[srishiva]

OT, Linea's topping the segment reminds me of the Golfer's Handicap. Got to be a bogey.

[finneyp]

Palio upgrade looks doubtful to me.

Fiat India is now focussing on G Punto, which is expected to hit the roads by June/July this year.

[diabloo]

Good to see Fiat fighting with BMW, Benz, Honda, Toyota and still coming on top in executive segment.

Originally Posted by vasudeva

2. before someone beats me to it, Dzire leads in mid-size, and Linea in executive.

Palio is the name that ignites passion among Fiat fans. I doubt Fiat would do something like that and kill its following.

Originally Posted by Eddy

What ? I don't think there is sense in flagging a dead horse now. Time to get in the newer stuff.

I think next on Fiat's agenda is to launch Linea Premium, whose length is 4.7m, and capture the premium segment too.

Originally Posted by srishiva

OT, Linea's topping the segment reminds me of the Golfer's Handicap. Got to be a bogey.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by srishiva

OT, Linea's topping the segment reminds me of the Golfer's Handicap. Got to be a bogey.

My golf knowledge is close to zero, but somehow this segmentation based on length is so stupid. I mean what sense does it make to have the low-powered Linea (with 1.3D and 1.4P engines) alongside the much more powerful cars like the Civic, Altis, Merc, BMW etc ?

BTW, Linea sold 1509 cars in Jan-09 which dipped to 1262 in Feb. And since 2/2009 was supposed to be a big month for most car-makers, what can we attribute this dip in sales to ?

Originally Posted by diabloo

Palio is the name that ignites passion among Fiat fans. I doubt Fiat would do something like that and kill its following.

Passion, following etc is all fine, but when that is not translated to sales, it is time to take the hard decision. The only thing that surprises me is why did the Palio-MJD not take off. It is diesel, good engine, good FE and proven (albeit in the Swift) and this is a combo that Indians love. But still it does not sell and everyone prefers to queue up for months for a LDi or VDi. Don't get it.

Originally Posted by diabloo

I think next on Fiat's agenda is to launch Linea Premium, whose length is 4.7m, and capture the premium segment too.

LOL. Just to be correct, for that to happen, it will have to be 4.701m.

[amit]

The only thing that surprises me is why did the Palio-MJD not take off. It is diesel, good engine, good FE and proven (albeit in the Swift) and this is a combo that Indians love. But still it does not sell and everyone prefers to queue up for months for a LDi or VDi. Don't get it.

There is Fiat's long history on why the Palio MJD did not succeed. The Palio brand name is dead. Even if Fiat brings in the 1.9 MJD it will still not sell. As for the Swift, if it didn't sport the Maruti Suzuki name, it would have been a big flop. Just my opinion.

Generally speaking any non-Japanese car in India is doomed if it's not launched with a diesel engine from day one. Palio, Fusion, Optra, Sonata are all examples of this. i20 will prove this again very soon too.

what can we attribute this dip in sales to ?

Just one month doesn't prove anything. As for the drop, it could be because majority of Linea bookings are for the Emotion option pack and we all know the problems Fiat is having in producing that variant.

I am still seeing a lot of people wanting the Linea to flop. I really don't understand why we would want to shoot ourselves in the foot. Sure it doesn't have a performance engine but a hot selling Linea or any car will force competition to buck up which will mean better cars for us.

If you don't like the car and the brand don't buy it but for all you know this maybe forcing your favourite car-maker to offer you better products.

[diabloo]

I have read quite a number of posts on threads related to Linea. I am yet to see someone who want that. Maybe I have missed. Could you list those who want Linea to flop? Hope it doesn't infringe on privacy.

Originally Posted by amit

I am still seeing a lot of people wanting the Linea to flop.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by amit

Generally speaking any non-Japanese car in India is doomed if it's not launched with a diesel engine from day one. Palio, Fusion, Optra, Sonata are all examples of this. i20 will prove this again very soon too.

I don't buy that.
Look at Hyundai Santro.
In case of Ford Ikon and Accent the petrols were the show stealers.
Elantra Crdi was there from day one, yet nobody took that.
Its nothing to do with Japanese etc., thing.
Its more of a segment thing.

People did not accept Hyundai as a premium car, as long as it was a small car its okay. As for Fusion, well there were other hatches which were priced much lower.
Palio failed due to poor A.S.S., initially it was a hit with people.


