Maruti Suzuki’s foray into the compact SUV segment has been another success story as the country’s leading automaker put money where the mouth is yet again. The Vitara Brezza pulled off plaudits in aplenty when it made public debut at the Auto Expo 2016 in February and the Indo-Japanese outfit backed it up with the launch on March 8th and announced the price listing that would have sent shivers to its main competitors.
Within 48 hours, more than 5,600 bookings were received and by the end of first two weeks, the orders soared to a remarkable 20,000. As of now, after just over two months of its market launch, Maruti Suzuki recorded bookings that had gone past the phenomenal 50,000 mark. The company delivered 7,832 units of Brezza last month and helped achieve 16% YoY growth in domestic sales when Alto, Swift and Dzire despite being their respective segment leaders endured decline in numbers.
In the wake of receiving more bookings and to slash down the increasing months of waiting period (currently at 4-5 months), the brand has said to be ramping up production from initially mooted 20,000 to 40,000 units in this fiscal. This implies to a combined, both domestic and export, yearly rolling out of 1,20,000 units. The aggressively priced compact SUV carries a starting price of Rs. 6.99 lakh for the base LDi variant and Rs. 9.68 lakh for the range-topping ZDi+ model (both prices, ex-showroom Delhi).
It derives power from the 1.3-litre DDiS 200 four-cylinder diesel engine developing 90 PS at 4,000 rpm and 200 Nm of peak torque at 1,750 rpm. The engine sends power to the front wheels through a five-speed manual gearbox gearbox and it boasts a class-leading claimed fuel efficiency of 24.3 kmpl. Maruti Suzuki will add the 1.0-litre Boosterjet petrol to the engine-up soon and the presence of an AMT isn’t far off the reality.
The Vitara Brezza is available in six trims LDi, LDi(O), VDi, VDi(O), ZDi and ZDi+ and rivals against Ford EcoSport and Mahindra TUV 300. The Vitara Brezza features a ground clearance of 198 mm and 328 litres of boot space capacity. It measures about 3,995 mm in length, 1,790 mm in width, 1,640 mm in height and has 2,500 mm wheelbase.
Driver airbag comes as standard in all grades as passenger airbag, ABS and EBD functions are optional from base trims amidst being standard in the top-end ZDi and ZDi+ variants. The Vitara Brezza boasts first-in-class dual-tone colour scheme and has features equipment like SmartPlay infotainment system with in-built MapCare navigation and Apple CarPlay, reverse parking camera, engine start/stop button, cruise control, 60:40 split rear seat, auto headlamps, electrically-foldable ORVMs with turn indicators and so on.
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