Premier Auto returns with SUV Rio

Mumbai: Premier Ltd, earlier known as Premier Automobiles, which sold the Fiat 1100 model, popularly known as the Premier Padmini for many years in India, is back in the passenger vehicles market after almost a decade with a new model.

The company has launched a 1.5 litre diesel sports utility vehicle (SUV) named Rio, based on Japanese car major Daihatsu's second generation model Terios. RiO, priced in the range of Rs5.25 lakh to Rs6.05 lakh, will be sourced from Chinese four-wheeler maker Zotye Group in completely knocked down kits.

Premier has signed a five-year component and kit supply deal with the Chinese company to assemble the vehicle at its Pune facility. Significantly the deal marks Zotye's entry into India.

Chairman and managing director of Premier Ltd, Maitreya Doshi, (grandson of Premier Auto's veteran chairman Walchand Hirachand) said, ''We want to make vehicles as we have always done and this time hopefully we can make them more profitability, generate more volumes and be more cost efficient."

According to Doshi the prevailing perception about Chinese goods being substandard was unfounded. He said that in the '60s and '70s this negative perception existed for Japanese products while in the '80s and '90s, it was for Korean products. However time had proved that these countries make world class products.

He said China produces 10 million vehicles per annum with all the global automobile giants being present in that country and asserted that there was no way quality could be compromised in this competitive business era.