Located almost half a world away, the choices of cars had almost varied equally. Yes the difference between the cars in North America and the ones in India.
Given the fact that US was way ahead in growth and economy and people had a good lifestyle, so this could be reflected in the preferences for their cars as well. As everything goes big in US, like big roads, big buildings, big cities, and so it had to be the same when it came to cars. Cars with big dimensions and big engines was what people mostly drove. Unlike India where a prospective car buyer would be quite concerned about the mileage and a small frugal engine, our

American counterparts would be interested in knowing how many cylinder-engine is it, and how much power would it belt out, and seldom would they bother about its fuel consumption.

Where Americans went by the power in their cars, Indians were concerned about the running cost of their cars.

The stalwarts of American automobile industry like GM, Ford, Dodge and others were all in for making bigger and more powerful cars, and back in India Maruti Suzuki took the initiative to actually make Indians drive, by developing the Maruti 800. Though there had been cars earlier as well but none could reach out to the common man like Maruti 800 could, so that is a kind of reference point from where it all started in the Indain automobile industry. And we can also say that it was this car that basically set in the Indain mentality of  a pocket-friendly car !

As Americans are also fond of adventures once in a while, like going out for hiking or travelling to country-side, or even otherwise needing a vehicle for practical purposes, so with such a kind of requirements one needs more than just a car, and that is why pick-up trucks are quite famous in US. But so is not really the case with the Indians, as there are very few people who want to, or are able to break free of the usual city driving, which is why utility vehicles are yet to have that presence here in India.

Well this was more or less what the trend had been so far, but with  changing times and changing requirements, car needs had to change too.

Coming to the present times, we’ve seen the west become fuel consumption-conscious and Indains discovering all new side to cars and to be transported in a better way. It was seen that Americans were loyal to their American brands like Ford, GMC etc, but with the more competition and awareness taking shape they started trying out other brands too, like Toyota, Nissan, VW etc, as a result there has been a change in trend because the latter companies made cars from a different point of view as compared to the former ones. While in India as the economy started taking bigger strides ahead, people’s spending capacity increased and it was evident enough by the set of wheels they now chose to drive. Almost all big automobile brands started making it to the Indian shores, and along with the more Indian-ised automobile companies like Maruti,  Mahindra, Hindustan Motors and Tata came other big brands from across the globe. From BMW to VW, from Skoda to

Nissan, from Fiat to GM, from Ford to Audi to Toyota, and certain more, all have their cars available in India. And by the virtue of a sustainable and strong economy all the car-makers want to increase their projects in the subcontinent, ultimately giving Indians a wide array of vehicles across different segments to choose from. But even after being spoiled for variety, the basic instinct in Indians remain the same. Still most of them feel happy with a car having good mileage, and which basically does not dig a hole in their pockets ! And with stiff competition, most of the cars come with good features and facilities which is a bonus for the Indian customer.

As we now live in a world which is more concerned about environment, and is emission conscious, Hybrid cars have started making a good niche for themselves, and now we can choose to drive them and do our bit to reduce emissions. A lot of such Hybrid cars have been on display at various auto-expos, so we can clearly

see that they hold an important position in the future of cars.

As we see trends change and become uniform overall, so even if we are situated almost

half a world away, there are points which are slowly becoming common at both ends, as they are driven by the same cause, that is to reduce emissions and drive more environment-friendly cars. So even as the preferences varied earlier, we come closer now and realize the choices according to the present day’s needs.

With this we tried to humbly realize the differences and yet come together at certain point for uniform cause.

Happy & safe motoring.

USEFUL RESOURCES:

Behavioral trends among American car buyers

Car makers ditch bunker mentality