[₹itzylove]

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been wanting to discuss something that’s been on my mind for a while now "Car trends in different cities". While I don’t have concrete data to back up my observations, I’ve noticed some intriguing patterns in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, that I thought would be interesting to share and discuss.



Coimbatore, often referred to as the "Manchester of South India," seems to have some unique automotive trends. Here’s what I’ve observed:

Big German Brands Are a Favorite:

Coimbatorians seem to have a particular fondness for luxury German automobiles. It's quite common to see a high number of Merc, BMW, Audi, and Volvo vehicles on the roads. In fact, the ratio (against total number of cars in the city) of these high-end brands in Coimbatore appears to be higher compared to many other cities I've visited in India.

German Love Extends to the Mainstream:

This admiration for German engineering isn't limited to luxury models. There’s also a noticeable presence of Volkswagen and Skoda vehicles, reflecting a strong preference for these brands even in the more accessible segments of the market.

Preference for Top-End Variants:

Coimbatorians seem to gravitate towards the top-end variants of cars, regardless of the brand. Whether it’s a simple Suzuki, Tata, or a high-end German model, you’ll often see the more fully-featured versions on the road. This trend highlights a willingness to invest in premium features and specifications.

Frequent Car Upgrades:

Another trend I've noticed is the rapid turnover of vehicles. For instance, when Toyota launched the Innova Crysta, it didn’t take long for the older gen Innovas to become a rare sight. The same pattern seems to be emerging with the new Hycross, where older models are quickly being replaced. This rapid updating of cars suggests a strong market for the latest models and features.

I mentioned these observations to my wife and a few friends, and they started noticing the same patterns, which reinforces my feeling that these trends are not just coincidental but might be characteristic of Coimbatore’s automotive culture.

I’d love to hear if others have noticed similar trends in their cities or if there are any other unique automotive behaviors in Coimbatore that I might have missed. Let’s see what other interesting city-specific car trends we can uncover!

[DicKy]

Haven't been to Coimbatore much, but one observation I had was that of the sheer number of Skodas. It was the time when the Rapid 1.0TSi was launched especially with that bang VFM Rider variant. Thought it was because of that.

Until we visited the SGA Skoda service centre for changing brake pads. The sheer size of the facilities, the crowd. It felt like a Maruti showroom (in a good way). Would make one believe that Skoda after sales services aren't bad afterall. Compared to the dinky, pompous, almost fly by night Skoda service centres in Kerala.

[TorquePull]

As someone from Coimbatore, I agree. However, not everyone replaces our cars every 2-3 years, some of us tend to keep them for long period, some even have 10+ years cars but their running is usually low. Those who replace in 2-3 years will either have high running or will be running a business and will claim depreciation benefits or simply they liked a new model in the market.

As much as you see European cars within the city, there will be plenty of Marutis on the outskirts, the likes of 800 and Zen still running, although they’ll be parked and will be used on holidays or to attend a function.

Old Fiesta and Figo used to sell well, they didn’t launch the new model here for some reason. Most of the old Fiesta and Figo owners upgraded to Vento/Rapid and Polo. Likewise, you can also see more of Virtus/Slavia than their rivals. I have also noticed some people here rarely go for upgrade, they just go for the newer model in the same segment, a family friend went from Fiesta to Linea to Vento to Creta(because he wanted a diesel only).

[TwinBishop]

I agree. As a a newcomer to Coimbatore in 89, the number of high end European cars I saw was amazing. You could even see quite a few Ferraris and Porsches.

And after living there for 3 decades the feeling has been reinforced. This is a city which loves cars and buys the top variants.

And I came across one more thing. In Coimbatore a traffic policeman will almost never pull up a car owner for a traffic rule violation. This has been experience in over 25 years of driving and my friends have had a similar experience. Maybe true of other cities too.

[diwakarmuthu]

As someone who spent my early childhood in Coimbatore, I agree with what you say. High end cars, especially Germans have a good market there. I can think of a few reasons:

1. From the early 50s to late 70s, it was apparently one of the cities where high end cars existed as the city had many industries and was entrepreneuial in nature. So one can see a direct conversion

2. From automotive knowledge or passion viewpoint, the city had many heroes including some of India's leading rally heroes. With people with Kari, Narian and others they have developed the culture

3. Long before FNG became mainstream, Coimbatore had significant number of Garages that did some outstanding mod and body work. Ambys with high end interiors, alloy wheels, AT conversion and engine upgrades were quite popular then, even now. If you take Contessa Classic and Standard 2000, they had some very cool mods at the time.

4. Finally the collectors, some of the most famous ones like GD had some exquisite collection of cars.

[rajeevsulu]

I am from Erode and can relate with most of the facts about Coimbatore and the cars there. Another significant fact is the presence of the top rally and track racers ,both four and two wheels, out of here. Karivardhan,Leelakrishnan ,Narain Karthikeyan to name a few .

Narain is now building a race track here which will add to the city's heritage.

Koya"s of Coimbatore is legendary for sprucing up the car"s exteriors and interiors through the 60s to the 90"s before every street started having a paint and body shop with a mechanic.

My mother used to get our Fiat painted in dual tone colours every three years with a seat cover change as well. I remember my grandfather getting his Contessa Classic air-conditioned here and before that a fleet of Ambassadors and Fiats as well.There used to be a large number of cars from Kerala, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh parked in Koyas then.


Nice post.Sure joggled up my memories as well.

Cheers

[dieselteen]

I don't have a great background from CBE, but we visit there often as many of our relatives reside over there.

In addition to above points, I have also seen a plethora of 'base to top' modifications in those belt (Tirupur, Pollachi etc)

I have heard you can find many good car modifications shops there(maybe the reason for above points). One of our acquaintance took their car from Pondicherry to Coimbatore to get their car modifications done.

