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VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, MI – After exiting bankruptcy Oct. 1, the newly restructured Visteon Corp. looks to the continent of Asia for 42% of its revenues.

So it should come as no surprise the supplier launched an in-depth research initiative a year ago to better understand the type of interior features required to attract car buyers in the emerging market of India.

Dubbed the Growth Market Car, the concept was on display for a media technology review at the Visteon headquarters here before heading to India for additional market testing and customer reviews.

The car, based on a 4-door Suzuki Maruti A-Star already available in India, is larger than a Tata Nano but smaller than a Honda Fit or Chevrolet Aveo.

Visteon has technical centers in Pune and Chennai, as well as five manufacturing plants in India. Richard Vaughan, Visteon’s manager-corporate innovation and design, took five trips to India over the past several months to lead the research program that yielded the concept car.

The research program centered on the regional demands of both auto makers and consumers. In the end, 560 Indian consumers in the two cities participated, and the project gathered 3,300 individual vehicle observations, Vaughan says.

“We got people to articulate to us, through the use of a clever questionnaire, what’s most important to them in terms of perceived quality, which is not just about the interior as we define it in the car industry but can also be about the electronics,” he says.

“People are very focused on electronics, and poor execution of electronics – switches, knobs and buttons – can have a detrimental effect on the overall impression of the vehicle even if everything else is fantastic.”