Motown snippets

The Honda Amaze has fallen off the list of India’s top-10 cars by sales for the first time since May, with its September volume falling to less than half from the previous month. Maruti Suzuki’s Alto held on to the No 1 spot, despite posting a sequential drop in sales.
In fact, the top three — all Maruti models — posted lower sales compared with August. Among the rest, only the Maruti WagonR, Hyundai Motor’s Elite i20 and Grand i10, and the Honda City have posted higher sales, the last after halting production in the previous month. This clearly indicates subdued demand in sales during the festive season. Overall car sales had fallen in September for the first time since May, bringing an unpleasant surprise to the auto industry that had been expecting strong sales this festival season.
While the compact sedan Amaze has fallen off the list, the car that moved in is also a Honda, the mid-size City sedan. Its sales have increased from August, the only month when it dropped off the list since the launch of the new version in January.
Honda had halted production of the City in August to shift its manufacturing to a new plant at Tapukara in Rajasthan. The company said it has cut down on the output of the Amaze to increase the production of the City.