Having been showcased at the Paris motor show in September, the new Swift, currently built only at Magyar Suzuki in Hungary, is about to go into production in India and Japan. It is expected to be launched in the first half of 2005 and will be positioned between Esteem and Baleno.
The car is designed to give a new lease of life to the company in India’s C-segment, in which is its being challenged by Tata Indigo, Ford Ikon and Hyundai Accent and is facing additional pressure from Ford Fusion and Hyundai Getz.
A radical departure from the workaday Swift of old, the new car has eyecatching looks and the kind of handling and cabin designed to win hearts and minds in Europe; very different in conception and execution from the tall-boy designs handed to Maruti with Alto and WagonR.
Local commentators say this is the first really new car for Maruti for 20 years. There have been many upgrades and repackagings along the way – all of them well publicised by Maruti – but nothing new. The Grand Vitara, which arrived in 2003, was a new model but it only arrived in India years after it debuted.
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