indigenous supercar

India’s own automotive design house, DC Design, is all set to unveil a supercar at the forthcoming 2012 Auto Expo to be held in Delhi. Billed as India’s own supercar, the automobile is expected to be unveiled by film star Amitabh Bachchan at the show.

Designed and built ground-up by DC Design, the car will be a low-volume product that will be put together at the firm’s facility in Pune. Deliveries of the car are scheduled to begin by end-2013, once it goes through the requisite homologation process.

“With this car, we are making the transformation from a design house to a production house,” said Dilip Chhabria, the promoter of DC Design. “It will offer the looks, feel, dimensions, quality and fit and finish comparable to supercars from Lamborghini and Ferrari, minus the horsepower.”

Like the European supercars, the one from DC Design will be mid-engined, where the engine will be positioned behind the driver, between the two axles. Though further details of the car are awaited, it is expected to be powered by a V6 petrol engine sourced from Honda, but turbocharged in this application, with output in excess of 400 bhp. The kerb weight of the supercar, at 1,560 kg, is comparable to those from Europe and in terms of dimensions, will have a footprint close to a Lamborghini Murcielago or Aventador.

The firm plans to produce 300 units in the first full year and scale it up to 3,000 units subsequently. “It will come at an attractive price point. We are looking at a price of under Rs 30 lakh on-road,” said Chhabria. “We were planning to call it the Buddh, after India’s Formula One Circuit, but the response for the name has not been encouraging, so we are thinking up a new one now.”