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As a marine surveyor my job takes me in & out of various ports in India & abroad. Many such ports cater to imports
& exports of basic to most exotic cars. Most of these ports restrict camera usage inside its limits. But as
surveyors photographing evidences is crucial so we mostly manage with camera phones. Though I have never directly
handled car surveys but soon after becoming BHpian I chose to do few such surveys & came back with following
results:

1) IMPORTS: Never knew that MUL GRAND VITARA was imported, as I found it out recently. These cars are imported as complete
units and are bound for MUL Gurgaon. The C/A had no idea:














2) EXPORTS: LH Indigo's being exported to GULF. Note the quality of plastics.






Raab Rakha.
P.S.: Saw M.A.N. trucks lined up, will steal some pics & VOILAclap:

Which port is this? Mumbai? Calcutta looks like it would be the best place to bring in stuff from Japan to Delhi.

It says 'Mumbai" on one of the leaflets stuck on the windshield.

Those Tata bus body are build in Goa by ACGL. Those buses are for Gulf export.

Im intrigued at the choice of Mumbai though. Maybe its a factor of proximity to the market with Mumbai and Delhi possibly being the largest markets for this car.

I would think that for larger volumes, some southern port like Vizag or Chennai would have made more sense for a shipment from Japan

Aweesome. Grand Vitara looks too good without the additional wheel. I think this is the Bombay port. Not Calcutta.

Importing from Japan via Mumbai also takes a lot of time as the cargo s hips have to get around the entire peninsula. Nice to see the Vitara though but who buys them? There are just so many Vitaras in the port!

Can see some Toyota Camry's in this pic. Vitara looks very very sweet in this color.

Thank you for the sneak peeks and looking forward to many more. Surprising to know that the GV is imported as a CBU. Getting it as a CKD/SKD kit would enable MUL to reduce its price by a fair margin I reckon.

there are many Tata and AL CVs which are exported too and also if you are going towards Reay road or dockyard road areas in Bombay, you see lots of Eicher and Swaraj Mazda CVs and many Mahindra vehicles, mostly LHD's being parked all for exports.

The cars are meant for export, if you have seen them at Mumbai Old port.Mumbai port trust has made a special yard right from yellow gate till cotton green for cars to wait.
They wait for RORO( Roll on roll off) vessels to take them to their destinations and this waiting period is sometimes upto a month
Most of the RORO vessels prefer to dock only at one port in India, where they discharge import vehicles and load export vehicles. Mumbai is a preferred destination, that why you get to see a lot of Nissans parked too,apart from the Tata's, mahindras, Suzukis.

I somehow felt that the Indigo here which is for the Gulf has better plastic than the one for domestic markets. Why do our own manufacturers look down on their own customers? Sad.

This is Mumbai port & these Vitara's have come from Nagoya-Japan. They have recently started importing these units as CBU. This time 72 pieces havebeen imported & last month around same number was imported.

The car compound is located just inside of blue gate. Since Indira dock cannot accomodate a car carrier most car carriers are docked at Ballard Pier jetty & cars are driven to this compound.

Ghar kee murgi dal barabar.lol:

I guess cost is the only reason? Can anyone of us find out how much an Indigo costs in UAE?

Nice pictures, something previously unseen for most of us. Thanks for sharing, Ariesonu!

Looks like an awful lot of Vitaras, when they don't really sell in India. And the glovebox of that Indigo looks perfectly aligned (unlike the one in my car :Frustrati:Frustrati)

New Cars can be imported via the customs port at Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai only. For the record, used cars can be imported from the Mumbai port only.

Classic "what came first : The chicken or the egg?" situation. Unless it sells in greater volume, Maruti will never localise the GV. On the other hand, unless it is priced better, the GV will never sell more than its currently doing.

Until, of course, Maruti plonks a Fiat diesel into that engine bay.