Hyundai Santro bookings cross 30,000 units: 1 in 3 buyers opting for AMT

South Korean carmaker Hyundai launched the all-new Santro tall-boy hatchback in India on October 23 at an introductory starting price of Rs 3.89 lakh. Autocar India is reporting that as of November 4, Hyundai has received over 30,000 bookings for the new Santro, 30 percent of which are for the AMT variants of the hatchback.

According to the article, orders for the Santro showed a rather different sales trend for the new car. 30 percent of the bookings for the new Santro were for the Petrol AMT variants, which have exceeded Hyundai’s expectations for the automatic version of the hatchback. Another interesting point to note is the fact that the CNG version of the new Santro accounted for 21 percent of the bookings. This means that there have been more bookings for the AMT and CNG versions than for the regular petrol manual variants of the new Santro.

Prices for the AMT start at Rs 5.18 lakh and the CNG variants start at Rs 5.23 lakh. The sales report may surprise some people, especially since both of which are more than two lakh rupees over the base petrol manual version. However, with rising fuel costs and jammed city streets, the shift towards a more fuel efficient option or a more easily drivable variant comes as no surprise.

The Hyundai Santro is available in 9 different variants – 7 petrol and 2 CNG. Out of the 7 petrol variants, only two are AMT models – Magna AMT & Sportz AMT which are priced at Rs 5.18 lakh and Rs 5.46 lakh respectively. Both the Magna and Sportz are also offered in CNG guise and are priced at Rs 5.23 lakh and Rs 5.64 lakh respectively when fitted with the Compressed Natural Gas setup.

The Santro sees Hyundai revive the Santro name after a gap of a few years as it bids to attack Maruti for more control of the Indian car market. The Hyundai Santro competes against the likes of the Maruti Wagon R and Celerio and is powered by a 1.1-litre four-cylinder engine.

The Santro’s 1.1-litre petrol engine produces 68 Bhp at 5,500 rpm and 99 Nm of torque at 4,500 rpm and returns a mileage of 20.3 km/l when consuming petrol. However, when hooked up to CNG, the Santro engine’s performance reduces to just 58 Bhp at 5,500 rpm and 84 Nm of torque at 4,500 rpm. This loss of 10 Bhp and 15 Nm of torque, however, should not worry owners as the CNG variant returns a mileage of 30.48 km/kg. Both petrol and CNG variants are offered with a 5-speed manual gearbox with the former also getting two variants that make use of the Automated Manual Transmission (AMT).