Gummybr

I think thats the problem they have, first they should have the network in place rather than just trying to flood the market. You have a problem and if you have to go 100s of kms to get it sorted and if they are not competent enough you are sadly straddled with a non working vehicle. This is the reason why Sri Lanka should have the infrastructure in place, get agents to invest in developing staff and dealer networks. We have worked it the other way, we got people to import EV's just because some one wanted to make money but conveniently forgot that cars need to be maintained. We have Hummers, Lotus's, BMW's, Mercs, Audi's, Nissan's, Tesla's, Toyota's, Volkswagen's and a plethora of Chinese brands which came on the permit scheme. Except for the ones that the agents support how will you do your maintenance? Are every other garage equipped with the latest technology with trained technicians who knows what they are doing? Or is it going to be on trial and error basis because it is the first time some people will come across complex electronic systems? This is why I am of the view that you cannot just tell people to change overnight and import only EV's, there should be sufficient time given for the rest to change and get to terms of the technology. Being in the industry I know as to how many technicians (specialists) have left the country and how hard it is to bring the next gen to train and get knowledge because the moment they get the experience they also leave because of better opportunities.

True one can only hope and pray that they keep to their strengths and become a stronger brand. Maybe its a British thing to change because of the popular beliefs. Have seen a lot of brands going with vegan interiors because there are vegans and vegetarians who doesnt want to sit on leather from a cow or whatever, when you can have fabric or wool like on a Toyota Century which is like a RR.

Very true, and our people are flocking to see what brand they can get agency for without thinking of the longevity of the brand. They have four or five main manufacturers who have many umbrella brands under their name, I would say those are fairly risk free but other unknown brands I would wait and see. On the BYD, one good thing about them is the fact that the older gen BYD's have been rather forgiving in terms of issues and build quality. Yes the first gen BYD e6 (kangaroo Cabs version if you have seen) were not well built and rusted badly but they are still running around in SL. In China they have done more than 500,000kms as taxi's so that means they should be well put together. Not promoting BYD but then again it is known in Europe for building most of their hybrid buses. With them going mass market, wanting to expand and with so many models coming out (one whole line for China and whole line for export) maybe the quality might drop, but I what I have seen are mostly good reviews.

Yes the TATA Nexon. A few of them came to Sri Lanka in 2018/19 period. The pic is from the launch On the Jaguar yes I think they have gone down a different path to what they were on. They tried very hard to make it a premium car but fell short, funny story is Jaguar would not be there today if not for Land Rover. When Ford was in trouble they wanted to sell Jaguar but no one wanted a loss making company although with some Brit heritage so they coupled it with Land Rover (who were making good profits at the time) and sold for a high price to TATA.

Here's the next one. A small crossover, which claimed to be the first crossover by this brand, although they have been around for close to 70 years. Brand is well known across the globe and one of its affiliate brands have been getting a lot of hate recently which the company tried and failed miserably to justify. You can say they have become a joke in the industry.

I vaguely remember a white one for sale a year or two back. So Datsun 710 is what the RMV says is it? The 710 was smaller than the corresponding Bluebird 610 of the same era and has similar headlights. Fun fact I nearly bought a 610 as my first car, but that so long ago. The one in the pic seems to have a fairly straight body work and in good order, is it daily driven?

I believe the USA got the N brand later in 1980's vehicles. Manufacturer was same it was just the branding was different based on the markets. N brand was more of a top of the range brand for them at the time and the D brand was more mass market budget friendly brand at the time. If you run the registration number on the DMT website you will know as to what it was called in Sri Lanka. For Example the famous 510 was sold as a Bluebird, a 1600 and also as a Sunny if I am not mistaken.