OTOH, nobody is accepting Nissan Teana, because Nissan for 20L seems too much.
So its very much a segment thing. In the Indian market, a brand gets associated with a segment.
for example Skoda with 10-15L segment. the Superb offered the comforts of the C at a fraction of the cost, but it bombed.
Hyundai is associated with the economy segment, so you won't have people spending 15L on a Hyundai.
Toyota is considered good until 15L, so a 22L camry is not going to set anything on fire.

As for Fiat, if Linea works, they can confidently bring out a made in India hatch. But if they again flounder on A.S.S(it does not matter if Tata is the culprit this time), Linea will bomb worse, and after that no matter what Fiat does, nothing will be able to revive that brand.

As of now with 1200 Lineas, the going is better than it ever was in the past few years for Fiat, and I really hope Linea works, because if it works, it means more choice for the customer.

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

As of now with 1200 Lineas, the going is better than it ever was in the past few years for Fiat, and I really hope Linea works, because if it works, it means more choice for the customer.

Look at the huge sales (in Rupees) jump for Fiat:

In Oct-Dec 2008, they sold 868 Palio at say 3.5lakh/unit, and 131 Linea at say 7.5lakh/unit. Thus total sales in Oct-Dec 2008 is around Rs. 40 crore. In Jan-Feb 2009, they sold 118 Palio and 2771 Linea for total sales of Rs. 210-220 crores. Going by this, they should end Jan-Mar 2009 with around Rs. 310-330 crores, or nearly 8 times their sales of Oct-Dec 2008.

[vasudeva]

GM is really spending a lot of money on getting sales these days. There is the routine of 10-20% price reduction (which has happened for as long as I remember, ie from late-2002 onwards). Plus, in the last week, I have received at least 6 SMS on 55K off on Spark and 4 SMS on 90K off on the Optra. I have been a GM customer and their machine is sending SMS to all customers of years past.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by amit

Generally speaking any non-Japanese car in India is doomed if it's not launched with a diesel engine from day one. i20 will prove this again very soon too.

By your logic, i10 should have flopped - non-Japanese & no diesel. But I don't think that is the case. In fact it seems to be doing quite good.

Originally Posted by amit

Just one month doesn't prove anything. As for the drop, it could be because majority of Linea bookings are for the Emotion option pack and we all know the problems Fiat is having in producing that variant.

It was just a question. Not intended to prove anything like you assumed. A car starts of well and then drops when the rest of the crowd is doing great business, inspite of recession and stuff. So, normal to ask, I would think.

Originally Posted by amit

I am still seeing a lot of people wanting the Linea to flop. I really don't understand why we would want to shoot ourselves in the foot. Sure it doesn't have a performance engine but a hot selling Linea or any car will force competition to buck up which will mean better cars for us.

Don't know where you base your idea of people wanting Linea to flop, but just because some people want a car to flop does not actually make it happen. Same for people wanting a car to become a hit. If its good, it will be a hit. As simple as that.

[amit]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

By your logic, i10 should have flopped

I said generally speaking.

Don't know where you base your idea of people wanting Linea to flop,

Lots of comments on this forum.

just because some people want a car to flop does not actually make it happen. Same for people wanting a car to become a hit. If its good, it will be a hit. As simple as that.

Thats true. Yet, some people want cars of certain brands to fall. My point was nothing is wrong if a car of a brand you don't like turns out to be a success. It will result in your favourite car-maker being forced to give you better products.

NOTE: You in the above paragraph doesn't refer to your personally.

As an example, because Maruti gave steering mounted controls on the SX4, Honda gave it in the City, Hyundai gave it in the i20 and Fiat gave it in the Linea. I know some people will scoff at a 8 lac Maruti and prefer a Honda but do you think Honda would give us this feature if the SX4 wasn't successful in the market?

[oss]

Wonder how many i20's were sold last month. Haven't seen one on the road yet

[neoonwheels]

Even I have not seen a single i20. Another incident, I was cruising at 110 when a Linea overtook me easily. This certainly speaks about Linea's engine. I dont know whether it was a diesel or petrol but a good sight though

[avishar]

S-class and 7 series have done well.Highest sales since Sept.(73 units)
Superb sold well inspite of a new model excepted soon(107 units)
Camry is selling poorly.But the surprise is the Sonata transform(66 units)\
i cant seem to make out the Xylo numbers,can anybody shed some light?

[madhukar_n]

Bottomline, whatever car is released in the compact segment is not making a single dent in the maruti share. in fact it is eating into tata and hyundai. will need to see if that changes with the alto.

also one more intersting thing is ford is maintaining quite a good numbers through out.. not impressive but steady !

does HM mean ambassodor and cedia or just cedia ? 544 is a ok number.. better than GM