiat Petra
Ford Fusion
Chevrolet SRV
Chevrolet U-VA
Tata -Indigo Marina
Tata - Xenon
Premier Rio
Opel Vectra
Baleno Altura
Hyundai Sonata
Honda Jazz





Cheers!

[Latheesh]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Cars considerd flop in the market based on sales:

Tata -Indigo Marina

I see lot of Marinas here in Bangalore (cabs)

[rajushank84]

To add a few more...

Dolphin
Standard 2000
Montego
Peugeot (forgot the exact model name)
Daewoo Nexia
Ambassador Avigo
Ford Mondeo
Fiat Siena / Petra / Adventure / Weekend

[dot]

Originally Posted by rajushank84

To add a few more...

Peugeot (forgot the exact model name)

Peugeot 309?

Originally Posted by aniketi

After few years people will start same topic here on T-BHP again. So what are the contenders for that

Honda Jazz.
Chevrolet U-Va.
Mahindra Logan.
Hyundai Sonata.

One can add Hyundai Verna Transform to this list.

[alexpaul]

List of flop cars which I remember

Petrol Scorpio (remember the renault engine?)
Petrol Safari
Maruti Versa
Ford Mondeo
Opel Vectra

[nbr]

Iam not sure if MAHINDRA VOYAGER was added earlier.Even Mercedes van which was actually a Sansyong van.

[MARCUS_520i]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Zen 2-door (not sure if this was limited edition only though)

The Zen two-door was a limited edition only. They were made in two series called the Zen Carbon and Zen Steel in the black and grey colours respectively.
Came with a different, yet good looking grille, decent alloys and an awkward rear quarter panel.

IIRC, they made only 500 of each. All sold out. Resellers now command a premium due to exclusivity(though I doubt they achieve what they aim for! )

[bluevolt]

I don't think that Honda Jazz is a flop car. It is fairly new in market and it is still too early to comment whether it is flop or not. If the price was around 6 lac then this car would have been a super hit.

[jasmeetsingh]

Did someone write Daewoo Nexia or not.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by MARCUS_520i

The Zen two-door was a limited edition only. They were made in two series called the Zen Carbon and Zen Steel in the black and grey colours respectively.
Came with a different, yet good looking grille, decent alloys and an awkward rear quarter panel.

IIRC, they made only 500 of each. All sold out. Resellers now command a premium due to exclusivity(though I doubt they achieve what they aim for! )

Yea, the car had a good appearance apart from the rear. They could have styled it better. Can't believe it would sell for a premium though; hardly anything exclusive (in the good sense) in that car!

Originally Posted by bluevolt

I don't think that Honda Jazz is a flop car. It is fairly new in market and it is still too early to comment whether it is flop or not. If the price was around 6 lac then this car would have been a super hit.

That's the point, isn't it. Flop for whatever non-technical reason.