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Thiruvananthapuram, March 27: Daewoo Motors’ most successful small car Matiz will be relaunched in India in 2007 as Chevrolet Spark-the new name given to the model after General Motors acquired Daewoo’s passenger car business in Korea. It will be launched with a 1 litre engine.
The Spark, which comes with minor changes in the Matiz design, will be GM’s first car in the volume segment of small cars. It will compete with other high volume models like Hyundai Santro, Tata Indica, Maruti Alto and Maruti Wagon R.
An expert team from GM is scouting for an ideal location for a greenfield plant for its international range. P Balendran, vice president (Corporate Affairs), GM confirmed that Matiz is one of the international models that the proposed 2 lakh units capacity plant is planning to focus on. “At the moment, it looks as if GM’s Spark may roll out much sooner than that,” Mr Balendran said. He declined to name the prices at which the new version is to roll out in India.
To start with, the re-worked Matiz model is to be manufactured at GM’s Halol facility from 2007. GM has very recently tried out the Matiz (Chevrolet Spark) at European market, with two engine options through 800cc and 1000cc.
In tandem with the Union Budgetary fillip to developing India as a small car hub, GM India foresees an opportunity to drive big volumes from the small car market.
Top brass in GM India feels that its Opel brand had not done all that well in sales because of its late entry in the upmarket car segment. The company does not want to delay the Chevrolet Spark launch any more, considering its target of 10% marketshare.
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