BMW unveils New 3 Series
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
PT BMW Indonesia has unveiled its fifth generation of the New 3 Series to the press at the Sentul circuit at Bogor on Tuesday, in a bid to strengthen its market leadership in the medium luxury class.
"With the New BMW 3 Series, we are once again staking BMW's worldwide claim to leadership and innovation in the automotive industry," PT BMW Indonesia president director Josef Honsel said.
The car, which came to Indonesia just a month after its world debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, will be available to customers by the end of May.
The 3 Series itself has existed since 1975 and BMW Group has delivered almost 10 million units to customers, 30,000 of them to Indonesians since 1986.
Data from the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers (Gaikindo) shows that BMW sold a total of 2,053 units last year, with the 3 Series model comprising 1,319 of this number.
This year's first quarter Gaikindo data also shows that BMW managed to sell 250 units of various models.
Its main competitor is the Audi A4 and the Mercedes-Benz C Class. Gaikindo said Audi sold 30 cars in the first quarter while Mercedes sold 456 units for all models, excluding commercial vehicles.
Although Honsel declined to reveal the company's target for the rest of the year, he believed the new generation car would "make a significant contribution, as the core model in our product portfolio, to the ongoing growth of the BMW in Indonesia".
He said in the early second semester BMW would assemble the New 3 Series at Astra's PT Tjahja Sakti Motor assembly plant in Sunter, North Jakarta.
Available in three engine variants -- four-cylinder 2,000-cc engine, and six-cylinder 2,500cc engine and 3,000cc engine -- the car is equipped with run-flat tires, in which the car can still travel 150 kilometers at a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour, aside from other safety features.
The New 3 Series can also be accessorized with iPod and DVD as optional items.
The new 3 Series will be offered at Rp 540 million (US$56,397) for the 320i, Rp 659 million for the 325i and Rp 800 million for the 330i, on-the-road.