Bijoy Kumar Y: It's raining cars

MY WEEK

It was a kick-off to a very special week for a motoring journalist. The Palio Stile from the Fiat-Tata combine was introduced on this day as was the Hyundai Getz Prime. The Getz was developed in 2002 to tackle European markets and it came to India a little late. The Getz didn't exactly set the sales charts on fire, while the flamboyant Suzuki Swift became a runaway success in the same segment.

What we have now is the facelifted Getz which was shown to the world in 2005. Is Hyundai getting tardy with their model introductions for India? The car comes with an engine option that's under 1200cc which means it can be aggressively priced. But the biggest disappointment was not seeing the diesel version of the Getz Prime join the party. Suzuki already has the Swift diesel going and competition in the B and B-plus diesel segment is getting warmer by the day.

Tuesday
Big day for the Mahindra-Renault combine. The team has set a record of sorts by rolling out a car a month in advance, and with a cost savings of 15 per cent. Mind you, this is a company that was building rudimentary Jeep clones not so long ago. Not many were expecting the Renault chief Carlos Ghosn to be present, since he was supposed to come to the Nashik plant the next day. But he was on the stage, introducing the new Logan to Indians.

Wednesday
The previous evening, we had driven down in a Logan to its hometown "" Nashik. Mountain roads are not exactly the forte of an economical diesel engine, but the car coped well.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra, was present. At an automotive function he had apparently informed the gathering that Maharashtra would roll out the 'red tape' for car makers. So the chief secretary of the state, D K Sankaran, who opened the relay of speeches at Nashik, ensured that the CM was aware of his slip of the tongue and emphasised on the 'red carpet' bit a few times.

Look at what Maharashtra has achieved "" Fiat-Tata, DaimlerChrysler, Mahindra-Renault and General Motors have inked deals with the state for car plants. And we have not counted Audi who are coming along with Skoda and Volkswagen into the state. Quite an achievement.

A lunch session with Anand Mahindra and Carlos Ghosn followed. After which journalists who behaved impeccably till then mobbed Carlos Ghosn for his autographs.

Thursday
Spent time behind the wheel of the Logan to ensure the Weekend Motoring page had the exclusive test drive story. The car impressed us with its economy and ability to thwart terrible roads. Sure, there were tell-tale signs of each euro being saved, but who am I to complain? It is affordable, well-built and safe "" so what if it won't win any beauty pageants.