The Toyota Innova has just completed 10 years in India and the company has launched a limited edition model to celebrate the 10th birthday of the MPV on Indian soil.
Quick question, which is the most overpriced MPV in India? Quick answer, Toyota Innova. Launched way back in 2005, the Innova has just turned ten years old and Toyota has launched a limited edition version to celebrate the decade milestone. Ironically, nothing major changed on the Innova in the past 10 years, Toyota hasn’t made a single mechanical change to the car (except the addition of an intercooler to comply with stricter emission norms).
Usually one sees the manufacturer pricing old vehicles aggressively as they recover R&D costs but in Toyota’s case, it’s quite the opposite, the Innova has turned more expensive with each passing year. Don’t believe us? For 2015, the Innova range is priced between Rs. 10.51 to Rs. 15.80 lakhs and that’s ex-showroom Delhi. Please don’t even imagine the on-road price in places like Bangalore, even though it is Toyota’s home state in the country. Yes, it touches Rs. 18 lakhs! Toyota calls the car as ‘Multi Premium Vehicle’ where the premium mostly stands for the asking price!
Coming to the Limited Edition Toyota Innova, the car is offered in two colours, silver mica mettalic and bronze mica metallic, the latter being exclusive to this model. The car gets chrome garnish on the headlamps and tail lamps, body graphics and limited edition sticker on the outside while on the inside it gets a 6.1-inch touch-screen display for the audio system (with remote) and dual tone seats with matching colours for the door trim. The vehicle is offered in GX trim only, in both 7 and 8-seater options, powered by a diesel engine in BSIII and BSIV tunes.
Toyota is likely to clear stock of the existing Innova with special and limited edition models as it prepares to launch the next generation of the utility vehicle later this year. The upcoming model is already on test in India and will get many features from the recently launched Corolla Altis. Toyota overprices the Innova simply because it can, it’s about making hay while the sun shines. The Innova is the top selling car for Toyota in India and helps to offset poor sales of the lacklustre Etios family.
Toyota has also announced that all its vehicles in India will be equipped with dual front airbags as standard, making it the first mass market car manufacturer to do this. However this announcement comes two months late as we reported about the same way back in November HERE.
