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Now, Italian cars set to sizzle Indian roads
By siliconindia staff writer
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Friday, 21 May 2004, 19:30 IST
NEW DELHI: Everything Italian seems to be the flavour of the season. Three of Italy's revered luxury car marques — Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo — are preparing to indulge India's well-heeled car buyers.
While Ferrari and Maserati will be rolled out by independent importer-distributors, Alfa Romeo will be launched via Fiat India, reports Economic Times.
The Ferrari-Maserati group has inked an alliance with Mumbai-based National Garage to import and market the speedsters.
"The dealerships will be operational in a month and we expect to start sales soon after," said Mayank Mahindra, ED, National Garage.
The Ferrari and Maserati badged cars will sport a tag of over Rs 2 crore each, and will be the latest to join the bandwagon of crorepati cars hitting the Indian roads. Earlier, Bentley had launched its Arnage and Continental GT Coupe in India.
DaimlerChrysler is preparing to roll out the Rs 5.5 crore Maybach, and Porsche is readying plans to unleash its sports cars here this June. The Alfa Romeo, however, will not be as expensive and is expected to be priced at under Rs 1 crore.
"We are in the process of setting up the sales network and service set-up. We'll be introducing the entire line-up of Ferrari and Maserati cars for the elite Indian buyer," Mahindra said.
Among the cars slated for India are Maserati Spyder (capable of over 155mph) and Ferrari Modena (Hritik Roshan and Sachin Tendulkar have it).
Ferrari and Maserati together expect to sell around 15-20 units of the fully-built imported cars a year in India.