New Innings

Not that long ago if you wanted a car your choices were limited to the Ambassador and the Premier Padmini. It didn’t matter how much money you had; these were the only two cars you could have, and you’d have to wait years for delivery. My generation may struggle to recollect those days, but my parents - they grew up in that era, an era where Padminis were desirable and Premier automobiles called the shots.

How times have changed. After its ill-fated dalliances with Peugeot and then Fiat, today Premier Automobiles has been reduced to a fringe player, operating from its old machine tools factory in Pune and making small commercial vehicles that you rarely see. Now, nine years after the last Premier Padmini was made (to the lasting regret of Mumbai taxi-wallahs) it’s getting back into the automobiles business.

The vehicle of choice is rather interesting. The Rio lays claim to being India’s first compact SUV but history will remember it for marking an even more significant milestone – that of the first Chinese car to be sold in India. The Rio is manufactured by Zotye in China, a relative unknown that only started making cars in 2006, and its current portfolio includes the Rio (sold there as the Nomad with Mitsubishi engines), a slightly upgraded Nomad II, the JN Alto which is our Maruti 800 with the nose from the current 800, tail from the old 800 and interiors from the Alto and the M-Series which a rebadged Fiat Multipla. It seems that Zotye has bought a container-load of tooling from Fiat because its future products are all rebadged Fiat products; the D-Series is the Fiat Doblo van, the L-Series is the Lancia Lybra saloon and the S-Series is the Palio pick-up as sold in Brazil. Depending on the success of the Rio more cars could follow this CKD route (Multipla and Doblo being the most likely) and it’s not inconceivable that Premier could once again start selling Fiat vehicles, a decade after their acrimonious split.