Maruti Esteem – a saloon car which Maruti has been selling successfully with minor upgrades for over 14 years now! But that’s about to change. Soon. What I am talking about is the Dzire that aims at being er.. a desirable car!
Maruti has been flirting with the Indian customers on the idea of a sedan which would replace the Esteem. But the flirting is about to end. Already having a cracking machine which is easy on the pocket in the shape of a Swift, Maruti started development of this car to develop a new one – a car which will replace the Esteem.
The Dzire is basically a Swift with a boot, you might say, and it appears to be just that. Or does it? Viewed head-on, it’s an all familiar face of the Swift but move around and you will gape in disbelief. The Swift, you should understand, is a small car with a high set waistline and incorporating a boot to it has been quite a tough ask, but as seen on the SX4 already, trust the engineers and designers at Maruti to keep the product improving.
The Dzire is all Swift till the B pillar but beyond that it so isn’t! The panel gaps where the rear door merges into the C pillar is very pronounced and looks extremely odd, as does the shut lines of the boot. The rear is dominated by the large, peeled-back tail lapms that are reminiscent of the Swift and a chrome strip that sits atop the registration plate.
The boot, though looks like an afterthought, has been inspired from the much famous ‘Bangled’ design of the BMW 7 Series. What it does to the rear of the Dzire is make it look stupidly bulbous. When viewed from the side, the rear overhang is just criminal when compared to the front. It also appears that the wheelbase has not been changed much compared to the Swift, so how much space is this sedan endowed with on the inside remains to be seen. The Esteem was criticized for the lack of space, hope its not the same with the Dzire. The interiors, we believe, will be given the beige treatment to make it look classy.
There are two engines that will find occupying the space under the bonnet and both will have a displacement capacity of 1.3L. One of the engines will be a diesel though – the Fiat sourced 1.3L Multijet engine while the petrol will be the same that powers the Swift. Running on 14 inch tubeless tyres, the torsion beam suspension setup of the Dzire will be worked upon to handle weight at the back side.
With the Tata Indigo CS selling in decent numbers, Maruti will do well to price the base version of the Dzire at around 4.5 lakh while the top end diesel version could cost near about 6 lakh. The battle in the entry-level mid sized segment is just about to become even more vicious.
See Also:
