Launch of Pajero & commercial vehicles postponed by HM

The new Mitsubishi Pajero, which is expected to be launched in India during the Delhi Auto Expo 2012, now launched in the first quarter of 2012. Hindustan Motors, which has an alliance with Mitsubishi Motors in India, said the delay was due to the transfer of certain operations in Thailand after the Southeast Asian country was affected by floods in July 2011. The new Pajero is the most powerful and updated the iconic off-raod. Called 'Sport' the Pajero the new car will have a 2.5 liter 16-valve turbo diesel 136PS unit power development. The Pajero Sport will be priced somewhere between Rs. 20 to 25,000 rupees.

Launch of HM's new commercial vehicles has also been put on hold. The company was earlier planning to launch the commercial vehicles along with the new Pajero at the Expo but will now roll them out during the first quarter of 2012. "One of our passenger carrier variants is expected to get approval from Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) soon. Other commercial variants built on the Ambassador platform are also in the pipeline. Market research is being conducted across different states to elicit customer feedback on the new products. The rescheduled launch of Pajero and HM stable vehicles will start from the first quarter of the coming year (2012). We hope that it will add significant volume to the company in the months to come," said, Manoj Jha, managing director of Hindustan Motors.

Hindustan Motors is planning to ramp up sales with multiple vehicle launches in the commercial vehicle sector.