"We are planning to launch the car around diwali time and have tentatively fixed November 10 as the roll out date," the official, who did not want to be quoted, told PTI. The Rs 1700 crore plant, which was inaugurated here by the State Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, has an annual capacity of one lakh units. Initially, the company intends to manufacture and sell around 25,000 units and also plans to develop India as an export base for the new vehicle, based on the Fiesta platform. The official said Ford was developing about 20 pro-types of the new car to choose one from, and it will be introduced in both diesel and petrol variants in a three box model. Ford India managing director Philip G Spender, earlier told mediapersons that the car would be priced competitively and it would be ``small from outside and biggerin inside'' compared to Escort, Ford's first offer to India. Ford is aiming at a ten per cent market share in the next few years in the South Asia and India occupies a significant position in Ford's plans for the region, spender said.

Tamil Nadu governor Justice Fathima Beevi and former Union Industries Minister Murasoli Maran were also present at the inauguration of the plant, set up on a 250 acre campus at Maramalainagar, about 50 kms from here.The Chief Minister and Maran said Tamil Nadu had earned the distinction of `Detroit of India' with three international automakers -- Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Ford -- setting up plants in the state. Ford had invested Rs 1,700 crore in its state-of-the-art plant, which was the auto major's smallest manufacturing unit in its global arena of operations, Spender said.

The company has also invested about Rs 650 crore in Visteon auto component section, situated adjacent to the plant, and an additional Rs 350 crore would be pumped into Ford Business Centre and `FordCredit', the financial arm being set up in association with Kotak Mahindra. Spender said partly built engines for the new car would be imported from South Africa and Britain initially before the company starts producing them at its new plant. He said `C 195' would have an indigenisation level of 70 per cent from day one and the local content subsequently be raked up by another ten per cent.