A diesel engine in a Maruti SX4 is big news! In the small saloon segment, the SX4 has been neck to neck with rivals like the Hyundai Verna, VW Vento and Ford Fiesta even without a diesel engine.

When the Toyota Innova was first previewed in 2005, the motoring experts questioned the Toyota officials as to why the very successful Qualis was being replaced.

We have small saloons, or cars with boots, like the Honda City or Suzuki SX4, executive saloons like the Civic or Corolla, premium saloons like the Accord or Camry and luxury saloons like the BMW 7 Series or Mercedes S Class. Last year, Indian customers bought around 4,70,000 saloons including about 20,000 luxury saloons. There is however another even higher class of ultra luxury saloons like the iconic Bentley and Rolls Royce that were picked up by nearly 100 elite Indian customers.

Think Mercedes Benz and the words ‘regal’, ‘class’, ‘style’ and such seem to have a knack of finding their way into your mind.

Yeti is a cute name for a horrible mythical monster. The Skoda Yeti, however, is no hairy, growly abominable beast.

India’s great automotive dream – the Tata Nano – took a big hit when Mamtaaji’s tantrums made Ratan Tata shut his nearly built plant in West Bengal. A trickle of cars from the temporary plant in Uttarkhand was disappointing to those on the long waiting lists and the agony was compounded by half a dozen accidental fires that made

Oh yes, I’m the great pretender…” crooned the platters in the 60’s.

Mercedes Benz announced last week that it has produced 30,000 cars in the 15 years that it has been in India.

Toyota after a bad experience with the DCM Toyota joint venture was a late entry into the Indian auto market but the success of the Qualis, Innova, Corolla, Fortuna and other models soon established a

Even if Bollywood stars would actually find it easier to be chauffeured around in a big luxury saloon or the upcoming ones in a smaller hatchback, their publicity managers would throw a fit.