Leading automobile designer Dilip Chhabria will launch 'Avanti', the Rs 25-lakh super car, by the end of 2013, of which he expects to sell 2,500 units annually, mainly to young professionals and aspirants from Tier-1 and 2 cities.

After Avanti, to be manufactured at Talegaon (Pune), he is also planning to launch an SUV, India’s first sports car. "It is possible now for the young to afford an SUV." The company is not opening bookings for the Avanti now and will start an aggressive advertising campaign for the car in October.

Talking to presspersons on Wednesday after unveiling a redesigned Nissan Sunny and a Renault Duster at a newly-opened venture partnership of his company, DC Design, with Abhidev Automotives, he said, the luxury car market, which is one per cent of the automobile sector, has remained unaffected by the ongoing slump in the car market.

A Nissan Sunny, priced at nearly Rs 7, lakh was redesigned and customised at an additional expenditure of Rs 3 lakh while a Renault Duster, priced at Rs 10-13 lakh, cost anther Rs 5 lakh for making it "ultra-premium luxury upgraded."

In fact, the luxury car market has grown 60-70 per cent over the last few years and 30,000 such units were sold last year. "The nature of luxury is aspirational and the most expensive cars have always been in short supply."

He said DC Design, which has customised car-making plants at Pune, Mumbai and Gurgaon, has been redesigning about 700 cars annually, and expects to increase the number to 1,000.

DC Design is exploring the possibility of setting up a similar facility in Gujarat with an investment of Rs 50 crore. He said his redesigned cars would also be priced at around Rs 30 lakh, unlike other competitors whose cars are priced around Rs 60 lakh.

Chhabria said while his Pune facility, which redesigns customised automobiles, would offer online courses for design enthusiasts, he was also planning to set up a modern design school for budding designers at Ahmedabad to provide skilled manpower to the automobile industry, which accounts for 10 per cent of the GDP in any country.

He said the company has, during the last three years, remodelled nearly 16 products. The highest selling redesigned product in India is Toyota’s Innova. DC Design is also getting inquiries for redesigned armoured vehicles. DC Design is the only DGCA-approved design company in the country that designs and refurbishes aircraft interiors. It is also the only company in India that uses composite structure to convert luxury vehicles into armoured models. "We don’t import. Ours is a 100 per cent indigenous endeavour."

In a redesigned car, no fundamental structural changes are carried out. Even the weight of the original one is largely maintained. It is often the interior that does the selling.

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