The 7-seater Maruti Grand Vitara is expected to go on sale in the near future and it will have several commonalities with the five-seater variant
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) brought in the second generation Brezza compact SUV and Grand Vitara midsize SUV last year. They have been significant in increasing the brand’s SUV market share and the range will further be expanded with the arrival of the Fronx compact coupe SUV and five-door Jimny lifestyle off-road SUV in 2023.
The largest car producer in the country appears to be working on a three-row variant of the Grand Vitara, internally codenamed Y17. It will reportedly go on sale by the middle of this decade and it will compete against Tata Safari, Hyundai Alcazar, MG Hector Plus, Mahindra XUV700 and the likes. It has a high chance to become the new flagship Maruti Suzuki SUV.
The Y17 will also likely be exported to global markets from India and it may give rise to a Toyota sibling. The Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara has plenty in common with the Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder as both share the Global C platform and they are powered by either a 1.5-litre four-cylinder K15C mild-hybrid petrol or a 1.5-litre TNGA Atkinson Cycle strong hybrid petrol mill.
The Grand Vitara and Toyota Hyryder are rolled out of Toyota’s production facility in Bidadi, Karnataka but the seven-seater iteration of the former will be manufactured at Maruti Suzuki’s new factory in Kharkhoda, Haryana. The plant will be operational by 2025 and the three-row Grand Vitara could become the first volume-based model produced there with an annual target of 1.2 lakh units.
It has an annual production capacity of 2.5 lakh units and combined with the other two existing plants, MSIL will roll out twenty lakh cars per year by 2028. It will continue to be underpinned by the Global C architecture and expect the wheelbase to slightly grow to accommodate the third row of seats.
It could get minor design revisions to differentiate itself from the regular model. Maruti Suzuki is also planning to launch the badge-engineered version of the Toyota Innova Hycross in the coming months in India.