Blog: Useless models?

I was led to this idea by the news that Suzuki intends to start sales of the Celerio model at the turn of 2015/16. And I'm just not sure about the name, although that's not the point. Bizarre car names are all around us, like poppy seeds.

The Celerio is on offer to replace the aging Alto , which, despite being a bad car for what it was supposed to do (carry people from point A to point B), could not exactly boast high sales. I'm afraid that Celerio's fate will not be the same. Sure, it can be assumed that it will be mechanical and simple in that old-fashioned refreshing way, there will be a little revving atmosphere under the hood, and what more could those who want a small car for the city really want? But it's not that simple. Celerio will have to be really cheap to attract potential customers. This means that it will have to be cheaper than the Swift, which is not only made in Europe, which may be important for some customers, but I'm afraid it won't be that cheap.

Why? Think of the past or current generation Citroën C1 . Both are expensive. That is, they start to be at the moment when you want to buy a car for your better half "in full fire." Of course, none of us buy cars at list prices , but as a certain point of reference, the price list is not bad. If we take into account the list price, the fully equipped C1 costs CZK 340,000. Many of you must have burst out laughing. Right. If you were willing to settle for, for example, the basic Mazda2 , where elements such as air conditioning will not be missing even in the basic, you are at a price tag of 280,000. It goes without saying that this is a car with different driving characteristics and level of comfort. Don't want a Mazda? Of course there are others to choose from.

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Then we have another point of view. Won't Swift and Celerio cannibalize each other in the market, even if they don't necessarily target the same customer groups? It's hard to say, everything is decided by the price. If the Celerio in "full fire" will be 250 thousand for its brother , and the base with manual air conditioning for, say, 180, I will be willing to admit that another useless model is headed for our market. You probably remember the duplication of the Eos/Golf Cabrio models at one time, when the production of the Eos was eventually discontinued.