Dilip Chhabria’s DC Design has finally brought the much anticipated Avanti to production form. The company is planning to build as many as 500 units of the first India made sports cars in the first year. Out of these, 450 units have already been booked, with 300 orders coming from abroad. The company plans to manufacture and sell about 2000 units over the next four years. The DC Avanti, which was first showcased at the 2012 Auto Expo, is a one-of-its-kind car from an Indian manufacturer. Priced at close to Rs 40 lakh, the Avanti has the stuff to show, even if it lacks the go of a thoroughbred sports car.
The DC Avanti is powered by a Renault sourced 2.0 litre turbo petrol engine with 260 bhp of peak power and 360 Nm of torque. The top speed of the car is expected to be an electronically limited 250km/h, though the 0-100 km/h timing is quite good at about 7 seconds. The Avanti has a low-slung, proper sports car like form, through the lines and details may not appeal to some car design purists.
Slated to be launched next year, the Avanti project has cost DC about Rs 125 crore. First deliveries of the car will be made around March 2015. Dilip Chhabria is positioning the Avanti as “the third or fourth car in the family and probably, a father’s gift to his son when he comes of age”. About the performance of the car, he says “It doesn’t have that kind of raw horse power (500 bhp), primarily because, you don’t need that in India.”
The Avanti has won many admirers for its design, but design being a subjective matter, it has received some flak too for its rather eccentric surfacing, especially on the sides. That’s fine as long as the owner of the car finds it pretty and worth flaunting though. How well the newly designed and developed car holds up in the real world is also another critical question, and much of the Avanti’s success will depend on the answer. The equipment levels inside the cabin aren’t too great either and to have a 40 lakh car without even a set of twin air-bags doesn’t bode too well from a safety standpoint.
Click here to read all about DCF Avanti’s specs and features
We admire and appreciate DC for its efforts for creating India’s first indigenous sports car. A bit more finesse, refinement and equipment, however, would have felt more apt for such an expensive car.
That’s just our view, though. We are sure many of you absolutely love the Avanti for whatever it offers as the first ever Indian sportscar. Do let us know your thoughts and opinions about this machine, which has the opinions of auto aficionados in India and the world over polarised. Share your thoughts via comments after the post.
Source: ET
Boss It has Ford Engines and even possibility of Honda engines.NO RENAULT
Though no one paid attention that rules have changed in Manufacturing a car in Inida. There is crash test compulsory now for new Cars which surely will test the car’s rigidity. So now challenge for DC is pass crash test which I think is not practically possible for a New Manufacturer.
The recent thing i’ve come to know this car on its website that its topspeed is limited to 250 kays rather than 180 kays, guys hv a check on its official website.
I read on another forums the airbags are standard as like ESP. The handling too is nifty. The top speed being limited to 180 kmph seems due to technical limitatation. The engine can pull the car to 250s easily but not the indi manufactured hardware. To play safe be within limits and flaunt the style. I hope they will overcome it in 2016 batch of cars.