Reference Auto

With the Indian luxury cars market hotting up, General Motors or GM, which has seen a buoyant response to its Chevrolet brand, plans to drive in its Cadillac luxury brand of cars to the country’s market in the next couple of years.

Last year itself, the luxury cars market, comprising cars such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi grew at a mind blowing 70 per cent and buyers in this category seem to have a belly to experiment with the new. So, GM could hope for a good show by its Cadillac range in India.

As of now, GM sells the Spark, UVa, Aveo Optra, Tavera, Captiva and the recently-launched Beat in the country.

An upbeat president and MD of GM, Carl Slym, said, “Every eight seconds, someone picks up our Chevrolet cars. India is a surging market and we will bring in our premium Cadillac brand soon.”

The Cadillac range was first rolled out in 1902 and is available across 39 countries. In India, GM could price its Cadillac cars between Rs 60 lakh and Rs 70 lakh.

Besides the Chevrolet and Cadillac, some other well-known brands of GM are Buick, Opel and Vauxhall.

Currently, GM India’s highest-selling car is the Spark and the company may be looking to make the Beat its highest seller, just like Hyundai, whose i10 range sells more than its lowest-priced car, the Santro.

Similarly, Maruti-Suzuki’s Alto has also trumped its cheapest car, the Maruti 800, becoming India’s highest-selling car.

General Motors India rolled out the LPG variant of the Chevrolet Beat, which will come in two versions — the LS and LT — and will be propelled by a new locally-developed Smartech engine.

The new LPG variant of Beat will carry a price tag of Rs 4.53 lakh. The diesel one will roll out around the second quarter of the year.

The Beat comes with hi-tech multi-point sequential LPG injection technology type kit, according to the company. The Beat can operate in two modes, petrol and LPG, which can be selected through a sensor-based button. The car can automatically shift back to petrol when the LPG is exhausted.

When in the LPG mode, the Beat can generate 80.04 PS power at 6,400 rpm and torque of 103.8 Nm at 4,400 rpm and comes with a mileage of 13.29 km/ltr. It offers a range of 349 km on LPG and 1,000 km on LPG and gasoline combined.

The Beat LPG on-road price will most likely be Rs 4.7 lakh (Delhi). Both the LPG variants have a three-year warranty.

Meanwhile, the Cadillac brand, even though in the luxury category, is not steeply priced, and considering GM’s huge dealer network and brand presence in India, the US car maker could be a major contender in the luxury segment which could grow at nearly 80-100% in the next few years.

With its share of constant innovations (like the new Beat LPG variant), GM could help propel the Cadillac cars although upstaging BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi could be a far cry, even in the medium term.