India plots Suzuki super-workshop

INDIA is already home to some of the world’s biggest car dealerships, but now one of the rapidly developing nation’s major automotive dealer groups is planning what it claims will be the planet’s largest car workshop.

APRA Auto India is one of the largest car retail and service conglomerates within Maruti Suzuki - Suzuki Motor Corporation’s Indian subsidiary - comprising five new car showrooms and six workshops in and around New Delhi.

Apart from Suzuki sales and service centres, the APRA group also owns five-star hotels, an upmarket shopping centre and other luxury real estate, including the extravagant Kingdom of Dreams theme park, a joint-venture with Wizcraft International Entertainment.

Within Kingdom of Dreams is the opulent Nautanki Mahal auditorium, a “state-of-the-future” 815-seat theatre that is said to offer a 4D experience via 7.1 Dolby Surround sound and LED screens. Now showing at Kingdom of Dream is Zangoora: The Gypsy Prince - India’s answer to the France’s Moulin Rouge, the USA’s Broadway or Britain’s West End shows.

Not content with hosting a production it claims is the world’s largest Bollywood stage show ever, APRA now plans to build an auto service centre over three levels beneath the Nautanki Mahal, which will boast parking for 2000 cars and offer customers the ability to have their vehicles serviced while they watch the show.

APRA’s ambitious new venture will dwarf the company’s existing operations, which already sell more than 1000 new vehicles a month and maintain Suzuki vehicles on a non-stop 24/7 basis but - as with Maruti Suzuki’s new-car retail network - is restricted from selling or servicing anything other than Suzuki cars.

GoAuto last week toured APRA’s largest service centre in the industrial Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, which has 36 service bays, 46 mechanics on duty at all times and last year serviced 50,428 Suzuki vehicles under the one roof.

Every day about 175 cars are serviced at APRA’s Gurgaon facility, which also performs body repairs on around 25 cars a day, offers an overnight maintenance service, hourly shuttle runs and a mobile mechanic service for customers.

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