Proposed duty hike fuels rush to buy luxury cars in Ahmedabad

AHMEDABAD: All these years, Rajendra Patel, a businessman from Bharuch, dreamt of driving a silver Audi. Earlier this month, 54-year-old Patel compromised on his choice of colour by booking a black vehicle. Reason: Patel needed to book a car before March 31 to escape an impending price hike effective next financial year.
With the BMWs, Audis, Mercs and other luxury cars falling in the completely knocked down (CKD) category set to get costlier by anything between 60% to 100%, aficionados in Gujarat are rushing to seal a deal before the next fiscal starts.Besides the usual yearend depreciation gains, a provision in recent Union budget hiking import duty on assembled and CKD cars from the current 10% to a pinching 60% from April 1 is believed to be driving sales of high-end cars now. Car dealers say customers are demanding deliveries before March 31 in anticipation of prices going up in the range of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh on certain models of Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen.
The move is likely to bring prices of CKD vehicles at par with completely built units (CBU). “A hefty 60 per cent import duty on them might go up to as much as 110 per cent after factoring in VAT and other levy,” says a dealer. “As against 35 cars last March, this time we have booked 50.We are expecting even more bookings after Holi, as soon as the inauspicious ‘Holastak’ period ends,” says Anil Chhatwa,COO,Audi, Ahmedabad. Aditya Patel, promoter of a city-based engineering firm, has decided to upgrade his car after Holi.Patel plans to buy an Audi before it gets dearer.
Paras Somani, executive director Mercedes Ahmedabad, confirmed that sales of CKD cars have seen a spurt from 50 last March to over 70 during the same period this year. Though officials at BMW dealership did not divulge sales figures, sources say bookings in Gujarat have doubled as compared to previous year. Audi, BMW and Mercedes have sold about 300 cars during 2010 calendar year.