Aston heads for India

AM to join upmarket carmakers bidding for mindshare

By PH Staff / Friday, 9 September 2005 / Loading comments

V8 Vantage to grace India's roads

Aston Martin is going to India. It joins other upmarket car makers, including BMW, Porsche and Rolls Royce, who are bidding for the cash of the fast-growing numbers of India's burgeoning list of millionaires.

The economy is growing at seven per cent and, although India is still on the whole poor -- annual income per head is $500 (about £300) -- car makers see the potential for the future. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation's million-cars-a-year market consists largely of low-end models, with until now, the top end being defined largely by Mercedes.

While it seems likely that luxury cars will only be a halo handful of the 1m cars sold every year, carmakers are finally waking up to the country's potential.

Meanwhile, you might wonder how the driver of a posh car will cope on the country's largely appalling roads while avoiding the consequences of many of the other drivers' fatalistic behaviour, the rusting results of which litter the roadside.