However, four months and lot of wasted reams of newsprint later, the slugfest dubbed the `Small Car Wars,' is just about ready to get off the ground. Why? Largely because it is only now that Daewoo has realised the importance of pricing in the small car segment. And as predicted Daewoo, has chosen a lower priced, no-frills option to sure up its order books. How else can one interpret the introduction of a standard - Matiz version costing a mere Rs 2.51 lakh. Thus effectively leaving only one of the three pretenders to the crown, namely - Hyundai with its Santro, out of the race in thesmall car segment war with MUL.

What with the Hyundai 999 CC Santro, opting for a price tag ranging between Rs 2.99 lakh and Rs 3.69 lakh, its positioning is still more definitively targeted towards MUL's Zen market. But now with the introduction of the standard variant Daewoo's Matiz, seems well set to give MUL's 800 CC a run for its money.

All of which brings us back to a fundamental question, why has only the Hyundai amongst the foreign car makers failed to meet MUL's price for the 800? Especially since it had started out eyeing the lucrative small car segment, wherein MUL had minimal competition.

The answer to this question could well lie in the indigenisation levels achieved by Hyundai, before the start of commercial production. While Hyundai, claims to have achieved a 70 per cent indigenisation level, analysts state that this figure has a lot to do with the grey area that still remains regarding the treatment of local vendor imports while calculating the car makers `Indigenised Content.'

All ofwhich has now left the ball squarely in Hyundai's court, to ensure that it manages to reduce the price of the Santro in-line with the Indica, Matiz and MUL's 800 CC offerings. Only then would the `Car War,' be really complete with all the participants. MUL might then just break into a sweat, worrying as to who the next pretender to its crown might be.