Suzuki unveils global car ‘A-Star’

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Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) on Tuesday unveiled its its fifth global car, A-Star, and said it would be manufactured in India.

The new five-door hatchback car would be showcased at the upcoming Auto Expo will have a newly developed Euro V-compliant 1.0 litre petrol engine to be produced by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL). The manual transmission for the car will be manufactured by Suzuki Powertrain India, a subsidiary of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. “The new A segment car will be manufactured at MSIL’s Manesar plant where the capacity will be ramped up from 1 lakh units now to 3 lakh units once the production of A-Star commences in October 2008,” Osamu Suzuki, chairman, Suzuki Motor Corporation said. Suzuki is on a three-day visit to India.

“The A-Star car, which will be manufactured simultaneously along with Swift at Manesar, will largely cater to the European markets with MSIL planning to export and sell 1,00,000 units in Europe under the Suzuki badge and sell the remaining 50,000 units in India,” Jagdish Khattar, managing director, MSIL said. However, it will certainly not be exported to Japan as the company already has a mini car there.

The company also plans to bring Splash — its fourth global car unveiled in September — to India with a 1.2 litre petrol and 1.3 litre diesel engine in the near future. However, no timeframe has been set to launch the car in the country. All this is part of the company’s Rs 9,000 crore investment plans in India by 2010. While a huge chunk of it has gone into the development of the new car plant at Manesar, rest of it is used for the development of a diesel facility, new engine series and upgradation of the Gurgaon plant. The project will help the company achieve 1 million-unit mark by 2010. In addition, MSIL plans to invest $1.8 billion to establish a research and development facility in Haryana.