These Indian celebs just can’t get enough of their automatic cars

  • Jan 7, 2016
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It’s not just the public that is gradually coming to terms with automatic cars, even the celebrities are bitten by this bug. We find out why…

Divya Kumar Khosla has plenty of reasons to say yes to automatic cars, along with being the wife of a petrolhead

Indicating a paradigm shift in the country's driving choices, one of India's most trusted automobile brands Maruti Suzuki unleashed new variants of its hatchbacks with fresh automatic transmission technology recently. What is interesting to note is that the Indo-Japanese carmakers are not the first ones to do so in India as they are merely falling in line with other manufacturers that already feature such cars in various segments of their repertoire in India. We find out the reasons that have compelled India to break-free form this taboo.

Enhanced convenience

The erratic traffic of bigger cities has played a major role in customers switching to automatic cars, believes TV and film actor and son of former BCCI chief selector Sandip Patil, Chirag. "Traversing larger distances in the stop-and-go traffic of bigger cities has become a real pain. Automatic transmission thus serves as a boon in places like Mumbai; this way you can keep your hands off the gear lever,” said Chirag, who drives the Mercedes-Benz CLS Sports Coupe and C-200, and formerly owned a SLK 350. To this, actor-director and Audi R8 Spyder owner Divya Khosla Kumar, added, “My car is the perfect ride for my weekend getaways with my husband and son. For us, it scores as it is a hassle-free sports car that you don't need to bother much about, plus it's a huge toy for our son that he really loves!”

Chirag Patil prefers the auto transmission in city traffic

Trust issues no more

Factors like higher wear-resistance are also attracting buyers towards automatic cars. Film actress Sai Tamhankar said, “After hearing about how maintenance costs of such cars have gone down of late, I chose to buy the automatic Mercedes-Benz CLA 200 recently. It’s been so far so good and I hope that the car lives up to its expectations.”

Marathi actor and son of veteran actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar, Satya considers that the overall experience of owning an automatic car has gone up considerably over the years, adding to its charm. “The fuel economy of automatic cars is on par with the manual transmission ones these days. Add that to the overall driving convenience and you have a perfect combination,” said the young actor who drives an automatic Skoda Rapid. 

Sai is a new addition to this list of celebs

Bright future

The rising popularity of automatic cars has also given a new lease of life to the hopes of automobile manufacturers who are now banking on this for the future. Executive director (M&S) of Maruti Suzuki Pvt Ltd RS Kalsi said, “The Automatic Gear Shift (AGS) is affordable with no compromise on fuel efficiency, and has thus found immediate acceptance. We have sold over 55,000 AGS-equipped vehicles since its launch in Feb 2014 on Celerio. With three popular models now sporting this technology, we are confident the numbers would strengthen and many new customers will reap its modern-day benefits.”

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