It was a very successful company for almost three decades. It was the company which brought FIAT in to India, It was the company which brought Peugeot to India. There was a time buyers paid the money for the car in Foreign Exchange.
I personally believe that Rio is a competent vehicle and PAL has done right by launching it since there is rather a better scope for compact SUVs in India. However, to achieve success in any market, one of the important aspects where the company must work on is building up an amount of trust and gain the confidence of buyers. Because after all, automobile is an expensive product and majority of the aware buyers will never prefer spending their hard earned money on something for which they are not completely assured. We all know that PAL is a familiar brand name to Indians and a few of the simple questions which will certainly rise in a common man’s mind are – Why did PAL left the market? Looking at their inconsistency, what if it suddenly disappears again? Their controversy in the past does not needs to be explained about. It was when PAL decided to quit the market without refunding the booking amount of many unsuspecting buyers. This left a severely bad impression on the ethics of the company. Do you think that people who know this story can believe in PAL when the company is still playing it so lightly? The past impression does matters, else Fiat India won’t have been working so hard to please the customers now and then with one scheme or another in spite of the fact they that are selling some of the most value for money cars in the market today.
For Us Indians, always the other side is green. Our Indian companies don't produce anything Good, Isn't it?
If this was true then Mahindra Scorpio won’t have been the best selling SUV and neither would have Tata Indica registered itself in Top 10 of sales chart each month.
Drive safe,
350Z