By saying efficient vehicles you must be referring to EV's and Hybrids. For me it works in two ways, I dont see a lot of people buying EV only if its going to be their main vehicle (atleast till we have solutions for fast charging and charging points across the country), I would say a hybrid would be a better bet for people. True in real world you will look at how much of electricity you use etc etc and compare that with a petrol or diesel vehicle, in a hypothetical world that is ideal and much cheaper, but is it true when it comes to Sri Lanka? Carexpert in Australia did a real world driving test on a 7 series (3.0l) vs a i7 and got a lot of hate messages from the EV crowd. But for me those were real world figures after all it is the same model to model, the question you need to ask is even with a range of 600kms can you justify the time you take to go from point A to B on a long run and is the price worth it? We must remember that whatever said and done the most expensive component on most EV's are their battery and that would offset your savings on fuel and servicing. Its kind of like having a Prius or a Aqua and saving on the fuel and then when battery or the ABS (common faults in Sri Lanka) go you spend a lot of money to replace them. Also do we have battery disposal means in Sri Lanka? Hybrids also have the battery issues, but at least they wont be as expensive as the big EV batteries and you dont have to have the range anxiety, if you run out of battery you can still pump petrol and keep running. On your second point, its hard to say. All depends on the price, I know for a fact that the EU cars will be quite expensive compared to the Chinese EV's, but the Japanese should be just around the same kind of price point. Problem with the Chinese is that there are way too many brands around (more than 100 maybe) and they just pop up and then vanish. They had this hyper car called the HiPhi I think and that car company went bankrupt, then more recently Neta is having trouble. I think its mainly to do with the high competition in China for vehicles they have to innovate quickly and offer tech cheaper and all the whilst being relevant in the market. But they did scare the German brands, and VW is still trying to recover. I can tell you one thing though in the next 10 years the automobile market that we know of will change and just like how the Japanese and the Koreans took over the Chinese will take over. Chinese brands will be the first name you will say when you talk of vehicles just like a Toyota would be the first vehicle people would mention first.

I think this car is related to a colour made by the son of DAT. A bit or rally heritage is there with this name by winning the Safari rally 4 consecutive times (I think it was the next gen that won it, but I have seen pics of this gen in rally livery)

@amsandun take the floor

Read my answer you will get the clue

Well its a Anonymous guy from Lombard who Fabricated this Automobile, must have been a Romeo and Juliet story. Now repeat that one hundred and fifty five times

Previously the tax structure was based on the vehicle value (CIF) but it was abused by all through under valuing thereby the govt lost a lot of revenue and high priced vehicles were imported at low costs but sold at high prices. It is not easy to define and say a BMW should be taxed more against a Suzuki, there is no way that globally you can tax based on a brand name.

Correct, the one I saw was a black one with Lexus badges believe it was GY0450 or something like that. Should have revealed the other light as well to throw you guys out. On the rear it looks a bit like the Crown as you mentioned. Thats cheating buddy 😂, well I must say I gave the name in my second post but no one seemed to pick it up.

Heh heh.... You wont know that the model is available in Sri Lanka due to the incorrect badging I mentioned. Man seems like you have a lot of time to research all the 2000s road cars. Well one cant pick up on that clue I left I tell you your have 0 common sense.

Well you are on the right track, one hint I can give you is that the name of the car when we say it as per the badge shouldn't be the way it should be pronounced. Atleast there is some progress from you statement.

Ok then here goes, I was following one recently, like they always do it had the wrong badging, but I was quite intrigued by it as I like these weird cars. There was only one generation as far as I know.

The old one looked very ergonomic with everything driver focused just like the BMW's of old.

Ok then its a Toyota Supra Mk3 Turbo from the late 80s to early 90s

@iRage why dont you give the answer since you were the first to respond and lets move to the next one.

A new gen already on the way? I thought everyone hated the current gen for being a reskinned model of another brand though you can say that it has kept the straight 6 in the more expensive version.

@Duan27 please go ahead and post

Firstly they should do away with all these irrelevant permit schemes where permits are issued to govt servants and ministers. Permits should be issued to people looking to buy brand new vehicles (like the certificate of ownership in Singapore) but it shouldnt carry a tax benefit. The person getting the permit should be able to justify his earnings, timely tax payments and as to how he / she is going to buy the car from his accumulated wealth. If its a company that wants to buy they should in turn present their financials and tax payments. My bro was of the opinion that taxes should be reduced on vehicles but purchasing made difficult through the above ways so that there wont be a huge influx of vehicles. But the stumbling block is that we have been depending too much on vehicle import taxes, I have heard that they are looking at Rs. 800b revenue from vehicle imports which is a bit of a long shot. Next step should be to have a ceiling on the annual import bill which should be transparent to all. Next should be a higher road tax to be paid annually in place of our revenue license system. As @matroska says we should look at our public transport systems, it was sad that they stopped the Light Rail System. But it will take a lot of effort and investment to do it but I am sure people will come around to using public transport. What I suggested in the above paragraph can be achieved with a good public transport system.

On the imports you have to read this article. - https://www.ft.lk/columns/Lifting-import-ban-on-automobiles-Sri-Lanka-sleepwalks-into-disaster/4-769115

So much of hate for this car, it would have been a better design for the London Taxi cabs.