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The VW GTI pricing fiasco



VW decided to bring in the GTI version of the 6C Polo which was about to be replaced globally with a new generation soon. Good move one thought. You get rid of the unsold inventories on one hand and on the other hand you do a bit of brand building in India with the 'halo' car. With talk of only 100 cars being sold, one thought they would price it aggressively since they did not have much to lose anyway. The geniuses at VW India went ahead and launched it at something like 26 Lakhs ex showroon reinforcing the belief among the car buying public that Germany's people's cars are certainly not for Indian people lol:. They struggled to sell off the 100 units and had to officially reduce the price by some 7 ~ 8 lakhs to avoid the embarrassment of not being able to sell 100 units of such a lovely car.

Although many people have already mentioned the Indica, vista and indigo naming convention etc but focus on their designs, I guess biggest blunder of indian car industry was by Tata to think that they can get away with iterations of indica and Indigo only for years or even decades and it will continue to sell.

Even other launches by Tata like Nano on fag end of their line up and Aria in stratosphere, had design cues from original Indica like Christmas tree arrangement of tail lights and front to some extent. Such designs are practised by top marquess like Audi, BMW, Merc but how did Tata think they have such cult following for their designs. I remember they had 15-20 models with similar designs at one time and hated this practice to the core. I am happy they got a good lesson. Tata motors would have been in totally different league today if they had better sanity.

I would not call this a blunder. When you have no other option in your portfolio, what do you do? Sure; you could scrounge around looking around for another diesel partner but then, when the engine you have is pretty solid and proven, why risk it. Maruti Suzuki will surely move on to their own engine some day.

This engine may no longer be up to date or up there with the best in terms of power but it still can hold itself as a refined and reliable motor. At the end of the day that is what you want for your product and your customers.

Something tells me the Ambassador would have survived even with that old shape. All it needed was Quality and maybe a better diesel motor. The last iteration of the Ambassador that rolled out of HM was the worst they ever built. Stuff would fall off on delivery day itself. That QC Approved stamp on the windscreen meant nothing. Heck; the throttle pedal was not hinged to the main assembly rod. Horribly put together and 6lacs for that piece of junk!

I doubt if the fortunes of the Kizashi would have been any different with a VW motor. To be honest, I would take the thirsty NA 2.4l any day over a VW motor that won't be as reliable.

CBU could not be avoided. Maruti were probably testing waters in the segment.

This car failed on price, lack of recognition as a model (Not exactly popular even in the developed world), a large thirsty petrol motor and an average interior (By segment standards). The massive price reduction did not help matters too.

The car was great. No doubt about that.

Hero killing Karizma with just 2 iterations and spoiling Eric Buel brand name in the process .
If Hero had updated the Karizma properly, it would've given some competition to RE350, Pulsar 220 and Dominar etc.





VW positioning itself above Skoda and selling similar cars (with lesser features) at higher price . Even though Skoda had bad reputation for service, they were having good brand pull as entry level luxury badge in India.

I feel this one will make it to the list a few months down the line:

Tata Motors deleting quite a few nifty useful & small features from their new offerings Tiago and Nexon. Another case of penny wise pound foolish as these removals will somehow dilute the premiumness. Even more ridiculous is that they do this under guise of customer feedback. As if any Indian customer would ask flr removal of features from cars!!

1996 - Mercedes made its debut with the W124 in E220 and E250D guise. Built to as good as quality as in Germany but Mercedes made to blunders:

Forgivable - Equipped the cars which JK tyres which were inferior in grip and road noise. That could be sorted. This was more to scoot around the localisation norms

Unforgivable - Although a superior car, the W124 had already been superseded by the W210. This car was better dynamically but inferior in every other way. After 30 years of suffering automotive dinasaurs, Indians want the latest models.

Mercedes was handled by Tata and also appointed bad dealers.

This lead to high unsold stocks. A lot of these were sold cheap to Malaysia and I think the UK for taxi fleets. Mercedes actually became a BIFR case. Mercedes took control and bought Tata out. They sweetened things up within 3 years by introducing the S Class then the C class and then aggressively invested in the plant, model introductions (we get too many of them but better more than less!) and better dealers. They did lose to BMW and Audi initially!

