The largest Indian passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki, launched a new car model A-Star on Wednesday. A-Star is developed at the Manesar facility of the company and it is the fifth model in A2 segment. The car would also be exported in Europe, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Africa. The company has set a target to sell 50,000 units of A-star in Indian market while one lakh units would be sold in international markets. The company is optimistic to export 2 lakh units by 2010-11.

A-Star is available in three variants at a price range of Rs 3.47 lakh to Rs 4.12 lakh. It comes with new lightweight aluminum KB 10B engine and 3 cylinder units for high compression ratio of 10:1. It gives 67PS @ 6200 rpm and a torque of 90Nm@ 3500 rpm.

Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India, RC Bhargava said that that global financial crisis has impacted the automobile market around the world but Maruti is still insulated from its negative impact. Automobile industry is facing low demand problem but the situation will become normal within a couple of months.

Regarding price cut call by FM, he said that automobile companies can think on prices cut only after estimating cost structures and the prevailing commodity prices.