Chennai: German car manufacturer Volkswagen is firming up its plans to launch the popular model ‘Beetle´ in India, a top company official has said.

“It is an iconic brand and people know more about the car than Volkswagen. It will be brought to Indian as a completely built unit,” Volkswagen India (passenger car) board of directors member Neeraj Garg said.

However, Garg did not mention any time frame for the launch of Beetle, manufactured at Volkswagen’s facility in Germany for worldwide delivery.

Talking to a group of reporters here on Friday, he said the company was considering using the Beetle as a brand building strategy for Volkswagen to get into the competitive Indian compact segment.

According to industry experts Beetle would compete with Fiat 500 and likely to be in the price range of Rs15 lakh.

Asked whether it had any proposal to manfufacture popular premium SUV Touareg in the country, Garg said the company was importing the vehicle as CBU and the sales were minimal.

The company currently assembles its premium sedan Jetta and the Passat in the Aurangabad plant and recently inaugurated the Pune plant for manufacturing of premium hatchback Polo, slated to hit the Indian roads next year.

The Pune facility has an installed capacity of 1.10 lakh units, he added.

Garg said that they would increase their dealership network from the present 22 to 40 by year end.