There are two cars in India that literally rule the Indian car market. These are Honda City and Maruti Swift Dzire. The respective car makers just do whatever they like with these cars. Whether they increase prices, change the model altogether, stick to only petrol model despite high petrol price and blah, the demand as well as sales keep intact and increase altogether. This almost autocratic behavior by either Honda or Maruti has never dented the sales of these cars. Reason is simple, whatever be the case, these cars have established themselves in the market and now even price rise or launch of new rival cars seem not to shake their sales in India.

Recently, Maruti has increased the price of Maruti Swift Dzire diesel by Rs 8000 to Rs 12000. However, the increase has a different impact and sources inform that the Swift Dzire sales have increased and Maruti is selling around 15,000 Swift Dzire sedans monthly. Equally worth mentioning is Honda City that revised its prices soon after the budget, as all the car makers did. But to everybody’s surprise, the car maker further increased the price of its most popular sedan after few days of the Budget and this time it said that it had to rationalize the pricing of the car. Whatever they do, be it a price rise or changing the model, they know that people will buy these cars. This is sheer autocratic behavior, says Dharmveer Kushwaha, an auto critic.

Some time back, Maruti downgraded the Maruti Swift Dzire sedan to a compact sedan entering the segment that was dominated by Tata Indigo eCS. Meanwhile, it also renamed the Swift Dzire big sedan to Swift Dzire Tour and dedicated it to the taxi and tour segment. Is this worth when the Dzire was doing exceedingly well in the segment and fetching more than expected sales?, asks Dharmveer.

Meanwhile, Honda City car buyers have been craving for over a decade for the Honda City diesel but despite of all the demand and expected booming sales, Honda still could not launch the diesel make of City sedan and the car buyers are forced to buy the petrol car if they intent to go for Honda City.