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HM Ambassador Compact Car On Its Way; Looking For New Partners
The C.K. Birla Group owned, West Bengal based manufacturer of Ambassador, Hindustan Motors will get into the business of making small cars from the next financial year. The announcement was made by Uttam Bose, CEO Hindustan Motors while speaking to reporters.
It is not known if the compact car (sub-4 meter) will be included in the Ambassador lineup. Never-the-less, the car will be built upon the Ambassador platform. Its compact size would mean it will incur less tax, hence a lower price tag.
HM recently launched the Ambassador Encore. The new generation Ambassador is powered by a more efficient and cleaner BS4 engine. The engine also delivers higher performance (48.36 HP and 112.5 Nm torque). The same engine is likely to make it into the upcoming compact car.
Like the Ambassador Encore, the compact car could also sport modern features such as power steering, power window and air-con. While the price of the new Ambassador starts at INR 4.98 lakhs, the compact car could cost as much as INR 1 lakh less.
"It has been proposed that HML be rechristened Hindustan Motors Bengal Ltd. It will get into the small passenger car segment. It will also continue to produce Ambassador-branded four wheelers and LCVs from the West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh plants," said Bose.
The financially weak HM will also seek a new minority partner for its West Bengal unit. This partner will be a financial investor. At the same time, HM's facility near Chennai will also look for a minority partner. In this case it will be a foreign automaker. HM uses its Chennai facility solely to assemble Mitsubishi SUVs. However, the facility is still under utilised. Bose clarified that the partnership with Mitsubishi will remain in place and the new overseas partner will only be an addition. To be noted is that Isuzu has already signed a five year deal with HM to locally assemble its SUVs and trucks.
It is not clear whether the new partner Bose spoke about is Isuzu or a third party.
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