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Marking its debut in the growing sports-utility-vehicle market, Ford Motor Company will drive its SUV Endeavour to India by November this year, a senior company official said.
"We will be launching our first SUV, sometime in October or November. Our entry into the growing SUV market there, is a logical extension of the category in which Ford has been a world leader," Vinay Piparsania, director (sales), Ford India, told PTI in Bangkok.
The seven-seater SUV, which first debuted in the Bangkok Motor Show in March this year, would be powered by a 2.5 litre diesel engine with manual transmission, he said, adding that the vehicle has been developed on Ford's popular Ranger pick-up truck platform.
The Endeavour would be brought in as completely-knocked-down kits from Auto Alliance's (an equal joint venture between Ford and Japanese automaker Mazda) facility in Thailand and assembled at Ford India's factory near Chennai.
Though he said the company was still working on the price of the vehicle, market sources informed that the Endeavour would be priced at about Rs 14 lakh (Rs 1.4 million).
The vehicle has been tailor-made for the Asian market and would also be sold in other Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines, he said.
Ford Motor, the world's second-biggest car maker, will position the Endeavour between the top-end SUVs like Pajero and other Indian made vehicles like Toyota's Qualis and Mahindra and Mahindra's Scorpio, he said, but declined to give any sales target.