Whats the point in delaying the launch of their 1.6 ALTIS, would they make any amendments after watching what CITY is offering. The answer in my opinion will be a big fat NO. So the wiser strategy would have been to launch your product before CITY becomes available and capture the market of 1.6/1.5 (Something known as first movers advantage), but I wouldnt expect these dumb people to do any such thing.
The only reason which I can see for delaying 1.6 is that not many people would go for 1.8 if 1.6 is also being offered under the label of ALTIS. It will have sufficient power and will be more practical (Lets not forget that we are talking about the mass market).
If they had to offer three different sizes of engines to compete with 1.3/1.5 & 1.8 variants of other models being offered by ATLAS and PAK Suzuki then they could have offered them under XLI, GLI and ALTIS respectively. Doesnt it make sense, At present there are 4 or 5 variants of ALTIS and I guess we would agree to disagree as I think they are acting like headless chickens who havent got a clue what they are upto.
All of that aside, you do have to agree that the car looks stunning and has better looks than honda. So full marks over there. Lets see if ATLAS comes up with the uplift version of CIVIC to compete with Toyota as IMC themselves agree to this fact that they have never been and infact they have never claimed to be the market leader in 1.8 category. A friend of mine in IMC said that to me once.