Indiantelevision.com Team

(25 February 2008 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Italian automobile giant Ferrari, in association with the Tata Group, launched its Magic India Discovery Drive. The drive tour was flagged off here today (25 February) by Tata Group chairman Ratan N Tata and Fiat Group's vice chairman John Elkann.

The tour will return to Mumbai on 7 May, with the official closing ceremony on 8 May, covering a route stretching 13,220 kilometres and touching 57 Indian cities over 74 days. The car featured in this tour is the 612 Scaglietti, Ferrari's flagship GT model.

Apart from the Tata Group, the drive will be co-sponsored by Fiat India Automobiles, Shell, Alcoa, Pirelli, Saima Avandero and OMR.

Addressing the press, Ferrari's director of communications Davide Kluzer said, "The prancing horse in the Ferrari logo represents beauty, elegance and valour. For the Magic India Discovery Drive, we've chosen the elephant as the logo. The elephant represents the age-old cultural heritage of India, and our purpose is to let the world know more about this incredible country."

Asked about Ferrari's official launch on the Indian roads, Kluzer said, "We're carefully looking at the Indian market. It's difficult to specify exactly when Ferrari is launching in India; but we may arrive in India in 3-5 years."

"We, at Ferrari, do not intend to dramatically increase our sales. All Ferrari models are handmade and customised in a single plant in Italy. It'll surely take some time before our cars are available in the Indian market," added Kluzer.

The two 612 Scagliettis (one red and the other cream colour), which will hit the Indian roads as part of the drive, feature a few modifications to allow the cars to negotiate the more difficult tracts of the tour. These modifications involve the fitting of an underbody protector made from 4 mm duraluminium rather than plastic and a slightly higher suspension setting to deal with the tougher road surfaces.

The Magic India Discovery Drive comes in the wake of the 20,000 mile Pan-American tour in 2006 and 15,000 Red Miles tour in China completed in 2005.