Daewoo'S Small Challenge To Maruti'S Monopoly

The Daewoo small car is still the best kept secret of the Daewoo Motor Corporation. But the mists are beginning to clear on what could well be the first car to challenge the stranglehold of the Maruti 800 on Indian roads.

Officially, the $68 billion (approximately Rs 240,000 crore) Korean chaebol will admit to very little on the car. It's functional name is the M-100 and its engine size will be in the range of 800cc to 1000cc. It's design and development has been supervised by vice-president Dr Ulrich Bez, ex-Porsche and ex-BMW.

It is being developed at a new plant Daewoo is putting up at Changwan, headquarters of the Daewoo Heavy Industries Limited. It will be launched early next year. India is prominent among the countries where it will be first available: a prototype will be on show at the Delhi Auto Show next January.

 

A group of over 200 journalists from over 70 countries (the largest collection in Korea since the Olympics, claimed Daewoo chairman Kim Woo-Choong) brought here last month to celebrate the Korean giant's 30th anniversary, were given a tour around the Changwan premises of Daewoo Heavy Industries. They were shown what Daewoo makes for Korea's armed forces, and even given a ride in the sprightly, bumpy, aluminium-bodied infantry fighting vehicle that Korea wants to export. But on the small car, mum was the word.

Dr Bez, co-creator of BMW's Roadster and Porsche's largest selling 993 model, is not even in agreement with the buzz in Daewoo about the early next year release of the car. Speaking to Business Standard at the Seoul Motor Show, Dr Bez said: All I can say is that the car will come out next year. When, I don't know. If I am not satisfied with anything, I will change it.

What will not change is some basic parameters which trickled out in tours around Daewoo's facilities at its main auto production centre, Pupyong, on the outskirts of Seoul, and its spanking $1.2 billion new plant at Kunsan, on the country's western coast.

The M-100 is a 4-door hatchback, like the Maruti 800 and Daewoo's own equally venerable Tico, the only Korean small car on its roads. However, its overall look and size will be more like a squatter Zen, with a higher roof but the same jelly bean aerodynamics, if the rough model being tested for collision impact at Daewoo's technical centre at Pupyong is any indication. On the day that journalists were taken around the centre, the M-100 was being tested for collision impact in various simulators, including one in which a dummy's head was impacting on the instrument panel.

* The car will feature a first for Daewoo motors: an automated clutch system. Not quite automatic transmission, this, according to Daewoo officials, is almost as user friendly. Since the clutch in this is controlled electronically against the conventional hydraulic system, instead of pressing the clutch pedal all the way down, a mere touch will be enough to change gears.

Additionally, the system has lower maintenance costs, higher clutch plate efficiency and a more evenly distributed torque. Daewoo officials say this system is currently being used only in the latest Toyota and Opel cars.

* The power steering system in the car , said Daewoo engineers, will be the same as in the Leganza, the upmarket family sedan with which Daewoo has taken the momentous decision to enter the world's most demanding and biggest market (15 million per annum, against India's 400,000): of the United States of America. Leganza is one of the three new all in-house cars designed by Daewoo which even motoring correspondents from the West said would need to be taken seriously. Korean automakers have not forgotten how the country's leading automaker, Hyundai, failed to break into the US market. In short, for the US nothing but the best, and so too for the M-100.

* The car's engine will be in a range from 800cc to 1000cc, along with a range of options. Daewoo, which has had its sights trained on the Maruti 800 from the time it decided to enter the Indian market, is conscious that there is scope for offering superior facilities in features like aero-dynamic styling, air-conditioning, boot space, safety, among others. Accordingly, the car's weight too will vary between 961 kg and 1158 kg.

* The car will be competitively priced, compared to the Maruti 800. Daewoo is acutely conscious of Maruti's costs advantage: that its plants are all written down. It realises that the Indian consumer wants the best