Skoda Fabia Sportline and 2 more variants

Three new variants of the Fabia from the Skoda stables will debut in India this year. The car-maker, part of the Volkswagen group, is betting big on its hatchback Fabia to drive sales on a higher pitch in India. They seem to think that a hot hatch is what India needs right now – or at least what would give a boost to Fabia sales. While I am all for hot hatches, I am not sure a Fabia Sportline is what the company needs. Enthusiast cars are not what rule the market in India. But whatever.

The company has said that one of the three variants would be a sports model. The car maker is be lining up the Fabia Sportline, its new sports car for India. Now that the new Skoda Superb is launched, they seem to be getting ready for the Fabia Sportline. In Czech Republic, there are multiple engine options in petrol and diesel version for the Fabia Sportline. For that Indian market, that would be overkill, and probably we would get a 1800 cc petrol. Mind you – that is just guessing, and we need a few more leaks from Skoda to get an idea what it is going to be.

Price is the other factor. Fabia sales are nothing great (not sure, I think its somewhere around 500 units a month) due to the premium hatchback pricing and positioning. A Fabia Sportline model, with a more powerful engine, possibly less fuel efficiency, and better interior appointments – while that sounds good to enthusiasts, what would it be priced like? The current Fabia versions are priced between Rs 6.6 lakhs to 8.7 lakhs ex-showroom lst time I checked. The Fabia Sportline is likely to be priced towards the upper end of that bracket for the petrol version, and possibly even higher for the diesel. So on-road price would inch close to Rs 9-9.5 lakhs. Would that sell? It might. Or probably Skoda just wants a flagship Fabia to flaunt.

It may be recalled that the car maker was said to have been planning yet another international model for India this year. The company is set to bring into India its model called Yeti SUV to the country. Skoda Fabia is the company’s largest selling brand and the company sold over 7,000 cars in 2008.

Meanwhile, officials said that the new sports model will come with modern-designed interiors and alloy wheels. It will be powered by a1800-cc powerful engine to cater to the growing demand for sports vehicles. The existing Fabia range is available with 1200-1600 cc engine capacity. The Fabia models will be  assembled at Skoda’s Aurangabad facility.

The Skoda Yeti on the other hand was unveiled by Skoda at the Geneva Motor Show and it will hit the European market in the next few months. The car boasts of a 1.2 litre petrol engine and a 2.0 litre diesel engine.

The three new models that are to come up this year are expected to help Skoda to push up sales further. It is incidentally the only car maker with increasing sales despite the slump in the domestic market. The total auto sales have declined due to the financial meltdown and it is said that the sales grew by 22 per cent to 11,309 cars in the April-December period.