No I am not referring to Sri Devi’s nose job thought it may suit the tag, what I am referring to here is the new face lifted Hyundai i10. I personally hated the looks of the old i10 and as much as I tried I couldn’t figure out which single piece of plastic or sheet metal made it look so terrible to my eyes, it’s the big picture, which sucked. But as time passed by, looks become a lesser priority to practicality in which i10 or any other small car from Hyundai excels. And just when I had my peace with the looks of the old i10 Hyundai does this nose job to make matters worse.
When for the first time I got the glimpse of the new i10’s fascia, I thought for a moment if Hyundai has come up with a new small car, but as I took a few steps to my right and got the side view, I realized that they have over did face lifting again.
I am sure you are aware of the hideous facelift done on the Verna. It would be unfair to say i10’s facelift is as hideous as the Verna’s but I see a similar blunder in both. I can only perceive that while designing the new nose for the i10 as well as the Verna (to an extent) designers didn’t really care how this new nose went along with the rest of the face, they were happy as long as the nose looked good. If you look at each part of this new front face it looks brilliant but sadly it’s out of proportion with the rest of the body.
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Since the MPV van segment of India is getting discovered Hyundai might have brought its H1 wagon to Delhi. Nissan is getting into this segment with its NV200 van and Tata with its venturi. All these have rear slide doors for easy entry and are quite spacious than the current MPVs like Sumo and Xylo. More on this as the story divulge.
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As the cash-for-clunkers like scrapping scheme is coming to an end in Europe, the Hyundai & Suzuki small cars which are exported from India is experience low sales. This was expected in advance and both the companies have long back identified new markets to sell off the European unsold.
Hyundai will be selling its i10 and i20 models in new markets like New Zealand, Australia, Iraq, Israel and Vietnam. Suzuki is venturing in to Western Asia, South Africa and Latin America with its A-star/Alto.
One more bad news and we would have to paint the front page black to show our condolences. But luckily Hyundai is putting up a smile on at least Indian faces with this one. CBU import taxing has been a played spoil sport for imports in India, with inflating the price by two folds with a merciless taxing of 110%. Sure this would attract companies of manufacture locally but not at this cost.
To get around this Hyundai is on the process of deciding to assemble it here in India. This would save the customers more than 10Lakh Rupees. The car is priced at around 24,000 US$. If imported it would cost approximately 24Lakh Rupees, but building it here would bring down the cost to a conceivable 14Lakhs. The Santa Fe was showcased at the Frankfurt Motor Show last month. It has a 2.4L inline 4-cylinder Petrol engine. Expected Indian launch in 2010.
The 2011 destined Hyundai Verna was spied in Korea during a prototype test run. It is evident from the overall shape that this one shares design trend with the recently launched Sonata YF which was well received. This car will replace the current Verna in India by 2011.
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Our sources claim that Hyundai has started the designing of a Nano competitor which will be completely designed and produced in Hyundai’s Chennai plant. The car is code named HN30 and will have a 3-cylinder engine unlike the Nano which just has 2.
i10 in UK is getting an engine upgrade (rather a downgrade) with an 800cc turbo-charged engine by next year. It’s our guess that the NH30 will be based on the same engine without it being turbo ready. The project is projected to be complete by 2012 and only then the HN 30 will see the day light.
