Ashok Leyland Stile and Partner unveiled

The Nissan and Ashok Leyland partnership has resulted in this - the Ashok Leyland Stile. This is essentially a rebadged Nissan Evalia or NV200, but in this iteration will be available in several different formats, such as a seven-seater, an eight-seater, courier van, shuttle van and ambulance. Of course, the Stile will be suitably modified for each new application and the company has declared that the Stile will be positioned lower than the Nissan Evalia.

Ashok Leyland will start manufacturing the Stile in 2013, and manufacturing operations will be completely independent from that for the Nissan Evalia. The Stile will come powered by a common-rail diesel engine, and a dual-fuel CNG and petrol engine. These engines are not likely to be Nissan motors and will be designed and developed by Ashok Leyland. However further engine specifications have not yet been announced.

Ashok Leyland is looking at setting up different dealerships to sell the Stile, in addition to its dealerships for HCVs and LCVs.

The company also unveiled their Partner LCV which has been developed in collaboration with Nissan. The Partner comes powered by a ZD30 DDTi common rail diesel engine that is BS-IV compliant. The engine makes 120 bhp of power and 32.4 kgm of torque.

The Partner has a Gross Vehicle Weight of 6-tonne, multiple load body options. The Partner on display at the Auto Expo was a refrigerated container that had a capacity of 10.7 cubic metres and broad temperature controls of -25 deg C to 10 deg C.

Ashok Leyland claims the partner has features like low NVH levels, plenty of utility space, a spacious cabin, power steering, air-conditioning, a car like gear knob and a fully tiltable cabin.

The Partner will also go into production in 2013.