City gets more luxury wheels

LUDHIANA: Car dealers around the city witnessed an unusual Sunday as it coincided with Dhanteras, the first day of Diwali festivities, when buying metals is considered good. Mostly a dull day at car dealerships, Sunday witnessed numerous cars rolling out of various showrooms. As many as 10 cars rolled out of Modern Motors and, "It must have been because of Dhanteras," said showroom owner A Sood.
"We have done 50 deliveries today, which are more than double the number of cars we usually deliver in a day," said R S Uppal, vice-president, sales, of a foreign car brand dealership in the city. The effect of Dhanteras was evident in the sale of even the high-end cars, as the city has a taste for exhibiting wheels with A©lan. Uppal said of the 50 cars delivered on Sunday, 35 were in the price range of Rs 15-30 lakh.
"We usually sell one or two top-of-the-line cars in a week, but Sunday saw five top models being rolled out to customers' addresses because it was Dhanteras," said Neeraj Bansal, head- operations, at another dealership store of a foreign brand of luxury vehicles.
The rise in sale of top-end cars is not a just a day's phenomenon, but the bookings have been on a rise since the start of the festive season. Uppal said the bookings of cars costing above Rs 10 lakh have gone up by 20% and for those costing above Rs 20 lakh have doubled. "The bookings for top-end cars costing over Rs 20 lakh have doubled from 100 to 200 during the festive season and most of the deliveries are due between Dhanteras and Diwali. People keep pushing for delivery on the festive day even if we tell them it will be hard to manage," he added.
The Diwali month has been a bumper one for Bansal's dealership store. "We got over 30 bookings of top-end cars this month, which is double the number of cars we sell in a month usually," he said. "One of the models priced at around Rs 13 lakh has registered over 100 deliveries this season and there are still many bookings till the season lasts," said Sood.