Hyundai to bring back Santro in new form on October 23

CHENNAI: Hyundai is all set to relaunch on October 23 the refurbished Santro — the small car that marked the entry for the Korean company in India in September 1998.


Hyundai had phased out Santro in 2014, but has invested over the last three years to replace it with an all-new, contemporary hatch that it hopes will strengthen its position in the first-car buying population. The company said the price of the 1,100cc, petrol-engine car will be revealed on the launch day.

After making a $100-million investment in the new project, Hyundai plans to take on models such as Maruti’s WagonR, Celerio and Tata’s Tiago. “The Santro has an emotional connect with India, and will always hold a special place for Hyundai as well as it was the car that scripted our journey in India,” Y K Koo, MD & CEO of Hyundai India, told TOI. The company will be positioning Santro above Eon mini, but below the Grand i10. The entry model of Eon comes for Rs 3.3 lakh, while the base variant of Grand i10 costs Rs 4.7 lakh (both ex-showroom, Delhi).

Hyundai is positioning the new Santro as a ‘tall-boy’, or a car with a high headroom. At present, WagonR is the largest-selling tall-boy in the market, with average monthly sales of 14,000 units in 2017-18. Hyundai had sold over 13.6 lakh units of Santro in the domestic market with exports at 5.35 lakh units. Koo said Hyundai expects to sell between 7,000 and 10,000 units of new Santro per month, which also comes with an option of a clutch-less automated

manual transmission

(AMT) version.

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