I read a recent article on Popular mechanics “Jay Leno Predicts Future Collectible and Classic Cars”. I had to create a similar one based on cars available in India.
Long Post Warning: This is another long post ( I do have to learn to write shorter ones soon).
The vehicles I have listed match one or more of these criteria:
- Vehicles sold in India to the mass market not imported vehicles
- Car of the Year awarded (typically packed with features and are usually popular).
- Have some “first” attributed to them or some other unique characteristic, unusual engines or features or designs. Highest trim level versions are usual suspects since they have new features ahead of their time. (For e.g the Swift ZXI was the first Indian hatchback with steering mounted audio controls and climate control and airbags.)
- Special editions / signature editions.
- The first models or the last models of a car/brand.
- 4x4s, convertibles and coupes and higher engine powered variants.
- Shouldn’t cost more than 15 Lakhs (ex showroom) when new.
- Sold between 1975 till today April 20th 2009. Why 1975 ? Because that’s the year I was born. Simple ?
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In the order of Manufacturer/Brand I predict that in the year 2034 (25 years from now) these cars will be considered as collectible antique cars:
Fiat:
- The 2002 Fiat Palio 1.6 Sport (Car of the year for 2002). The S10 is collectible just for the signature.
- The Palio Adventure for being a station wagon with go anywhere looks. Unfortunately was not a 4×4.
- The 500 just made my list at 14.8 lakhs
- Upcoming: I predict the Grande Punto to be a collectible just for its looks. Hope it has an engine to match.
Force Motors:
- The Trax , Judo and the Ghurka all in 4×4 versions.
Ford:
- The Escort 1.6 and the Orion and Iris special editions – these are rare already you cannot find cars in good condition anymore.
- The 1999 Ford Ikon 1.6 SXI with ROCAM engine a popular enthusiasts car giving good performance for a reasonable price.
- The Fiesta Diesel from 2006 for having the best diesel engine from Ford. BSM Jury Award 2006. Fiesta special editions with weird stripes as well since just a few in number were released.
General Motors/Chevrolet:
- The Aveo U-VA. BSM Car of the year 2007. The only reason this can be a collectible is that very few actually sold.
- The Chevvy Spark(Daewoo Matiz reborn): Best Value award for 2008. Plus it looks really good for an Indian Chevy.
- Optra SRV: Sporty hatchback. Very poor sales makes this a collectible.
- Upcoming: Chevy Beat & Cruze both look good and could become really popular
Continue reading Future Collectible Cars of India
Eleanor the star of Gone in Sixty Seconds
Car themed movies are my favourite type. I have extended it into movies with really good car chase scenes. I have been carrying a list of around 60 movies to add to my existing collection for the past 2 years and adding them slowly one at [...]
DuPont releases data on vehicle color popularity for major markets across the world and in 2008 have included India data separately. I hope it will be tracked going forward as well. Here is the DuPont report for 2008. Lots of interesting data point there including variants on core color types, finishing, textures etc. While mentioning the textures something very interesting is Chrome finish paint. An example is seen here.
They have been tracking such data for US, Europe and Japan for close to ten years now. Though they haven’t given it in one single chart – Zimbly Cars spent the time to collate it from data made public by DuPont. Here is the trend for the past 8 years.
**2001 – I wasn’t able to find data for this year on the net – if anyone has it or knows someone in DuPont please let me know.
The most popular colors over the past 8 years for cars are White, Silver, Black and Blue. These have been fairly consistent and have not lost their charm over time.
Red has been a consistent color with no changes in popularity since 2004. Grey has been steadily increasing in popularity since 2004 and may be a serious contender to Black.
Black though considered a timeless color went through a small dip in popularity between 2002 and 2005 but has been increasing in popularity since 2005.
Continue reading Most Popular Vehicle Colors – 2000 to 2008
I have always been curious about the mass of information available in Auto magazines and the Internet on the various vehicle brands, models, variants, body-styles and price segments currently available in India. I realized there was a lot of reference material available but nothing consolidated in one place. So I went about collecting as much as I could. So here it goes- My study on new vehicle types currently available for a buyer in the Indian market and primarily focused on Chennai. Most prices used are Chennai ex-showroom prices with some vehicles using a Mumbai price. I spent some time trying to categorize the vehicles by their price brackets and found it wasn’t easy to do but here’s my shot at it.
I call the various groups “segments” just to minimize confusion and they start at A with the cheapest and smallest vehicles with the least number of features and move through B, C and D where the cost , size and feature list increases.Beyond a price of 25 Lakhs I have called the segment as a “Z” segment which comprises the true luxury vehicles available in India.
The ASegment starts off currently with the Maruti 800 - but soon I will have to update it with the Tata Nano.
This grouping will be used all through my subsequent posts. Have a look at the following graph for the starting price points for the various segments and a more detailed sub section as well.
Continue reading Indian Market – New Vehicles Available (Part 1)
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