2001 Anna
Variant shown: AT
Production: 2001-2002
Price when new: 12 400 $ with taxi discount (-20%), 14 880 $ normal
Sold in: Anikatia
For: Car Shopping Round 48
Back in late 1990s Anikatia saw a possibility of country’s totalitarian system collapsing. In 1998 some Japanese customers of Sincker, who already had cars of the brand suggested the company to start development of something that would be completely different to on-the-market Athena.
They’ve suggested a cheapo van for commercial and private usage.
Sincker, not afraid of actual losses of reputation and prestige and finding the idea good for eventual profits for fulfilling losses of more premium vehicles, as well as R&D development accepted it. This is when NAV (New Age Van) project had begun.
When in late 2000 democratic Anikatia was already known to be a thing soon, some customers from the country had secretly ordered Sincker’s new van just from looking at photos of Sincker NAV Concept. This is when the manufacturer had changed it’s mind and dropped the idea of NAV - it got changed to NAAT, which stood for New Age Anikatian Taxi, and official marketing name was released in 2001 as Anna, which was transformed anagram of NAAT.
Final result was cheap to run van for Anikatian market that was reliable and easy to maintain. Anikatian reviewers back in 2001 praised it for space inside, modern look, material quality, very low fuel mileage, relatively low running costs, very smooth ride, drivability and making actually modern by world standars car for freshly-established democratic Anikatia.
From design choices Anna AT had featured CD player with minijack plug, optional free taximeter, sliding rear doors, foglights in the bumper, five comfortable seats, power steering and ABS and could run on both 80 octane and 91 octane fuel.
The design was inspired by passenger planes used in this time, and it was visible in the exterior and even interior. Also, some design clues referring to Athena were present in both NAV Concept and production Anna - like taillights, in production model without center red panel connecting actual lights.
However, the design had it’s flaws too. While it was so good that even known Anikatian, who would later possibly become a taxi magnate called Lee Eun-ji took Anna into consideration, but choose of semi active sway bars just cancelled it from the duty in her company.
There was also an accident featuring Sincker Anna AT and Eun-ji: When Anikatian spokesmen of Sincker seen the decline from Eun-ji about incorporating Anna they had disconnected with company’s HQ and decided to “solve” this problem by themselves and tried to kill Eun-ji during a pursuit.
In final, first Anikatian Anna AT was totaled and burnt down - it’s wrecked chassis can be still seen in Sincker’s museum in airplane hall near company’s HQ in France.
Sincker Anna was one of last Sinckers in existence. Itself it was good and did well in the market in 2001, but after the try to assassinate Lee Eun-ji and it’s leak to media Sincker received a gigantic backlash for it’s name - due to this accident, to which Sincker as a company wasn’t even involved, sells in Anikatia dropped by 85% to few cars a month and in the world by 40%. 2001 was the year when the company noticed it’s first loss in many, many years and that led to closing Sincker in 2002 and replacing it with Automobiles Auvergne in 1.01.2003.
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