Ashok Leyland, Commercial-vehicle maker plans to launch its “Captain” series of next generation heavy trucks. The Captain series will include the trucks in the range between 16 tonnes and 49 tonnes. The Captain 2523 Tipper is the first model of this Captain series which includes tippers, tractors and haulage trucks.The trucks will come with three year full vehicle warranty and also four year warranty on the drive line.
It will launch 18 models in this Captain series in 2014.The trucks will be manufactured at its Uttarakhand plant. The price of the trucks are in the range of Rs.22 lakh to Rs.35 lakh.The company plans to export this Captain series to Middle East, Latin America, Africa and South East Asian countries as Completely Built Units(CBU).
Vinod K. Dasari, MD, Ashok Leyland said, “The Captain is inspired by Mahi’s values of leadership: performance, perfection and innovation. The product exceeds our expectations of performance, reliability, quality and durability. We are confident the CAPTAIN will change the dynamics of the CV market, firmly put our customers on the path to greater and sustained profitability and become a preferred brand for truckers.”
He added, “These trucks will be rolled out from our Pantnagar plant. We have developed this range on our own, apart from some help from an Italian firm for cabin design and a UK firm for structural engineering, at an investment of Rs 600-700 crore”.
He also added, “We have a total capacity of 10,000 units per month across our plants but we were doing 2,000-3,000 units in single shift due to the slowdown”.”In the fourth quarter of this fiscal, we are increasing that to 4,000-5,000 units with double shifts in some plants.”
