Date:04/08/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/08/04/stories/2005080402310200.htm

Back Tata Motors bets on Dicor to drive Safari sales

Our Bureau

The Tata Motors Executive Director - Passenger Car Business Unit, Mr V. Sumantran, welcoming Mr Narain Karthikeyan at the launch of the Safari Dicor in the Capital on Wednesday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Aug 3

TATA Motors today launched a variant of its sports utility vehicle Safari, fitted with a common rail direct injection (CRDi) engine, and said that it had plans to offer the CRDi engines on its other models as well.

"The Safari was the first model to be fitted with CRDi engines, there will be others to follow," the Tata Motors Executive Director (Passenger Car Business Unit), Mr V. Sumantran, said at a press conference here today.

The company has priced the new 3-litre Safari Dicor between Rs 7.83 lakh and Rs 12.70 lakh and expects it to boost the model's sales by 25 per cent.

``For the last two years, we have been selling about 250-300 units of the Safari every month. With this new engine, we expect a 25 per cent growth over these numbers,'' Mr Rajiv Dube, Senior Vice-President, Commercial & Passenger Car Unit, Tata Motors, said. Tata Motors has also effected design changes in the exterior and interior of the entire Safari range.

The company's passenger vehicle sales last fiscal grew 27.9 per cent, though company officials said that growth might slow down in view of the overall industry condition.

``We expect passenger vehicle sales in India to grow by around 8 per cent this year, against 17.5 per cent last year. Our endeavour will be to at least match that growth, as we won't be introducing any volume models this year," Mr Dube said.

Meanwhile, talking about the company's tie-up with MG Rover, Mr V. Sumantran said exports of its compact car Indica to MG Rover group have been ``stopped'' since China's Nanjing Automobile (Group) Corp acquired the collapsed British automaker recently.