Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India — Kia Seltos Rival In The Making?

The Maruti Suzuki Vitara has been spotted once again in India. The premium SUV from Maruti Suzuki had been spotted testing earlier this year and it confirmed rumours of the SUV coming to the Indian market.

Now the Suzuki Vitara has been spotted once again in a different colour scheme. Maruti Suzuki is the largest automotive manufacturer in the country with products stretching across all the basic segments.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

However, it is in the SUV department that Maruti Suzuki lacks products. The Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza is the only SUV sold by the company but is doing extremely well in the market. The Vitara Brezza leads in the compact SUV segment by a large margin although the Hyundai Venue seems to be catching up pretty fast.

Maruti Suzuki seems to have understood the need for an affordable premium SUV as the market is now opening up to this category of vehicles. The competition is already fierce in this segment.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

The Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, MG Hector, Jeep Compass, Mahindra XUV500, etc are some of the vehicles in this segment and all of them are brilliant cars. Maruti Suzuki, despite being the largest car manufacturer in the country is missing out on this segment which is turning out to be a pretty sizeable chunk of the Indian auto Industry.

Hence, Maruti Suzuki is bringing in the Vitara. The Vitara's overall design is in line with the Vitara Brezza on sale in India. However, it is much larger as it is not confined to the sub 4-metre segment. The spy pictures posted by Gaadiwaadi show the Suzuki Vitara in a Black colour.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

A part of the grille up front is missing, but that is probably to take out the Suzuki badge. The Suzuki badges on the diamond-cut alloy wheels too have been masked. The Maruti Suzuki Vitara is a stylish and muscular SUV. It features silver-coloured trim on the front bumper. The rear end is neatly designed.

The Vitara features all-black interiors with circular air-conditioning vents placed on top of the dashboard. Taking centre place on the dashboard is a large vertically-oriented touchscreen infotainment system.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

It will feature steering-mounted controls, a large MID in the instrumentation, panoramic sunroof, ABS with EBD, six airbags, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, etc. The spy shots show lots of wires hanging around, and that is only because of the testing and data collection equipment onboard the SUV.

Going by these images, we can easily figure out that the Maruti Suzuki Vitara is nowhere close to being production ready, but is getting there slowly. It is at the moment unclear as to what engines will be offered with the Maruti Suzuki Vitara in India.

In International markets, it is available with one diesel and three petrol engine options. There is a 1.0-litre Boosterjet turbo-petrol engine with 109bhp and 170Nm on tap, a 1.4-litre turbo petrol with 138bhp and 220Nm, a 1.6-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine that pushes out 115bhp and 156Nm and a 1.6-litre turbo diesel engine.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

However, in the Indian market, we can expect Maruti Suzuki to plonk in the existing 1.5-litre turbo-diesel and a new 1.4-litre turbo petrol. Maruti Suzuki will bring in the all-wheel-drive model only. Upon launch, the Vitara will become the most-expensive product in Maruti Suzuki's line-up.

Thoughts On Maruti Suzuki Vitara Spotted Testing In India

The Maruti Suzuki Vitara will add to the product line-up that already consists of the best-selling cars in India. However, the question that needs to be asked is, would buyers warm up the idea of an expensive Maruti Suzuki vehicle?

The last time Maruti Suzuki tried going the premium way with the Kizashi sedan, things didn't go quite according to plan. This is because Maruti Suzuki has an image of a reasonably priced car manufacturer and it is this very image that the company is trying to shake off through its Nexa dealerships.

Most Read Articles

English
Read more on: #spy pics #maruti suzuki
Article Published On: Thursday, July 11, 2019, 16:06 [IST]
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X