Prices start at Rs 3.89 lakh; AMT variant also on offer
The country’s second-largest carmaker on Tuesday relaunched the Santro brand with which it had entered the country 20 years ago with an all-new model. The ‘All New Santro’ as Hyundai is calling the car will retail from Rs 3.89 lakh for the base D-Lite variant and go up to Rs 5.46 lakh for the automated manual transmission (AMT); which offers a clutchless drive; Sportz variant. The new Santro which will sit above the Eon and below the Grand i10 in the Hyundai small car line-up is expected to compete with Maruti-Suzuki’s WagonR, reigniting the old marketing conflict from 17 years ago when Hyundai had launched the initial Santro and Maruti brought in the first-generation WagonR. The Santro will also go up against the Maruti-Suzuki Celerio and Tata Motors’ Tiago.
Hyundai Motors is betting big on the new Santro, and expects monthly sales to top 10,000 units shortly. “We believe the prices of the new Santro are extremely competitive and with features that we are offering including a best-in-class modern AMT, touchscreen infotainment system and rear-parking camera, consumers will choose us over our rivals”, Hyundai Motor India, Managing Director, YK Koo told The Pioneer. To reinforce the brand, Hyundai also brought in the Santro’s initial brand-ambassador and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. “My association with Hyundai Motors is one of the longest associations in the world. I was very sad when Hyundai withdrew the Santro in 2014, but I am really excited about this new car”, Khan said, but added that he was yet to drive the car.
While the new Santro will give a fillip to Hyundai’s sales, the company is struggling to cope with demand, especially for the extremely popular Creta SUV with manufacturing expansion plans put off yet again. According to Koo, additional demand will be met with process enhancements that will raise Hyundai’s annual production at their Sriperumbudur plant outside Chennai to higher than 750,000 units.