They have come a long way!

Nice compilation.

I would like to add Toyota Corolla's D-4D engine to the list. After paying more than 2 million bucks, you get puny 1.4L diesel engine that merely produces power/torque figures similar to that of a C-Segment under-powered car Ciaz.

The Toyota Corolla Altis Diesel. Saying those words alone sounds funny.

Costing almost 23.9 lakhs on road in Bangalore, with power and torque figures less than the i20 CRDI. As the official review says "Merely 87 BHP on tap, and 0 - 100 of 14.8 seconds. Performance equal to 2 segments lower" :Frustrati

I remember the time this was implemented - parents were present in Delhi. Dad mentioned it was tougher to travel across the city with the rule in place, as against when the rule was not in place.



Reason - everyone brought out their old two wheelers - which were exempt, and starting using them, after a long gap. lol:

How can one forget some consistent blunders Hyundai is well known for -

1. Add premium features in lower segment (in the name of "segment-first") and skipping that feature in a higher segment.

Examples -
a. EBD present in i10 Grand Petrol not available in Elite i20 Petrol
b. Rain sensing wipers and Sunroof in Verna Petrol not present in Elantra Petrol

2. Add a feature in a car which is well appreciated and remove it in the face-lift or in the next generation

Example - Rear disc brakes on i20 and Verna, Sunroof on i10 and i20

3. Release a top-end car with some basic features missing

Example - Elite i20 Asta AT without Rear wiper!! :Frustrati

4. Top-end variant AT not available

Example - Grand i10, Elite i20

5. Have a stupid (O) version for every variant (like there weren't enough variants already)
Example - Lots to enlist

Calling the Skoda Octavia's replacement, the Laura!

Heck! Was there anyone north of the Vindhyas who figured out the "Bollocking" that would happen with that kind of name?

It reminded me of a joke my friend used to crack. Why no body wants to become a driver for a man who has a Laura? Because the man would yell at the driver... Driver, Laura nikaalo! lol:

Well, Bajaj couldn't have sustained the onslaught of the Japanese auto scooters that were trickling in. They had seen what the Kinetic Honda did to the market and then HMSI launched the 1st gen Activa. They had some interesting products like the Saffire and then the Kristal but deplorable quality and shoddy engineering killed both of them.

But the way they turned their focus on motorbikes and launched the Pulsar and other motorbikes is something to take note of!

Let's hope they now focus on build quality and reliability and turn around their products.

Ford is notorious for some spectacular blunders here in the Indian market, including, a different pricing each day for each model. Like petrol and diesel pricing. Then they messed around with launching and later removing one variant each month, and then bringing it back again next month.

However, one of their bigger blunders must be not launching the 3.2 Endeavour in a manual avtaar.

Another well researched blunder is by Tata, for marketing the Nano as a poor man's car. The target customers decided that they are better off being seen in a decent commuter bike rather than being definitely branded 'a poor man driving a Nano'.

HM-Mitsubishi should also find space in this hall of fame for demonstrating how to have wonderful products in your portfolio and still have single digit sales figures consistently, and how to completely ignore feedback from the market with an 'I don't care' attitude. They must have been smoking something really nice when they decided to relaunch the 20 year old Montero at 75 lakhs, a year ago.

Renault Nissan badge engineering.

Badge engineering, per se, is a good strategy for quick launch of a new model but why badge engineer flop models that too in the same market? :Frustrati

Added to this, their internal pricing agreement meant that the badge engineered vehicle cannot be priced lesser/at par to the original.
Result = Pulse & Scala pricier than Micra & Sunny and Terrano costlier than Duster.

Wonder what made RNIPL think that customers would pay more for the same vehicle with a different brand.

IMO, they should have operated as a group instead of separate companies. All their models (not badge engineered) should have shared the show rooms. Datsun catering to the lower end of the market, Renault and Nissan with the best of their models segment wise would have worked. Park in a GTR inside the showroom for the "wow' factor.