“Star of India” To Fetch 10,000,000 Euros ?

This car that you see above is the 1935 Rolls Royce Phantom II 40/50 HP Continental “All-Weather Convertible” which was custom made for the erstwhile Maharaja of Rajkot. This is a car which is also known as the “Star of India” amongst the Rolls Royce aficionados.

This Rolls Royce will soon be auctioned for an asking price of 10,000,000 Euros. While you keep counting those zeroes suffixing the numeral One and breaking your head hard to convert it into Indian Rupees we will quickly brief you about this Phantom, er, Car.

This car is one of special cars in the vast private collection of cars belonging to Hans-Günther Zach. Zach has a private museum in Mühlheim, Germany which houses around 27 cars (24 Rolls-Royces and 3 Bentleys) many of which belong to the pre-war period. Mind you, Zach is one crazy Rolls-Royce buff and yes of course it shows.

But now, probably recession has really hit everybody real hard as that shows too because Zach is planning to sell the entire private collection of cars and it is the “Star of India” which will be auctioned for this astronomical sum. If sold at the auctioned price, this Rolls Royce will be the costliest car ever sold in the face of earth.



The body of this Rolls, as we have earlier mentioned was custom built by Thrupp & Maberly and is painted in saffron ochre finish and aluminium. This 7.7-liter pushrod straight-six is a seven-seater with the interiors also decked up in saffron, a colour regarded as auspicious in India and carries a whopping fourteen headlights, which gives the car a superior appearance.

To top it all, this car has on it an inscription which reads “An impartial ruler of men of all faiths.”

Now for the real puzzle, If Zach, being aware of the economic slowdown, still puts a huge price for his Star, then he should be equally confident that he will get a buyer for his precious procession. But, who could be the buyer, who is least affected by the economic meltdown.

VW Polo to be seen in India by 2010

The Volkswagen Polo is expected to be in the Indian car market by the end of next year. Indians have been long expecting the launch of this supermini car. But the wait just a little longer.

It has been reported three years back that the car will be available to the Indian car customers by 2009 and it will be competing against the Maruti Swift, Hyundai Getz and Tata Indica. But when the promised time has just arrived the wait is extended by another one year and the car will have a new set of rivals in the Indian market by the end of 2010.

Let us hope that the wait will finally end this year. The bookings have already begun in Europe for this fifth-generation of Polo. For the European customers, the Polo is a very familiar model and a much loved one also. But for us Indians, we have to wait until Volkswagen plans to deliver this cute hatchback to our shores by sometime in 2010.

For the Indian car customers, there will be modifications in the car so that it will meet their needs the best. But from the master car builder it will be surely some great features, as the Indian customers also have now learned the trick of not getting settled for what has been offered but asking for more.

The exteriors of the car will match its siblings the Volkswagen Jetta and Passat, but mocks at the more serious look of these models with the dual indicators, which gives the car a sportier look. As for the engine options, the base model of the car will be available in a 1.2-litre petrol and there will be a more powerful engine option of 1.2 TSI petrol motor.

The price is expected to be between 4 lakh and 7 lakh which looks quite tempting, but wait and see, what this long wait has in store.

Logan in the Path of Change

Mahindra Renault Logan, an offspring of the joint venture between the Indian car manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra and the French car manufacturer Renault though fetched good prospects initially for the company, has soon run into trouble and is hardly selling 500 units per month.
The company started realizing that the much hyped model of theirs is not bringing them profit and that their future is at stake. They had realized this some time back but did not bother to look back to rectify the problem as they did not want to figure out the problem! But now the company is finally ready to accept it and is getting ready to revive the sagging sales of Mahindra Renault Logan.
The company currently is in the lookout for more and more options to revive and boost the sales of the car. Of the many options that the company is considering are, to bring in a new model, abandon the Logan, and refresh the Logan and so on. This mid-sized sedan, which has supported the existence of the joint venture, will not be deserted by the company but instead will be given little tweaks here and there to make it a small car; in fact little tweaks will be too little to do the magic so perhaps some major ones.
Mahindra and Mahindra is in talks with the Renault to see whether they can dress up Logan as a small car and thus reducing the excise duty of the car by including it in the small car sector, which piggy backs on low duty. Let us all wait for a new Logan which will be not only seen in the green paint with a yellow number plate.

Logan in the Path of Change

Mahindra Renault Logan, an offspring of the joint venture between the Indian car manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra and the French car manufacturer Renault though fetched good prospects initially for the company, has soon run into trouble and is hardly selling 500 units per month.

The company started realizing that the much hyped model of theirs is not bringing them profit and that their future is at stake. They had realized this some time back but did not bother to look back to rectify the problem as they did not want to figure out the problem!

But now the company is finally ready to accept it and is getting ready to revive the sagging sales of Mahindra Renault Logan. The company currently is in the lookout for more and more options to revive and boost the sales of the car. Of the many options that the company is considering are, to bring in a new model, abandon the Logan, and refresh the Logan and so on.

This mid-sized sedan, which has supported the existence of the joint venture, will not be deserted by the company but instead will be given little tweaks here and there to make it a small car; in fact little tweaks will be too little to do the magic so perhaps some major ones.

Mahindra and Mahindra is in talks with the Renault to see whether they can dress up Logan as a small car and thus reducing the excise duty of the car by including it in the small car sector, which piggy backs on low duty.

Let us all wait for a new Logan which will be not only seen in the green paint with a yellow number plate.