orsche comes to India

New Delhi: German car manufacturer, Porsche, announced its entry into the Indian market with the launching of a line-up of model for the country. These include the sports utility vehicle, Cayenne, and sport cars, Boxter and Carrera, which have been priced upward of Rs 47 lakh.

The SUV comes in three versions — the `S'' ,the `V6'' and the `Turbo'' — which have been priced at about Rs61 lakh, Rs47 lakh and Rs86 lakh respectively. This was disclosed by Mark Bishop, managing director, Porsche Middle East and Africa at a press conference in New Delhi.

The sports car, Boxter S, will cost Rs47 lakh while the Carrera will be available for Rs63 lakh and Carrera variant `S'' will come will have a price tag of Rs71 lakh.

The niche vehicles will be imported from Porsche''s plant in Germany. According to Bishop, the company plans to sell 100 units till July next year. "We recognise we are going to start small in India and we have no finite targets," Bishop said. "India is one of the few markets in the world, which offers enormous potential and we believe them to be immense for Porsche. I believe India is ready for Porsche," he added.

The Porsche cars will be imported through Delhi-based Exclusive Motors and Sheryan Motors of Mumbai and both importers plan to open ''Porsche Centres'' by the end of this year in the two cities.

The two importers claimed they have received a decent number of orders for the cars but refused to provide details. Porsche plans to appoint dealers in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai by end-2005.