Porsche beauties display their brawn

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: Picture this. As misty clouds romance the Western Ghats at Amby Valley in Maharashtra and the sun shies away from the speed rockets of German sports carmaker, the motoring enthusiasts had the time of their life. Porsche AG has come wooing the Indian elite, with the biggest marketing spent in the country, at the recent Porsche World Road Show (Nov 14-23).

The road show saw a line up of beauties from the Porsche stable, from Boxster, Cayman, 911 (with Porsche’s latest technology in direct fuel injection engines and double-clutch gear box Porsche Dopplekuplung) to the top dog Cayenne series.

An investment of roughly $300,000 went into shipping 18 models that were part of the road show. Missing from the lot were the 911 GT2 and GT3, the real track honchos. “India does not have a huge motor racing history and felt it will not be appropriate to get them here,” explained Rod Wallace, managing director, Porsche India. Adding that if the motor racing culture picks up in the country it would open the market further. “We know that sports car is a growing sector,” he said, correcting that when in other parts of the world the ratio is 50:50 between its sports cars and SUV, it will not be the case in India.

Though Porsche has a long history globally, in India the brand is in the embryonic stage. It entered the Indian market very late, in March 2007. In the first year of operation, the company has sold 101 cars, a fair number to attain considering the kind of price tag these cars wear on them—between Rs 52,87,000 and Rs 1,34,79,000 (ex-showroom).

For this year, the company targets to sell double the number of cars it sold last year. “We are looking at not an explosive growth but a stable one. However, the ongoing brand revolution in India in the fields of fashion, electronics and automobile space is an impetus to the potential market,” said Wallace. There was a time when luxury brand meant Mercedes-Benz in India. But the market is picking up now, we have all the major brands—BMW, Volkswagen and Audi selling products here, said Manish Khurana, automotive analyst at Datamonitor India.