- Second India-made car to be launched in Japan
- 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol
The India-made Maruti Fronx is going back to the motherland, Suzuki’s that is….Yes, the Indo-Japanese automaker has shipped off the first lot of cars made at its Gujarat plant to be sold in the home market. India is the global Fronx hub and makes the car for both RHD and LHD markets in addition to the massive domestic demand that has been steady since the car was launched in the first quarter of FY24. The car will be launched in Japan at the end of August.
The Japanese-spec car is virtually the same in terms of interior and exterior design as well as feature list with the big difference being a 1.5-litre petrol engine in place of the 1.2 and 1.0-litre turbo offered in India. This is the same engine offered with cars like the Ertiga and Brezza in India producing 103bhp/138Nm. We in India get this engine with a five-speed MT or a six-speed torque converter AT while Japan only gets the latter. What’s more the Japanese market gets the option of FWD or AWD.
Suzuki first began exporting the Baleno from India to Japan in 2016 and it only seems logical that the Fronx follow suit after its global launch. This same spec of 1.5 Fronx is the global export model and is also sold in Gulf nations as well as places like South Africa.