800cc Spark on GM’s drawing board

General Motors India plans a Spark version with an 800 cc petrol engine. It

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will challenge the mighty little Alto from Maruti Suzuki and the still smaller Nano from Tata Motors.

“The 800 cc Spark is on the drawing board,” P Balendran, vice-president of General Motors India told Financial Chronicle.

But there is a caveat: if 1,000 cc Spark as well as the just introduced 1,200 cc Beat sell well this year, the 800 cc Spark may not happen, indicating that the lower-engine capacity version is just rearguard action in the event of the other models not doing well.

Its Talegaon factory now makes the 1,000 cc Spark, the Beat and the U-va, the other 1,200 cc model.

India’s fourth biggest carmaker by volume expects sales to cross 1,00,000 cars this year, banking on hopes that the Beat will bring in more sales than the Spark does now. Last year the company sold about 70,000 cars, 45,000 of them Sparks.

“If we achieve the desired volumes, (with the Beat and the Spark), we will not foray into the 800 cc category,” Balendran said.

The base model of the Beat, launched a week ago, costs Rs 3.34 lakh ex-showroom Delhi, only slightly ahead of the Spark whose price begins at Rs 3.19 lakh.

Maruti’s old warhorse, the 800, will not be sold in 11 cities from April. The largest carmaker decided not to upgrade the cars’ engine to Bharat Stage IV standards. Maruti 800 sales dropped 34 per cent to 24,594 in April-December last from the level of a year earlier.

Maruti’s Alto, India’s largest selling car, has an 800 cc engine. Tata Motors has the Nano with a 600 cc engine.