With its parent making an honest attempt to emerge leaner and meaner from a bankruptcy, General Motors? Indian arm is gearing up to provide a complete Chevrolet experience to Indian customers. The company plans to channelise its efforts around the Chevrolet brand as against initial plans to experiment with other flagship brands such as Cadillac or Opel, which is now essentially not anymore a part of GM of Europe. ?To reinforce its commitment to the Indian market, the company will continue to service Opel cars presently on the Indian roads,? said Ankush Arora, vice-president, marketing and sales, General Motors India.?There are around 45,000- 50,000 Opel cars running on Indian roads.

The manufacturer had also initiated a nationwide campaign aimed at engaging dealerships and suppliers on the matter of its parent filing for bankruptcy, way ahead of the D-day. ?We were well prepared to handle the current situation and had briefed all our associates and stakeholders well in advance,? said Karl Slym, president and managing director, General Motors India. He expects new launches and variants, increased localised content and production efficiencies at its new plant to drive growth for the Indian operations. He also reiterated that the Indian operations of ?old GM? are insulated from the volatility in the US market.

The company is looking at expanding its offerings across segments. It will be launching Chevrolet Cruze in September and the mini car early next year. The mini is expected to cost around Rs 4 lakh. On Tuesday, it launched company fitted LPG Spark at a price of Rs 3.69 lakh (ex-showroom Thane). The LPG kit is being imported from Italy. There will be a cost differential of Rs 21,000 for LPG.

Talking about its used car business called Chevrolet Ok, Arora said, ?The business is doing well and we are getting around 120-150 cars for replacement every month.? He added that a majority of the cars coming for replacement are Opel brand. There are more than three lakh GM cars on Indian roads. Currently, Chevrolet Ok is present at 13 GM dealers in the country and the company plans to expand this to35 dealerships by this year end.

GM discontinued the Opel brand a few years ago, and currently sells only the Chevrolet brand which includes models like Tavera, Optra, Aveo, UV-A, Spark and Captiva in India.