It may just be the new lease of life that the beleaguered Logan has

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been looking for in India. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), the country’s largest utility vehicles manufacturer, plans to launch two new variants of the Logan in the next one year.

This will be the first new variant of the passenger car, after M&M bought the 49 per cent stake of Renault in the 51:49 joint venture, Mahindra Renault, in April 2010. A senior company official said a Logan with fresh looks and design would be launched by the end of this year, while another variant would be launched by early 2012.

“We are in the process of reengineering the Mahindra Logan, which will be sub-four metres and attract 12 percentage points lower excise duty. It will be launched by the end of this year,” said the official, and added that the second variant would be launched by early 2012. “We are investing around Rs 90 crore for reengineering of the car,” he said.

Under existing regulations, cars up to four metres in length with engine capacity not exceeding 1.5 litres for diesel and 1.2 litres for petrol attract 10 per cent excise duty. But Mahindra Logan has a 1.5-litre diesel engine and is slightly over four metres long (4.24 metres). As a result it attracts 22 per cent excise duty.

Sales of Logan started falling from November 2008, and it has not been able to achieve monthly sales of 1,000 units. M&M and Renault of France decided to part ways in April 2010, handing over the rights to the Logan to the Indian group. The two partners had invested over Rs 700-750 crore in the project. According to M&M’s annual reports, Mahindra Renault registered a total loss of over Rs 571 crore in previous two financial years (Rs 490.21 crore in 2008-09 and Rs 81.53 crore in 2009-10).

Since taking over the company, M&M cut the retail price of its sole passenger car offering and embarked on aggressive marketing and advertising. This has started to reflect in the Logan’s sales which, according to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data, have gone up by over 72 per cent to 6,770 units during the April-December 2010 period, compared to same period last year.

Meanwhile, to increase sales of its pick-up trucks, M&M on Thursday launched Mahindra Genio, on the Ingenio platform that is also used by the Mahindra Xylo. The two-seater 1.2 tonne pick-up aims to cater to small and medium businesses. The Bharat Stage-III variant is priced at Rs 4.99 lakh, ex-Mumbai, and the BS-IV version is priced at Rs 5.15 lakh, ex-showroom Mumbai.

Pawan Goenka, president - automotive and farm equipment at M&M, said, “A pick-up on the Ingenio platform with a double cabin will also be launched in six months’ time.”

“Pick-up sales grew by 5-7 per cent in the last financial year, as we did not have any new product in the segment. We had launched the Bolero pick-up four years ago. So with Genio, we expect to increase our market share further in the light commercial vehicle space,” Rajesh Jejurikar, chief executive – automotive division at M&M, told reporters during the launch.

M&M plans to manufacture 2,000 units of Genio per month at its Chakan plant, near Pune. It has invested Rs 100 crore in developing the product and Rs 125 crore on setting up the assembly facility at Chakan. Jejurikar said that there is a good export potential for Genio. At present, M&M exports around 600-700 Scorpio pick-ups and Bolero pick-ups per month to markets like Africa, South America and SAARC region.