[Rajeevraj]

Coimbatore has always had a rich engineering history. Being the component manufacturing hub for a lot of companies and products. It also has a good motorsport history which partly stems from the love for engineering and machines background that the city has. Finally since it is a business oriented city with a lot of successful companies, the affordability factor for high end vehicles will also naturally be high and probably disproportionately high leading to perception of more high end cars on the road.

Being a city with such a strong engineering and mechanical background due to the nature of its industries, I would assume good engineering is noticed and appreciated, which in turn means more sales for the German/European brands as we always have associated cars from the German brands as 'Well Engineered'

[zeus18]

Hi, native of Coimbatore here. Thanks for creating this interesting thread.

The observations made by our members are exactly in line with what I see on roads in Coimbatore.

I haven't noticed this until I shifted back to the city last year after having lived in several cities across India for almost a decade.

Here are some of my observations I want to add to this discussion:

1. Similar to how Volkswagen and Skoda are popular in mainstream segment, Hondas and Toyotas are also very popular. I spot the last Gen CRVs and Civics and Corolla Altises which were in sales in India very often, in addition to the older generations of these. Also the previous generation of Nissan XTrail could also be spotted often.

2. The market share of Toyota, Skoda, Volkswagen and Honda in Coimbatore city will be 3x or 4x the market share these brands enjoy pan-India.

3. Toyota Camry is very popular. You can spot these as much as you can spot a second gen Toyota Glanza with a Camryish Front-end ��

4. JLR, Volvo and Lexus have a reasonable acceptance among the public and it's not that people going for "luxury" brands go with only the major German three.

5. Recently, PORSCHE has also joined the game.


(I don't know how many hours I spent in last one year sitting in my car parked along the Avinashi road to just look at the cars going on and counting them brand wise).

[Sherlock]

Well, if I talk about Patna my hometown, the car scene is quite contrasty. Tata safari ( the Dicor and Storme) along with Scorpio dominate the SUV market. The small car market is dominated by many Alto 800s and the 800. If we rise above this segment, lot of Swifts, Balenos and Dzires populate the road with Ignis, i10, i20 etc. thrown in between. Also, I have seen lot of Tata cars on Patna road in comparison to Delhi where I live. Some Germans also spice up the rather bland scene alongwith the jazzy Cretas. People veer towards Diesel but the lack of it in the new cars have forced them towards CNG.
I would like to write something about car ownership aspect and the owner’s relationship to their cars. In Delhi, I see that owners ( in general) don’t much personally care about car parking, wherever the car be crammed, be it crammed. Obviously higher car numbers and lack of parking space plays its role but people have enough space to put two hatchbacks in their front yard but they prefer to park it beside the municipality parks. On the other hand, in Patna, most car owners have their own parking space or rented. Another pattern I see here is many folks get a car in dowry but most of them whom I personally know are not able to drive, or don’t have much reason or excuse to drive or can’t afford a chauffeur. These cars alongwith the cars bought by men in their 50s ( their first car of course) are much less used and lie in the parking with a cover drawn up. Higher end segment is populated by Fortuners, the now gone Endy and some Germans big three, most of them with Jharkhand registration. This aspect of Jharkhand registered cars I also observe in the small segment cars, wonder why, there’s hardly much tax benefit on these cars to be worth registering in another state. I can say that almost 1 in every 10 car is Jharkhand registered, regardless of the segment ( well, they may be visitors but so many of them ! ). At last, I would say almost 40-50% of the cars, be it the humble 800s or the mighty Fortuners are chauffeur driven. People here don’t much care about which car you own rather simply, a car ownership in itself is considered a big thing. A person with a big bungalow and much wealth with his children settled abroad can be found driving or driven in a WagonR, quite happily and satisfactorily.

[Akash5653]

I have been to coimbatore lot of times before. And everytime I go there, I'm amazed. Spotting new luxury vehicles is very easy there. Last time I went, I saw lots of land cruisers both old and new.

A known industrialist in my father's contact has recently bought an lexus LM- he owns spinning mills and lots of other businesses.

[mah45]

Very interesting thread and totally agree with your observations.
As someone who started his career in Coimbatore, I used to be amazed at the number of Merc, Audi those days.

I used to stand in DB Road, RS Puram and watch these expensive cars.
This was 25 years back.

And 2 years back when I bought our Octavia, I felt like I was one of the rare species in Chennai to have bought it.
But when we drove down to Kovai, there were so many I could spot during the 2 days we stayed.

There are also popular Service stations famous for their Mods in Coimbatore.
Compared to that I feel Chennai is far more conservative, you will see plenty of Hyundai Cretas and Kia Seltos here.

[Kashief]

Coimbatore being my native city, I have seen peoples extreme interest over automobiles and engineering. This is in the city’s DNA. One such example is my fathers close friend and he is a big fan of Ambassadors and his hobby is to purchase used car and work on it to top notch quality in all aspects (mechanical, interior and exterior) and he drives for a year maximum and sell it off. Again he repeats the same.

Higher Individual income also one of the contributor. The people mindset here is the amount they are spending should have top notch engineering(German Luxury), quality (Toyota/Honda) and with all bells&whistles(top variants). So there is no surprises in seeing Porsche/Merc/BMW/Audi etc.

We always like to take care of our cars well. Always prefer to have parking space in home instead of parking on road. Service centre experience is best in Coimbatore and I drive 1000 kms just to do periodic service of my cars. Even though the same entity owns SC here in Chennai but the service is not same and that tells about the workmanship.

[Mr.Boss]

Another observation will be vehicle with over 100k km on odo will look & perform as good as a brand-new vehicle. Proper maintenance & pampering is a daily routine here. This demands a premium in used car market.

[Carguy9902]

Don't forget the JTP twins.