Suzuki A-Star Alto Not one, not two, but four Altos preceeded the one you see here. Yes, they were sold in India with different names. The first was the Maruti 800. The second one thankfully retained the 800 name. The third was called the Zen and the fourth, er, finally proud to be called the Alto.
This though is the Alto replacement for world markets. Yes, the A-Star Concept has finally got two more doors, an engine and body panels and interiors that you and me associate with a production car, and it will debut at the Paris Motor Show in October. And as you already know, this car will be built only in India, at Maruti's facilities at Manesar, Haryana, for world markets.
To be badged an Alto in markets outside India, the A-Star will co-exist with the current Alto, while being positioned somewhere around the price of a Zen Estilo, we think. Maruti is in the process of creating capacity for making roughly 1,50,000 A-Stars a year, of which a third will be sold locally, another third will wear Alto badges all over the blue planet and the final third will wear Nissan badges before being shipped abroad, a part of their export commitment to the makers of the GT-R.
The new car will be slightly longer than our (and their) current Alto, with better interior space as well as features. To be powered by a 1000cc, 3-cylinder aluminium-construction petrol engine, it will be mated to a 5-speed manual to begin with. This makes it the second engine produced by MSIL to have a 3-cylinder format, after the 800/Alto. To keep the Europeans happy, this new engine just produces 109 g/km of C02, so what's good for Europe is certainly good for India.
No other details about the specifications are available at the moment, but we'll hazard a guess that the car should produce around 60 bhp and a little less than 10 kgm of peak torque. We also expect the car to come with lots of bits from the Swift, Estilo and Wagon-R, such as the control stalks, knobs and other buttons. As in the aviation based theme for the interiors of the A-Star will meekly give way to a more normal, Suzuki-style interior on the inside. This is no bad thing, keeping in mind that it will be priced reasonably here. But Hyundai's made-in-India-for-the-world i10 showed us, local manufacture for global markets should result In stellar production quality and ultimately, we should be looking at the addition of a lively, enjoyable and still relatively inexpensive small car that will seriously vie for our money.
Maruti Suzuki of course won't stop its small car onslaught with just the A-Star. The Splash with a 1200cc petrol mill producing 86 bhp and the 1248cc multi-jet diesel with 75 bhp on tap. Based on the Swift platform, it might be priced a touch higher than the Swift, and act as a premium tall boy offering. And by the end of 2009, one can expect the Maruti Suzuki Kizashi saloon to also be here, ready to take on the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.
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