The compact crossover/SUV segment has never been this crowded and into this fray now jump India’s largest passenger car-makers, Maruti Suzuki. We put the new S-Cross and Maruti’s débutante 1.6 DDiS to the test
Story: Aninda Sardar
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
Although the S-Cross is the talk of the town, this isn’t Maruti Suzuki’s first crossover for India. Surprised? Allow me to elaborate. In the meantime, just make sure you don’t forget a car called the SX4 that India’s largest passenger car maker/seller had launched several years ago. Coming back to the subject under discussion, you see the SX4 (in its original form) was a product of a FIAT-Suzuki collaboration and was conceived as a mini SUV. In India, however, Maruti Suzuki thought that the same vehicle would find takers if they slapped on a boot to the global mini SUV — crossover, if you please. The result was the SX4 sedan, and, to be fair, the vehicle didn’t do too badly commercially. The point to be noted is that Maruti have indeed launched what was for all practical purposes a crossover in the past. Only they thought fit to add a boot to make it more palatable to the Indian customer.
Times have changed, however, and with them, marketing strategies. This time around, Maruti Suzuki’s management has decided that the Indian consumer has caught up with the tastes of global consumers and now would rather have a ‘crossover’. Therefore, the next-generation SX4 (for that is what the S-Cross really is) comes to India in a form that no longer distinguishes it from its global brethren. So here goes our evaluation of the Maruti Suzuki S-Cross.
Maruti have tagged the S-Cross as ‘The Premium Crossover’ and, from a distance at least, the S-Cross does have presence. At 4.3 metres long, nearly 1.8 metres wide and almost 1.6 metres tall, how could it not be? Yet, despite the presence (which seems to be more a function of the vehicle’s bulk), the styling borders on the bland. No, it isn’t something that will turn heads a second time even though it will manage to get an acknowledgement when it arrives on the scene. Get closer and run your hands over the panels and you’ll realise that Maruti Suzuki have indeed upped the build quality game. The gaps between panels seem less inconsistent and there is an overall aura of nicety about the S-Cross. No, it doesn’t come across as a built-to-a-cost product for the price-conscious masses.
