Vitara Brezza compact SUV continued to fuel utility vehicle sales of Maruti Suzuki in October. India largest car maker sold 18,008 units of its UVs last month, against 9,435 units in October 2015, thereby, registering a growth of 90.9 percent.
Maruti Suzuki's UV portfolio includes SUVs Gypsy, S-Cross, Vitara Brezza, and Ertiga MPV. Though the variant-wise sales report is not out yet, it is evident that Vitara Brezza is the key product behind the spike in sales. Launched in March 2016, Vitara Brezza has been recording an average of over 9,000 units sales every month. It is the best selling SUV in India at present.
Riding on Vitara Brezza, Maruti Suzuki sold 1,09,967 units of UVs in April-October period registering a growth of 138.7% percent against 46,068 units in the same period in 2015.
Maruti Suzuki sold 9,375 units of the Vitara Brezza in September 2016. The sales figures for August, July and June are 9,554, 10,232 and 6,673, respectively.
The Vitara Brezza is Maruti Suzuki's first model fully developed in India by its R&D team led by CV Raman. The compact SUV is powered by a 200 DDis 1248cc diesel engine that develops 88.5bhp at 4,000rpm and 200Nm of torque at 1,750rpm mated to a five-speed manual gearbox. It boasts of best-in-class fuel efficiency of 24.3 kmpl. Despite being sold in diesel only powertrain, the waiting period for Vitara Brezza stands at seven months depending upon the variant. Despite an increase in the production of the compact SUV to 10,000 units from July, Maruti Suzuki is still struggling to meet the demand.
Encouraged by the response and by the customer demand, Maruti Suzuki is now planning to launch the petrol avatar and the AMT equipped version of the Vitara Brezza in early 2017. Emerging reports suggest that petrol iteration of the Vitara Brezza will be powered by a 1.5-litre petrol mill that can churn out around 100bhp of power mated to five-speed manual transmission. Vitara Brezza AMT is expected to be coupled with the current diesel engine.
