Revealed! Linea specs and pricing

We've got the specs and pricing of the different variants of the exciting new Fiat Linea.

We've already brought you the juice on the excellent new Fiat Linea, on how we love its style, ride and handling and the interiors. Well, it gets even better. The icing on the cake of this mid-size Fiat, is its pricing.

The Linea will be available in five trim options - Active, Dynamic, Dynamic Pack, Emotion and Emotion Pack. While the Active diesel will retail for Rs 7.12 lakh, ex-showroom, Mumbai, the top-of-the-line Emotion Pack diesel will cost Rs 8.36 lakh.

The car will be available in a total of six colours, three of which will be available immediately at launch. These include Flamengo Red, Perla Champagne and Hip Hop Black, while a little later buyers will have the option of Fox Trot Azure, Medium Gray (pictured) and Vocal White.

The Linea boasts an impressive specification of standard equipment, but airbagsare available only on the top-line Emotion pack, while the base Active doesn't even get ABS. All five versions however will be available with 15" wheels, wearing 195/60 boots, but only the Emotion Pack will have alloy wheels.

Given the breadth of the Linea's talents, plus the excellent choice of variants and the killer pricing, this should be a car which will redefine the C-segment. With Fiat pushing to provide good service, which will be key to the company's success, it really looks to be a very happy new year for Indian car buyers indeed.

Maruti, GM, Hero Honda & Bajaj sales crash, Yamaha revs up in Dec

The price cuts and discounts
helped revive car and bike sales in December though the numbers still did not match up to last year’s
figures. Car market leader Maruti clocked 56,293 units, down 10% compared to last December’s tally of 62,515 units. It’s domestic sales were worse off — down 11% at 52,029 units.

But compared to November, the tally was up 9%. Maruti sold 47,704 cars in the domestic market in November 2008. Even in year-on-year terms, the stats were better in December despite a longish maintenance shutdown at its Gurgaon and Manesar plants. Maruti’s domestic sales were down 27% in November as compared to the year-ago month.

Ditto for General Motors. The company sold 4,041 units in December, including 509 units of the Chevrolet Tavera, 867 units of the Chevy Aveo, 248 Chevrolet Optras, 2,382 Chevrolet Sparks and 35 units of the Chevrolet Captiva. Like Maruti, GM too took a maintenance shutdown in December. Yet, it’s December tally isn’t that much lower than its November 2008 sales of 4,307 units.

GM India ended calendar 08 with a 9.5% growth in sales at 65,702 units as compared to 60,032 units in 2007. In two-wheelers, however, the trend was different because the credit crunch there is an older phenomenon and the discounts and price cuts weren’t as widespread as in cars.

Bike market leader Hero Honda sold 215,931 units of two-wheelers in December, down 10% from the 240,532 units sold in the year-ago period. That’s significantly lower than its November tally of 289,426 units. The company ended the calendar year with a 9% growth. It sold 36,08,220 two-wheelers in January–December 2008 as compared to 33,09,051 units in calendar 2007.

Arch rival Bajaj Auto sold 119,215 two-wheelers in December, down 33% as compared to 177,249 units sold last year. It’s bike tally is also down 33% at 118,510 units. In November, Bajaj reported a 37% drop in its motorcycle sales at 131,681 units. Bajaj’s total two-wheeler sales also witnessed a 37% drop, at 132,421 units, as compared to 211,600 units in the year-ago period.

However, Yamaha has seen a three-fold jump in its domestic sales during December at 16,000, compared with 5,524 units in the same month in 2007. Even Skoda India saw a rise in sales in 2008 at 16,188 units, registering a growth of 28.5% over 2007.

Hyundai, Honda buck the trend

Mumbai, Jan. 2 In spite of the overall downtrend, at least two automobile manufacturers managed to do well in December. The second largest carmaker Hyundai Motor India and premium carmaker Honda Siel Cars India showed an increase in sales while Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and TVS Motors showed a decline.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), the country’s second largest car manufacturer and the largest passenger car exporter, registered an overall 56 per cent growth in December at 38,402 units. Domestic sales grew 19 per cent while exports surged 97 per cent over the same month last year.

The company’s exports at 22,800 units in December exceeded domestic sales at 15,602 units. It posted a near 50 per cent growth for the calendar year at 4.89 lakh units. Honda Siel Cars India clocked nine per cent growth in December selling 3,667 units as against 3,363 units sold in the corresponding month last year.

Sources said sales were boosted by the generous dealer discounts offered to customers in an attempt to clear stocks.

Tata Motors’ sales of cars fell 31 per cent to 9,838 units. The Indica range sales at 6,749 units dropped 29 per cent, while the midsize Indigo range grew 21 per cent to 1,673 units. Sumo and Safari sales fell 59 per cent to 1,416 units. Tata Motors’ total vehicle sales in December dropped 47 per cent to 25,219 units against 47,678 units during the year-ago period.

Similarly, utility-vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra’s total vehicle sales slipped 30 per cent to 10,665 units in December. Utility vehicle sales of Mahindra decreased to 7,726 from 9,909 while the sales of Mahindra Renault’s midsize sedan Logan plummeted to 272 from 1,504 during the same month in the previous year.

TVS Motor clocked 89,285 two-wheeler sales in December against 97,576 units in the corresponding period last year, a fall of 8.5 per cent.