For the last fifty years or so, the Indian car buyer has gullibly consumed cars of internationally old and discontinued designs, at unfairly high prices.
A partial list:
The pre-Korean War, Jeep CJ-3B and its agricultural diesel engined relatives.
The 1957 Morris Oxford (Hindusthan Ambassador)
The 1963 Fiat 1100 (Premier Padmini)
The 1966 Fiat 124 (Premier 118NE)
The 1972 Vauxhall Victor (Hindustan Contessa)
We have the 1986 Suzuki Alto (still being sold as Maruti 800)
In keeping with this tradition, we have the Škoda Octavia which has been sold unchanged in India for the last four years.
The millionth Škoda Octavia car came down the assembly line in a Škoda Auto plant in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic on Tuesday 17 February 2004 at 11.00 a.m.
What is sold in India as Škoda Octavia is obsolete. A new Škoda Octavia was presented on 2nd March 2004 in the 2004 Geneva International Motor Show.
The new Škoda Octavia has modern technologies such as fuel direct injection for the petrol version, DSG six-speed gearbox (6 forward gears, one reverse gear), and a new multilink rear suspension.
The BorgWarner DualTronic Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG) uses two clutches to achieve fast shifts. The engine drives two clutch packs simultaneously.
The outer clutch pack drives gears 1, 3, and 5 (and reverse), while the inner clutch pack drives gears 2, 4, and 6. While the car is in gear using one clutch pack, the next upper gear can be pre-selected on the other clutch pack. This lets upshifts occur in an impressive 8 milliseconds as opposed to the normal 1000 milliseconds, typical of ordinary gearboxes.
The new Octavia also has a rounded more-aerodynamic front end and larger wrap-around tail-lights
https://germancarfans.com/news/2040413.022/2040413.022.1L.jpg
https://germancarfans.com/photos/3040413.004/1039big.jpg
For how many more years will the older Octavia still be foisted on us as a new car?
And will the Diwali-2005’s new Octavia combi station-wagon
be this genuinely new one:
https://skoda-auto.com/NR/rdonlyres/A55BF19F-3EDC-4061-808B-400E61A1DBCE/0/gallery_08.jpg
https://skoda-auto.com/NR/rdonlyres/3A7A20ED-94B1-457C-949F-4D5B0923E745/0/gallery_09.jpg
or this old 1996-1999 one?
https://auta5p.car.cz/katalog/skoda/octavia_n02.jpg
Indian advertisements in mid-Oct 2005 unashamedly show the old 1996-1999 Škoda Octavia combi, as a new car to the Indian consumer.
Update Dec. 2005.
For India, the older and the newer generation will be concurrently sold as two different models with two different pricings.
The four-year old Škoda Octavia will continue to be sold in India as a new Škoda Octavia. And the 2004 Škoda Octavia upgrade, will be ’’introduced’’ to the Indian consumer as a whole new model called Škoda Laura!
Then towards Diwali 2006, maybe India can have the 2004 Škoda Octavia Combi
as a new 2006 Škoda Laura Combi!
Ram Rao ramraosaheb@gmail.com