Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the car makers' alliance, best known in recent times for its best-selling premium SUV, the Compass, recently got a booster shot.
The company which had imported around two dozen special limited edition versions of its rugged jeep, the Wrangler, priced at almost Rs 70 lakh, sold out all every single completely built unit (CBU) in a matter of ten days.
A company official said that nearly 220 Wranglers had been sold since the brand's launch in India pushing the total revenue from the model to around Rs 150 crore.
Even though these represent really small winnings compared to the real business engine, the premium Compass, a smartly designed urban SUV priced above the Hondas and the Toyotas, and below the luxury German equivalents such as the BMW X3 and the Audi Q5. The Compass sold 50,000 cars in the last 3 years becoming a bona fide hit.
The trend of limited edition cars has been tried in fits and starts in the past, says Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor of Autocar India magazine. He points to Maruti Suzuki which launched a 3-door variant of the Zen, decades ago and which was a limited edition and sold out very fast. In recent times, however the trend is picking up popularity with new laws that allow companies to bring in small batches of imported cars homologation free, Sorabjee says. “Of course the full duty makes it very expensive but that goes had in hand with exclusive and helps push the sales faster.”
The Skoda Octavia vRS 245, a special limited edition car, priced at Rs 36 lakh and designed for high performance and speed was introduced on the March 1, 2020 said a Skoda representative. “We brought in a batch of 200 cars, and sold 170 in the first 40 minutes,” he said. “The rest are all sold out of as of now.” Clearly, the buyers were all die-hard fans of speedy sedans, but businesswise it also translated to Rs 72 crore in sales. Skoda isn’t the only German player to have seen success with limited edition runs.
Mercedes-Benz recently sold out almost a dozen of its limited GLE Hip Hop Edition that was priced at around Rs 1.25 crore in less than a month. The car's noveltyis that it can bounce up and down while driving because of its controllable air suspension thus making it seem like its dancing.
Its a trend that’s not going unnoticed.
Sorabjee says Toyota is likely to bring in a small batch of its cult classic sports car - the Supra - at a tentative price of around Rs 65 lakh. The Supra, which was first made in 1978, ran through at least four generations and was made until 2002 before restarting manufacture in 2019. With that sort of lineage, fan following and nostalgic memory for die-hard car lovers, expect it to sell out as fast as any limited edition might.
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