DC Avanti
If I were to mention the word Pizza or Spaghetti, your brain is probably going to associate it with Italy. Actually, the Italians are a lucky lot; they make good food, have an excellent mafia and they are second to none in the business of going fast and looking good a.k.a Sports cars. So, we really can’t blame anyone when they cannot associate India with sports cars. I mean, we’re the least sports car friendly country to begin with given the situation we have going with our roads and traffic discipline and road rage and I can keep going on and on. However, all that is about to change soon. Hopefully.
The DC Avanti is like Nargis Fakhri: She was unheard of and all of a sudden she dominates computer wall papers, screen savers and what not. I don’t think anyone had even the slightest clue that DC would be unveiling a sports car concept at the Auto Show. We thought they would be showcasing a radically modified Tata Nano or a Maruti Suzuki Swift which has lasers instead of wipers. But no, they are giving us what could possibly be India’s first home made Sports Car!
Forgive me for approaching this with much skepticism but I guess anyone in my position would. Without any further ado, let us get straight to the Avanti! The most important factors are obviously going to be looks and performance. Unfortunately, no one can, at this time at least, answer that second question. All we know is there is going to be a 2 liter Ford EcoBoost engine with possible tuning for better performance. A V6 Honda could also be offered but it is not certain. The Ford engine could possibly deliver in excess of 260bhp with the Honda having a more ready 394bhp.
Given the extensive use of Aluminum with which the car is built, it would weigh no more than say a Skoda Superb. Which means that the engine would provide adequate power. DC claims that the car would hit 100kph from standstill in less than 7 seconds. The Skoda Laura 1.8TSi takes 8 while a diesel powered Audi A4 3.0 takes 6! So, this car is definitely not going to be the epitome of straight line performance. There is still no information on who is designing the suspension so I can’t answer if the car would be good to drive. Now coming back to the first question of design. The Avanti does stand out in design and it does look radical. Some may call it cool while others may think of it as a fussy styled car. There is too much of detailing going on and you sort of get the impression that it represents different cars throughout its structure. Let us say Ferrari and Lamborghini were two flavors of ice cream available. If you order a mix or a combo, the Avanti is the result of it. My personal opinion would be so: The car makes a genuine attempt to look good. However, the designers have gone a little bit overboard. This could be good also. When the M&M XUV was launched, I had the same impression; the reception it received though was very good and it goes to show that Indian people like that fussy styling. Based on that same logic, the Avanti could work as well. Now for features and standard kit you can expect the usual array of safety equipment like airbags, ABS and TCS. The car would be having a six speed manual transmission with an option of automatic later on. Again, my crystal ball predicts this: The car would have a long list of features. Build quality however, will not be the best. As I said, crystal ball, so I could be wrong as well and I hope that DC proves me wrong. Finally the price. DC says 30lakhs and I think that is quite decent. They plan on making 200 cars initially per annum and later increasing that to 2000. There will certainly be takers for the Avanti at this price and given that it is India’s only Sports Car!
Good luck DC!
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Image courtesy — www.dcdesign.co.in
