The All New WAGON - R From Maruti Suzuki Stable

Maruti Suzuki, which is pulling out all stops to defend its 50 per cent market share in the domestic market, is reportedly planning to launch the new WagonR model in India by March 2010. Even though India's largest passenger carmaker has remained tigtlipped about it, there is a lot of buzz that the new WagonR will be fitted with the the Bharat Stage- IV compliant compliant KB series engine and will also be offered with a CNG version additionally. It is widely believed that the aforesaid 5-door htachback car will be based on Maruti's parent company, Suzuki Motor Corporation's MR Wagon platform (like the existing model), but the exterior and interior will be throughly made-over. Furthermore, speculation is pretty rife that the upgraded version of WagonR will also be ewquipped with ABS and airbags in the top-end variants.

A couple of dealers have claimed that Maruti Suzuki WagonR will get styling changes both in exterior and interior. The exterior changes include an all new headlamp,new front fascia and new tail lamp styling. On the interiors, the new WagonR will get an all-new instrument panel.

According to a leading blogsite 'vicky.in', "The new WagonR will be powered by Bharat IV compliant 998cc KB series engine developing 67PS(50KW) of maximum power at 6200rpm and 90Nm of maximum torque at 3500rpm (the current WagonR powered by 1061cc engine developing 64PS of max power and 84Nm of max torque)."

Although Maruti Suzuk's spokesperson could not be immidiately contacted, a senior official of the company had earlier said, "We have exhausted our quota of new cars with eight new launches in India in the past three years. Now we are looking at strengthening our leadership by refreshing our old portfolio." The company has developed the new KB series petrol engines with an investment of Rs. 1,200 crore, which will be strapped in several of these cars". However, when queried about the proposed models which will undergo a facelift, he maintained, "Maruti follows a policy of refreshing models every five years," without revealing anything.