The Hindu Business Line : Maruti drives out A-Star at Rs 3.47 lakh

NEW DELHI: The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki on Wednesday launched its new hatchback ‘A-Star’ in the Indian market and said it would in four years come out with its first indigenous car.

The 'A-Star' will be available at an introductory price ranging from Rs 3.47 lakh to Rs 4.12 lakh.

“We have started the ground work to launch a car which is conceived, designed and developed fully in India,” the Maruti Suzuki India Managing Executive Officer (Engineering), Mr I.V. Rao, told PTI.

The company is hopeful of rolling out the car in the next four years, he added. He however, declined to comment whether it would be a small car or a bigger one. “We are discussing it internally,” Mr Rao said.

A-Star is Maruti's fifth global model which would be manufactured only in India. The company plans to sell 50,000 units in the domestic market, while targets to export 1 lakh units. The car would be manufactured at Manesar production facility.

A-Star will be powered by a 998cc K10B petrol engine and will be available in three variants in the domestic market.

For exports, the company would manufacture A-Star in over 200 variants and ship it to around 150 countries across Europe, West Asia, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Africa. The company expects that A-Star would contribute half of its overall export t arget of two lakh units by 2010-11. – PTI

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