The Italian automotive industry is renowned not only for supercar-making companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini, but also for its carrozzerias like Pininfarina and Bertone, which design and engineer cars for other automakers as well as manufacture their own limited production models.
The Indian automotive industry, on the other hand, is best known as the country that manufactures the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, which may or may not lose the title to the Bajaj RE60.
While Italy is safe for now (…), India will soon have its own sport car thanks to DC Design’s Avanti that was launched at the 2012 New Delhi Auto Expo.
Founded by former GM designer Dilip Chhabria, DC Design is mostly known for its one-off prototypes. The Avanti, however, is a production ready sports car that will be manufactured at the company’s brand new plant at Talagon near its existing Prune facilities.
“Every country which has written its name in the pantheon of automobile manufacturing has invariably distinguished itself with sports cars by its own nationals and I thought that India rightly needs to be in this exclusive club”, said Chhabria. “The design is completely our very own as is the engineering and also the production process. Type approval and on-road tests would follow soon”.
Chhabria added that DC Design plans to manufacture 300 units of the Avanti in 2013-2014 and, if all goes well, increase annual production to four figures.
As its creator admits, India’s first supercar “doesn’t reinvent the wheel” as far as its conception and manufacturing process is concerned.
Like all small-volume manufacturers, DC Design will use parts from various carmakers, especially in the powertrain and suspension depaetments.
The prototype that was unveiled at the 2012 Auto Expo is constructed around a lightweight but rigid spaceframe chassis. It features unequal-length wishbones and coil over shock absorbers on both axles, 19-inch wheels with 255/35 front and 295/30 rear tires and 330 mm ventilated disc brakes with AP Racing calipers.
It is powered by a mid-mounted 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder EcoBoost engine sourced from Ford and tuned to deliver 240HP and 366Nm (270 lb-ft) of torque. Thanks to its compliance with Euro 5 emissions regulations it can also be exported, while a slight change in the engine mapping will make it compatible with the oncoming Euro 6 regulation.
Power is transmitted to the rear wheels via a Ford-sourced six-speed manual gearbox, while the Avanti will also be optionally available with a dual-clutch PowerShift transmission.
Although 240HP combined with a dry kerb weight of 1,562 kg (3,443 pounds) isn’t exactly supercar territory, the Avanti will be priced at a reasonable Rs 30 lakh, or around US$56,000 at the current exchange rates.
Later on, it may also be offered with a turbocharged Honda V6, which with an output of around 400HP should seriously improve performance (and, presumably, increase the price accordingly).
Live photo credits: Motorbeam
22 Comments:
Lol, fail.
I have never seen a red platypus....
the front looks like a Ferrari rip off, and the back looks heavy and too long..
nice try...please try again...
This is a cross between a knock off of a 458 Italia from the front and a french auto maker from the back. Pricey for the weight and power
roflmfao! im lost for words... former gm designer says it all!
the devil is in the detail.
Causing other drivers to go blind is a recipe for a lawsuit
oh my God!! what is this alien thing?? O_o
very ugly.
Looks like a Ferrari / Porsche hybrid gone terribly wrong.
Wow! Looks good!!
Looks good! Nice, especially for an Indian car.
extremely ugly mutant child of 458, r8, and a platypus
Once you've paid $56,000 for one of the oddest-looking vehicles ever, you can go get your ass handed to you by a V6 Mustang at a stoplight. Pretty sorry.
+1, dude. How...derivative. Not a single original line in the "style" anywhere. Like Pureworx says, 'former' GM designer says it all. Now we see why he is not still 'designing' at GM anymore. Any 3rd year at the Car Design school in California could have blown this abortion off the designing board. Obviously designed by a committee...and they didn't speak the same language to each other...wow.
Oh my god... typical India Fail! Looks very ugly! The biggest fail is the engine. A sports car with a 2000cc engine? xD *biglol*
I could hold my dinner down with the bad front but once the picture of back came into view, good bye dinner...smh
What the hell people?
This is India, where poverty is the biggest factor in the lives of 1.2 billion people. This is India, where a BMW 118d is considered a dream luxury coupe and is more that X3 times as expensive as in the western countries! This is India, where a Porsche Cayman with exactly the same power output and mid-engine layout costs X2.5 the price of this car.The local brands have finally started producing cars that are not only affordable but also DESIRABLE. It will enable people of a lesser social position in Indian society taste what only the less-than-1-per-mil could up until now. This is why the social significance of this car dwarfs anything Ferrari or Porsche have ever offered. SO, it's not the former GM designer that has failed, it's most of YOU who have failed to realize the significance of his work by only judging it by purely subjective factors, like the design, for example. I happen to like it more than the previously mentioned Cayman's conservative and unadventurous forms.This man's work will have more impact on this world than all of ours combined. It will make hundreds of millions of people dream, give them hope for better future and better life and distract them form a morbid daily routine. And for some it will make a daily driver instead of a horrible Chevrolet Captiva FWD 2.0 Diesel.So, basically, STOP HATING!
dude stop with the caps... and yes it's india thats why its the fckin joke a country with millions living in poverty! they need to improve their peoples lives first and create a true peoples car not that nano crap..then they should look at joining other developed nations in the supercar league.
what the hell........u think of ur self.....ha.......mr yavor.....
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This is India man,good efforts.........
yavor Khazakstan is best
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