[panamera13]

I was so confused by the "Harrier" launch in India because in Singapore they have a Toyota Harrier mid size SUV and I kept looking whether it's Tata or Toyota when I saw the harrier on Singapore streets.

[GTO]

Trivia of the day = Ford & Murray basically invented the telemarketing industry:

The first mass-marketing telephone campaign was undertaken more than a decade ago by Ford Motor Company and directed by Murray Roman, chairman today of Campaign Communications Institute of America, Inc. (CCI), probably the world’s foremost specialist in offering telephone marketing services. Twenty million telephone calls were made by 15,000 housewives hired and trained to do the job from their own homes. Following a carefully programmed script, they called a million households a day to determine good prospects for an automobile purchase. On the average, each call took less than one minute.

The campaign generated 340,000 leads (2 per day for each of Ford’s 23,000 dealer salesmen), 187,000 of which were “valid” in that the prospects proved to be actively interested in buying within six months. A total of 40,000 units of sales were attributable to the program for a $24 million incremental profit before the telephone campaign cost of $2.8 million.

Harvard Business Review

[GTO]

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. The damn cars are DRIVEN TO DEALERS! From a recent ownership review:

Originally Posted by MohammedEza

Plus, the car had 2400kms on odometer and that was because it was driven from plant in Pune to showroom. The on road quoted price was 15.5L and I left the showroom with an even bigger dilemma.

-------------------------------

While my research I found out that all Force Motors vehicle in my state were driven from plant to showroom. The service people will service it and change the oil and air filter before selling it.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by GTO

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. From a recent ownership review:

I found it incredibly odd as well! In today's age of such flexibility and convenience of transportation (say, you rent one spot in a large car-transport truck), it speaks volumes that this company chooses to drive down new cars to dealers. Criminal!

I applaud customers for this brand; customer first is clearly not a company policy!

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by GTO

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. The damn cars are DRIVEN TO DEALERS! From a recent ownership review:

This could be due to the absolute low volumes they sell. Any numbers available statewise? Otherwise absolutely no reason to drive it down in this age of logistics and transportation.

[PrideRed]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

This could be due to the absolute low volumes they sell. Any numbers available statewise? Otherwise absolutely no reason to drive it down in this age of logistics and transportation.

I think Toofan sells in decent numbers and so does the traveller. While these a quite big vehicles and not many will fit in the truck!

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by GTO

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. The damn cars are DRIVEN TO DEALERS! From a recent ownership review:

I too was dumbstruck when reading the review.

The last time I heard was Mahindra in the early 2000s, even after Scorpio was launched.

Wonder if there is any provision for us to take factory deliveries or something.

Like some members have said above, may have to do with low volumes. Other than Gurkha and ordinary Trax, almost all other vehicles are pretty large in size

[karthikd21]

Originally Posted by GTO

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. The damn cars are DRIVEN TO DEALERS! From a recent ownership review:

While on my way on a backpacking trip from Gokarna to Udupi, I was waiting for a bus. I was offered a ride by a tempo traveller. Once i boarded and struck a conversation, i realized it was brand new and was being driven from Pune to Mangalore for delivery! . These drivers make some quick buck. That was way back in 2006. Nowadays due to safety concerns, i never hitch hike

[GTO]

The X7 thread reminded me of this.

Trivia = Perhaps the only time in Indian car history that the maker downplayed the style & design of its own car . See how photoshop, brightness level & black colour have been generously applied to hide the X7's awful radiator grille . This is the official press release image!

[anjan_c2007]

The Daewoo Cielo, that was a leading name in the "C" segment from the mid 1990's till the South Korean Chaebol collapsed and the company closed down, just after the turn of the millenium. The Cielo's ex-factory price was slashed by upto Rs 22,000=00 around 1998-99, and it took many by surprise. We had never in the recent history of our automobile industry, ever heard about such a move by any manufacturer. They called it a "price correction."

[GTO]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

The Cielo's ex-factory price was slashed by upto Rs 22,000=00 around 1998-99, and it took many by surprise.

Not Rs 22,000. It was a whopping 1.5 lakhs and had caused a furore in the market. Existing owners were mighty angry as their resale value was effectively wiped off. Such a massive price cut also killed Daewoo's brand value.

Daewoo Motors India yesterday slashed Cielo prices by 15-21 per cent the largest price cut ever announced by any company in India in the automobile sector. The price of Daewoos standard Cielo GLE model (manual transmission) has been reduced 21 per cent from Rs 6,20,000 to Rs 4,90,200, effective yesterday.

The price of the GLX (manual transmission) has been reduced 16 per cent from Rs 6,79,565 to Rs 5,66,220. The automatic transmission variants of both these models will cost Rs 5,000 more.

The company has also decided to refund the difference to all customers taking delivery of their vehicles on or after January 5, 1998.

Source

[ajmat]

There were cases of folks parking the car at the finance office and defaulting on the loan as it was more cost effective than continuing the EMI's

[Geo_Ipe]

Originally Posted by GTO

Believe it or not, the stuck-in-1970s Force Motors still transports its cars long distance by road! Like the Premier Padmini and HM Ambassador. The damn cars are DRIVEN TO DEALERS! From a recent ownership review:

I know for a fact that Swaraj Mazda still does that. Each vehicle is driven from their plant in Punjab to each dealer, which is almost 3000 km till Kerala. Not sure how other commercial vehicles are transported though.

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Not sure how other commercial vehicles are transported though.

Most of the long chassis commercial vehicles are still transported via road. However in the recent times I do see Tata starbus/Mahindra Excelo and similar short chassis buses/vans and single cab models transported using trucks.

I guess manufacturers also give their new customers an option to send your own driver to pick such big vehicles from the factory. I am not sure if such an option is available in the recent times.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ajmat

There were cases of folks parking the car at the finance office and defaulting on the loan as it was more cost effective than continuing the EMI's

Ah, those days of no credit scores, 18% interest rates on new car loans and paying a premium for "allotment letters" on cars with long waiting periods. How times have changed.

I remember reading news articles back then of action against Citibank (or was it Standard Chartered?) for sending bouncers to the homes / offices of defaulters.