Ashok Leyland enters car market with multi-purpose vehicle ‘Stile’

Commercial vehicles major Ashok Leyland today unveiled its 7-8 seater multi-purpose vehicle `Stile', targeting the entry-level customer.

The Hinduja group company said it will initially have two variants of the Stile and plans to soon launch more models to expand its product portfolio and cater to the demands to different market segments.

Stile, a look-alike of Japanese carmaker Nissan's `Evalia', also is produced by Ashok Leyland-Nissan joint venture. The MPV incorporates some cosmetic changes such as a new grille, headlamps, wheels and a green and blue sticker along the sides.

"We wanted to be in the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment. We will cover all the market segments. We have lined up lot of product launches like Boss, Partner and N-Truck," said Ashok Leyland chairman Dheeraj G. Hinduja.

Boss is an intermediate commercial vehicle in the 8-15 tonne and the N-Truck will be in the 16-49 tonne gross vehicle weight segment while Partner will be another LCV.

The 7-8 seater Stile, will be rolled out of Nissan's manufacturing plant at Oragadam near Chennai.

The vehicle is targeted urban and rural areas, hotel shuttles, taxi service, ambulance, panel vans, courier services and inter/intra city travel.

Stile will be available in diesel and CNG versions, with a wide choice of seating options of 2 and 3 rows.

The company said while Stile and Nissan's Evalia may look similar, Evalia is more for personal use whereas Stile is more for commercial use."

The Stile will be powered by Nissan's 1.5 litre dCi diesel engine that is mated to a five-speed manual gearbox and develops 85PS of power and 200Nm of torque.

The company will also be launching the Stile with a petrol engine, details of which were not disclosed.

"The venture is not for cross badging of models. There are some customer groups that Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor can't reach individually but together they can," added Nissan Motor Company's executive vice president Andy Palmer.