Maruti Suzuki to launch sporty SX4 again

Maruti,Passenger car leader of India has stopped manufacturing its most expensive sporty car Maruti SX4, the mid-sized sedan, reinforcing the Maruti can make and market big cars.For that Maruti will also rope in Bollywood star John Abraham as the new brand ambassador that will arrest dropping sales. Maruti will relaunch Maruti SX4 soon again with a new 1.6L engine which will have a much higher pick-up. It will be more expensive than the current top-end Zxi variant.The new Maruti SX4 will have an additional automatic variant, another first for any sedan from Maruti.

Maruti SX4 was launched in May 2007 in three manual variants to counter Honda City but could not compete with Honda’s superior technology and brand image. Maruti SX4 sales are now confined to a few hundred units per month only it was ahead of the Honda City in the first three months of its launch. Honda has sold 37,600 of the new City till August 2009 since its launch (November 2008) while Maruti has sold only 9,763 SX4s in the same period. Despite being cheaper than the Honda City by over a lakh, Maruti SX4 trailed by a huge margin last fiscal too, selling only 13,976 cars against City’s 38,200 cars. Analyst tracking the sector said that by fully loading the new car, Maruti is making another attempt to prove that it can make all kinds of cars. “Maruti Suzuki is a good brand but its Japanese peers Honda and Toyota appeal more to customers when it comes to buying big cars. Maruti SX4 performed better than Maruti’s other big car Baleno and initially even overtook City in sales.

However, it failed to maintain the momentum after Honda responded with a new and more powerful Honda City. Probably, Maruti is now looking for answers to challenge the mid-size car segment,” Kapil Arora, partner at Ernst & Young said. Maruti has not been able to establish itself as a big car maker just as Honda has not being able to sell its small car Honda Jazz. It sells less than 1,000 units per month compared with its closest competitor Maruti Swift that sells over 5,000 cars per month.

Read More on : Maruti SX4 detailed review