Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza compact SUV to be launched March 8 in India

Rumours regarding the launch date of Maruti Suzuki's first compact SUV, the Vitara Brezza, have been rife over the past couple days. The company has finally confirmed the launch date as March 8. Ahead of the launch, many company dealerships have commenced taking unofficial bookings for the compact SUV.

The Vitara Brezza compact SUV is conceived, designed and developed in India by Maruti's R&D team led by Chief Engineer CV Raman. Maruti Suzuki spent about Rs 860 crore to develop the Vitara Brezza, and will have a localisation level of nearly 98 percent. The Vitara Brezza has projector headlamps with LED daytime running lights, outside rear-view mirrors with integrated turn indicators and blacked-out A and B pillars. The cladding around the body, 198mm of ground clearance, square wheel arches with 16-inch alloys gives a rugged look to the Vitara Brezza.

Expected to be offered in six variants — LDi, LDi (O), VDi, VDi (O), ZDi, and ZDi+ — the Vitara Brezza will be powered by a 200 DDis diesel engine that will churn out 88.5bhp of power at 4,000rpm and 200Nm of torque at 1,750rpm, mated to a five-speed manual gearbox. The petrol-engine model will not be available at the time of launch, but many reports have confirmed that it and another AMT model may join the range later.

The Vitara Brezza is expected to be priced in the range of Rs 5.5 lakh to rs 8.2 lakh. The compact SUV will lock horn with the Ford EcoSport and Mahindra TUV300 in the segment.