TODAY: Driving from the airport into the city down VIP Road, one is spoilt for choice on wheels. Windsor Honda, RD Motors, Mukesh Hyundai, Jalan Distributors and Shah Automobiles. Welcome to the first car corridor of Calcutta.

TOMORROW: The Bypass stretch between the Beleghata connector and the Ruby Hospital roundabout will be all flashy neons and glass panelled multi-tiered showrooms with impressive front elevations. BMW, Hyundai, Honda, General Motors, Toyota, Ford… you name it and this stretch will have it before the year runs its course. Welcome to the second car corridor of Calcutta.

THE NORTH CORRIDOR

The Players

Mukesh Hyundai and Windsor Honda gave Calcuttans a taste of the first 3S (sales, service, spares) dealership in town. Both hit the road in October 1998. “We were among the first 3S dealerships in the country,” claims Partha Dutta, the manager of Mukesh Hyundai, sprawled over three floors and 24,000 sq ft. “The 3S facility is an international concept and most auto manufacturers around the globe insist on the sales, service and spares outlets to be together. Here, because of lack of space, the workshops and sales outlets are split,” says Amit Manaktala of Topsel Toyota.

After Mukesh Hyundai and Windsor Honda came RD Motors with its 6,500 sq ft showroom on the same stretch. Then Jalan arrived on VIP Road to hard-sell Maruti vehicles with a double-storeyed shop. Hindustan Motors with its acquired Mitsubishi brand at Shah Automobiles was also in the VIP Road race.

The Display

The sales sections at these dealerships are mainly housed on the first floor of a large glass-panelled showroom overlooking the thoroughfare. Space is squeezed out for the service area and spares under one roof. So for the customer it’s a one-stop shop to buy, service and repair. Most dealerships also accommodate used cars to cash in on the booming second-hand market. The used car section of Mukesh Hyundai is chock-a-block with Santros.

Customer Convenience

Drive in and rest in air-conditioned comfort with freshly brewed tea/coffee from the dispenser. Catch some live cricket action on TV or browse through latest issues of Overdrive or Autocar while your precious four-wheeler is repaired, serviced, cleaned or readied. “Customer is king and we treat him like one. We have separate lounges for the self-driven customer and those for drivers,” said Nitin Himmatsingka, the director of Mukesh Hyundai.

Paperwork, insurance, road tax and pollution certificate are taken care of by most dealers.

THE SOUTH CORRIDOR

“As space becomes a premium in the central business district and prime residential areas, EM Bypass has become a happy hunting ground for dealers looking for maximum space along with visibility. Free and ample parking space and less congested roads for test drives are some of the other advantages,” says Mohammad Rashid, the divisional operations manager of Ford (East).

The Players

At the Spring Arcade on the Bypass, Spring Hyundai has just opened shop this month. Come June, German giant BMW will have its first showroom in Calcutta here. Drive further down the Bypass and Japanese biggie Honda awaits you with the eastern India’s largest 3S dealership at Anandapur.

By the year-end, Topsel Toyota will give its country rival fierce competition with an 75,000 sq ft seven-storeyed showroom. And squeezed in between the two is former global leader GM with its dealer Dulichand Motors, which was the first to seek southern comfort by setting up shop here in 2005. And that’s not all. Ford with its Ganges Ford showroom on Topsia Road, not far away, will open its second showroom opposite the Honda address.

The Scale

Compared to the north corridor, the auto mall down south promises to be bigger and better.

If Mukesh Hyundai boasts of an 18,000 sq ft area over three floors with an additional 6,000 sq ft outside, Pinnacle Honda has a whopping 85,000 sq ft over five floors and Topsel Toyota 100,000 sq ft.

Pinnacle Honda, the newest Honda dealership, is the largest in eastern India. “It’s the first dealership in eastern India to offer the largest world-class state-of-the-art Honda 3S facilities,” claims Vinayak Nayar, the director of Pinnacle Honda who has diversified into auto dealership from pearl trade.

Topsel Toyota, that has bought 1,00,000 sq ft space right next to Shrachi Towers is planning a seven-floor 75,000 sq ft dealership. Designed by Dulal Mukherjee it will be operational in 2008. “We bought the land in 2002-03 with the idea of setting up a second dealership when the time was right,” says Manaktala of Topsel Toyota, who currently has a 30,000 sq ft showroom in Maheshtala. With Toyota’s compact car due in 2009-10, the Bypass biggie is billed to steer sales.

The Servicing

It’s the need for space rather than speed that is drawing dealers to the Bypass auto mall, to sell and to service.

Of the 85,000 sq ft, Pinnacle has devoted only 5,000 sq ft for sales display. Most of the rest is used for state-of-the-art service stations spread over the ground, third and fourth floors. The ground floor houses the Quick Service Repair, handling routine service, check-ups and cleaning. The third floor has the engine overhaul room, the paint booth and another 10 bay workshop dealing with accident vehicles and general repair.

Pinnacle Honda has the capacity to service 70 cars a day while Mukesh Hyundai caters to about 40 cars a day.

The Car-o-tronic scanner at Pinnacle Honda

With larger workshops come sophisticated equipment ready to handle vehicles swift and smooth. Pinnacle Honda’s claim to be “the largest fully automated Honda showroom-cum-service centre” means that it takes just under two hours for routine preventive maintenance service. The service station has among other things the Brake Lathe that cuts and levels brake discs, a job that most service stations outsource to lathe operators.

The Rs 5-lakh electric Car-o-tronic scanner scans and detects malfunctions in a car without the mechanic even touching it. Engine scanners, gas analysers, AC-charging machines help the 42 in-house technicians deal with accident vehicles. And then there’s the Quick Service Trolley, four in number, holding the hand tools, pneumatic guns, instant tyre pressure checks and blow air guns. Scissor lifts, two-post and four-post lifts help in wheel balancing and alignments. With two car lifts, two passenger lifts and one goods lift, mobility here is easy both for the cars and their owners.

Green Wheels

Pollution control is a major issue for auto dealers with the pollution control board (PCB) officials dropping in for inspections. Waste oil is collected in vats and sold to government authorised vendors and energy saving fluorescent lights line the premises at Pinnacle Honda.

All Toyota dealerships are required to be ISO 14001 certified with an in-built system to keep the workshop pollution free. “There should be a water treatment plant together with pollution norms in place. We are required to file PCB returns every year and officials visit our dealership to check ambient air and effluents from the workshop. Besides, care is taken to see that lubricants don’t seep into the soil. Large containers for oil byproducts are used,” says Manaktala.

A water treatment plant right in front of Pinnacle Honda separates the grease and water, processes the water and recycles it. “We also recycle waste and have an effluent treatment plant,” says general manager Ranjan Srivastava, adding that they will apply for the ISO certification once fully operational.

ISO certification requires auto dealerships to fulfil norms like responding to all correspondence within 24 hours, following pollution control norms and maintaining facilities like adequate fire fighting equipment, sewage treatment, mandatory worker benefits like PF and ESI facilities, apart from other things.