Reference Auto

Well, Maruti (Alto 800 and WagonR), Hyundai (Eon and Santro) and Chevrolet (Spark and Beat) have mega competition at hand with Nissan making a big splash in the Indian market with the roll out of its Datsun brand car the ‘Go’ for a price, which is below Rs 4 lakh, and the unique offerings, space along with the all-round features will definitely give the revived Datsun brand a leg up in the compact car segment.

An initial look at the Datsun Go would give the impression that it comes for a steal as the engine is a 1.2 litre one and the car looks good enough to be priced around the Rs 5 lakh-mark.

The Datsun Go’s engine produces 68 PS and 104 Nm. But in the Datsun Go, the company could detune the engine in order to give fuel economy a boost.

There is some great engineering in store. The Go can seat six people (unlike five persons in other sub-Rs 4 lakh hatchbacks) as the front bench seat could split in the middle with individual adjustability fore and aft giving the Go’s front seat a capacity for three.   

The Go will be propelled by the 1.2 litre petrol engine with a five-speed manual gearbox, which is present in Nissan’s Micra. With its all-round features, space and efficiency, the Go will surely create a jolt in the sub-Rs 4 lakh segment.

Nissan, which is reviving the age-old Datsun brand nearly 30 years after it went into oblivion with the Marque, revealed that the Go would be available from the beginning of next year.

“Today, we begin a new chapter in the history of our company. The Datsun brand is back. The car will go on sale early next year in India. It would then be sold in Indonesia, Russia and South Africa," Nissan Motor president and CEO Carlos Ghosn averred.

He said the launch of the Datsun brand is part of Nissan’s plans to ramp up sales from emerging markets such as India. “We have a market share of a measly 1.2 per cent in India. We are looking to scale that up to 10 per cent in five years and we believe that Datsun will give the required fillip to our sales,” Ghosn added.

The country’s car market had surpassed the three-million mark in 2011 and is set to touch four million by 2016. The Datsun Go will be ‘fully engineered’ in India.

So, with great looks, a powerful engine along with great features and fuel efficiency (as claimed by the company but with details yet to be provided), Datsun Go could trigger an intense competition in the compact hatchback segment.