It was exactly nine years ago that the Doshi’s Premier Auto went to recluse after in the fray with its long term product Padmini. This time with its come back the company intends to launch an SUV, Rio, marking the entry of Chinese four-wheeler company(Zotye Auto) into India. Under the scheme, the Chinese company will provide Premier with CKD vehicle kits which will be assembled at Pune which has a capacity of 20000 units. Both the companies are chalking out the strategy to offer the vehicle at a reduced cost(Rs5 lakh for the basic model) with 30% reduction from other cars particularly Mahindra’s Scorpio. The top-end variant would cost Rs7lakh and will offer air bags, anti-lock braking system in addition. The launch is expected to take place after Deepavali.
Rio is actually the first-generation model from Daihatsu which is a Toyota brand – Terios- in the air from 1997 to 2005. The second generation variant is already in the global market with same badge. The Chinese company could secure the tools and parts of Terios from Daihatsu similar to Tata’s deal with Renault for its Traffic, which is converted as Winger in India. Premier, for its part, will give this Rio, a four-cylinder 1.5 diesel engine (to produce 65bhp) along with a 5-speed manual gearshift and will measure lesser than Mahindra’s Scorpio. Premier likes to have a separate dealership network for this Rio, keeping its LCV sales away from them.
Hence there is a call for 30 new dealers in addition to the recent launch of 20 dealers. The Chinese invasion in the two wheeler market could not succeed due to less demand. Premier was at its peak from 1968-2000 with its Padmini, until Maruti took over the car market. The company had the business deals with Peugeot and Fiat. But the bad luck would have its say, the labor crisis and the devaluation of rupee pushed the company to withdraw its import of Peugeot from France. Fiat, with its Uno, supplied the CKD kits to Premier Automobiles Ltd and set up a unit plant for the automotive division.