It has emerged that the Indian subsidiary of VW Group owned Czech car maker Skoda might soon axe the production of the Fabia B Segment hatchback. It may be noted that until a few years back, the Fabia used to be the among the more premium B segment hatchbacks on sale in India.
The Fabia was first launched in India back in 2008 and has seen a gazillion updates and a facelift during its Indian innings. The Fabia was launched in the country with three engine options- a 1.4-liter petrol, a 1.2 liter petrol and a 1.4 liter diesel.
The pre-facelift Fabia came to us with high end features such as projector headlamps, electrically adjustable ORVMs, auto climate control and sunroof. These features were later dumped in lieu of the more competitive pricing for the facelift model. The Fabia continued to be the only premium hatchback from VW Group in the country until the advent of the Volkswagen Polo. The Polo, with its Teutonic styling, VW brand image and better road manners, stole the limelight from the Fabia.
In the middle of its career, Skoda revised the engine options for the Fabia and the hatchback started coming with an option of 1.2-liter petrol engine, 1.2 liter diesel engine and 1.6-liter petrol engine. Skoda also launched the Fabia Scout recently. The Scout is basically a more rugged looking Fabia that gets few additional features and continues to be powered by the same diesel and petrol engines. However, the Scout could hardly manage to impress the Indian car buying lot and is one of the rarest sights on our roads.
With the withdrawal of the Fabia from our car market, Skoda India won’t have any B segment hatchback for us. At least until the launch of the next gen Fabia.
Source – AutocarIndia.com