German luxury carmaker BMW, which is largely present in metros and other big cities in India, is planning to expand its footprint to smaller cities.

“We plan to set up 13 new dealerships by the end of 2014,” says Phillip von Sahr, President BMW Group India. These will mainly be in the smaller towns such as Raipur, Nagpur and Mangalore, he added. The company’s dealer network stands at 37 today.

Speaking at the launch of the new BMW Z4 Roadster here, von Sahr said the company was also affected by the general slowdown in the auto industry. “The year 2013 has not been an easy year for the auto industry and that applies also to the BMW Group.” However, the company would not sell discounted cars to gain numbers as this would dilute the premium tag, he said, adding BMW has a clear vision for sustainability in the long term.

The carmaker has started a second assembly line at its plant in Chennai, scaling up production capacity to 14,000 units a year, and has also procured additional land for future expansion. It expects to start local assembly of the 3-Series Gran Turismo by mid-2014.

The new BMW Z4 roadster, available as a petrol variant, is a convertible with a hard top (against a soft top in the earlier model), and will be available at all is dealerships as a CBU (completely built-up unit) from Thursday. It is priced at Rs 68.9 lakh (ex-showroom), with an extra Rs 1 lakh for the Design Pure Traction model that has better interiors.

The exterior design features include redesigned integrated indicators, headlights with corona rings and LED accent lights. The Z4 roadster comes with a TwinPower Turbo six-cylinder engine that delivers a power output of 225 kW / 306 hp.

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