37.Nissan GTR
After launching their sub-Rs 1 crore sportscar 370Z last year, Nissan now plan to launch the big daddy, Nissan GTR, in India! A member of the elite club of supercars, the GTR has a 3.8-litre twin turbocharged engine producing 491 PS of power and 588 Nm of torque with a top speed of over 300 km/h. It will be here by the end of 2011 with a price tag of over Rs 1 crore through the CBU route.
38.Porsche 911 Speedster
Porsche unveiled the 911 Speedster limited edition model at the Paris Motor Show in 2010, which, like every other Porsche, is expected to be launched in India too by the end of this year. The Speedster is an open-top special edition of the Porsche 911 with a 3.8-litre engine. Only 356 Speedsters will be made. Expect the price to be close to the Rs 1 crore mark.
39.Porsche 911
Porsche’s 911 has become a byword for subtle evolution over five decades. But is 2011’s new 991 generation the biggest leap yet? By Tim Pollard
there will be some who see the ‘new’ 911 as just another facelift on a one-way journey to irrelevance. ‘Engine’s in the wrong place,’ they’ll nod sagely. ‘Porsche will never tame the fundamental flaws of a rear-engined sports car. Blah blah blah.’ Many of those doubters have probably never driven the latest 911s. Never felt a GT3 dance around a track. We’d argue that the 2011 update of the world’s definitive sports car is one of the most significant changes to the basic template set back in 1963. It’s the very essence of 911, distilled.
Only the most ardent of Porschephiles will decode the different generations, charting every subtle shift, upgrade and model-year enhancement: from 964 to 993, 996 to today’s 997. But despite the backward step to the next generation’s 991 codename, in technological terms the 911 is taking a quantum leap forwards. Here’s why.
CAR’s latest spy photos suggest the styling is not so much a leap as a timid toddle. Seriously, what do the styling department at Stuttgart actually do? But nestling under a same-again exterior, freshened up by the most minute detail changes to keep anoraks a-gawping, lie some fundamental changes.
The new 991-generation car is understood to be 70mm longer, while the overhangs at either end shrink to stretch the wheelbase by a chunky 100mm. The upshot? More room for you and your luggage, more stability through the corners.
But bigger doesn’t mean bulkier. Although predominantly crafted from steel, the next 911 is rumoured to be some 50kg lighter than today’s car, thanks to careful application of high-strength steels and newer production processes. The new 911 will in fact be twinned again with the Cayman/Boxster duo, but Porsche is keen to put more clear water between the two ranges this time round.
At launch we can expect a two-tier range of Carrera and Carrera S, before the GT3s, GT2s and Turbos muddy the waters. Our staff writer Ben Pulman recently calculated that a new 911 derivative has landed every 49 days since the arrival of the second-generation 997 in 2008. Expect more versions, specials and general money-grabbing.
The Carrera will sport a marginally downsized but stronger 355PS 3.4-litre flat six, while the Carrera S is powered by a 3.8 flat six mustering a stout 405PS. Word is that both manual and twin-clutch PDK transmissions will offer seven speeds, with top an overdriven, low-rpm cruiser.
This low CO2 emphasis percolates the 991 format: stop-start, intelligently decoupling alternators and – for the first time – electric power steering all feature. And Porsche is working on a radical new 2.2-litre flat-four for deployment in
around five years’ time. It sounds like
the sort of 911 that could at last appease those doubters.
Although the new 911 won’t roll into UK showrooms in 2011, we’ll see the latest Porsche in the autumn – just in time for a Frankfurt motor show homecoming.
40.Renault Fluence
Renault’s Fluence sedan is expected to be launched in the first half of 2011. After entering India through Mahindra, Fluence will be the French brand’s first independent offering, brought in through the CKD route and it will be pitted against the likes of Honda’s Civic and Toyota’s Corolla with a similar pricing in the Rs 11-14 lakh range. Engine specifications are not known as of now.
41.Renault Logan
With the launch of Toyota’s Etios and the flourishing sales figures of Maruti Suzuki’s Swift Dzire and Tata’s Indigo Manza, Mahindra’s Logan budget sedan has strong competitors. It is heard that Mahindra, who acquired the remaining stake in the Logan brand from Renault last April, are planning to refresh the Logan for 2011. The new Logan will be a facelift with cosmetic changes while retaining its 1.4 petrol and 1.5 diesel engines. Expect Mahindra to launch the 2011 Logan in the first half of the year within the same price range of Rs 5-7 lakh.
42.Skoda Fabia Sedan
The Skoda clan is a mere 10 years old in the country, but they have made the best use of this time to analyse the Indian market well and place their products accordingly. A fine proof of this strategic planning is the success of their Octavia, Fabia and then the Superb, to name a few models. The company introduced the revised and heart-transplanted Fabia recently and, according to speculations, the next from the factory will be the sedan version of the same. As rumours have it, Fabia sedan will be priced in a head-on competition with the Logan, but with more features and finesse. The sedan will be just an extended
version of the current Fabia with the same distinctive front. Chances are that the aggressive pricing of the Fabia sedan might attract some prospective
VW Vento buyers too.
