Hot Wheels Come To Town At The Auto Expo 2008

The 10th Auto Expo 2008

Begins: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 3:00 PM

Ends: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 at 7:00 PM

Location:

Pragati Maidan

New Delhi, Delhi(NCR)

India

Link: The AutoExpo Official Site

Delhi Planet Exclusive Coverage Of The Auto Expo 2008

Women And Cars, together at one place continuously for 7 days right here in Delhi. You surely don’t want to miss it, so make sure to catch all the action at the 9^th Auto Expo, 2008.

Well, it wasn’t really put up like this but it would have surely been a different way to attract the crowds to India’s largest Auto Exhibition fair. This year promised to be much bigger and better than it’s previous editions and so far it has surely proved to be a big hit. So while the major draw at the 8^th Auto Expo in 2006 was the ultra luxurious Rs 5 Crore( In excess of $1mn) Mercedes Maybach, this time it was the ulta compact Rs 1 Lakh($2500 ) Tata Nano. The Nano has been the talking point ever since it was launched on 10^th January not only in India but all over the world. This year’s show attracted unprecedented interest from foreign media houses which was evident from the large number of international journalists who were present at the event on 10^th.

The Tata Nano (see above) has been termed as a “miracle” and no matter what the critics might say the fact is that it is surely a great achievement and could have been achieved only in a country like India. The Car has the power to empower the citizens of the country and is targetted at the common middle class families which form a large portion of the Indian urban population. There is already talk of replacing the 3 wheeled auto rickshaws with the Nano as the rickshaw suprisingly costs much more. If Tata can launch CNG variants of the Tata Nano, it would certainly become a very common mode of public transport. The Nano has proved that India will very soon become a top manufacturer of cars and a hot market for small sized cars.

Some of the major auto manufacturers who displayed their cars this time included Maruti Suzuki( Splash, A-Star and Kizashi being the must watch models ), BMW, Tata, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Honda( The FCX Concept and Jazz Concept being the major attractions), Skoda, Mitsubishi, Mahindra-Renault and Fiat(which boasts of the best model in the show, catch her next to the Linea ). Cars addressing the concern of climate change and global warming were a rare sight this time with only Honda planning to launch a hybrid variant of the Civic. It is however expected that future shows would showcase quite a few eco-friendly cars that people would actually be able to purchase. After the 1 lakh car the next target should be to develop a cost-effective clean fuel car.

While the Tata Nano grabbed all the headlines, other innovative concepts like the eye-catching Maruti Suzuki A-Star which is the first car to be completely developed in India and would sell between Rs. 3-4 Lakh and the ultra-fuel efficient Honda Jazz got sidelined. These 2 models are expected to hit the Indian Roads by early next year and are highly recommended buys as they are both stylish and fuel efficient.

Well, you must have surely read a lot about the Auto Expo by now, so we won’t bore you too much with words. Instead we present our exclusive coverage of the show in pictures below.