Facelifts help car majors to rev up sales

The 'old wine in new bottle' proposition seems to have worked for car companies as most of them have driven up sales considerably by 'facelifting' cars or introducing new variants of existing offerings.

While all car-makers have kept busy through 2003 with launches, they have also been sprucing up their old offering with facelifts or introducing new variants.

Most cars that have received a cosmetic surgery this year have seen an impressive surge in their sales post-facelift.

For example, sales of the Mahindra stinger, Scorpio was up 85 per cent in September (when compared with September 2002) after a minor tweaking session in the earlier month.

Sales have been zooming up consistently since with a growth of 82 per cent in October and an astounding 95 per cent in November.

Facelifts have helped both best-selling cars as well as underperformers. When Hyundai decided to beautify its B-segment trump card, the Santro, and add the Xing thing, its sales, which were hovering in the 7,500 units last year, soared to 12,000.

If the Santro's makeover was well-received, Maruti's Wagon R's facelift was also well-received. The car which never really set the roads on fire inspite of its strong value-for money proposition recorded a 65 per cent increase in its sales in October after a few changes were made to its not-so popular box-like appearance.

The success of the new Wagon R has spurred Maruti into action and the company has decided to upgrade/facelift all their offerings starting with the Zen which acquired a new avatar last month.

Besides facelifts, introduction of new variants is another much-exercised option.

Ford's stripped down version of its top performer Ikon, the Ikon Flair launched in August pushed up its by almost 40-50 per cent in the subsequent months. Tata Motors' petrol Safari too improved the car's sales by 54 per cent in September after an August launch.