Maruti's 'made-in-India' car to retain Japanese touch

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s (MSIL’s) planned ‘made-in-India’ car is likely to come up using the platform of an existing model of the company. The company has taken this decision in view of its insufficient engineering strength.

The company has proposed to launch the ‘made-in-India’ car in the next three years.

The new compact car will be built on one of its three platforms — WagonR-Zen Estilo, Alto-M800-A-Star and Swift-Ritz — that are used by the company’s India operations.

The company will, therefore, save a fortune by not opting for a completely new car platform. Generally, the cost of developing a new platform constitutes a substantial part of the expenditure incurred on a new car’s production.

The company kicked off the development process of the car more than a year ago with a handful of engineers stationed at its research and development (R&D) facility in Gurgaon. The company is aiming to deploy by next year 1,000 engineers, most of whom will be working on this project.

Officials declined to predict the proposed car’s positioning and price-point, pointing out that it would be too early to do so as the company was yet to finalise the new car’s size, dimension, design and power.

However, sources said that the company had already drawn up the basic outer sketch of the car and now moved on to other sequential design aspects of the vehicle. The company had also started talks with its component suppliers.

It’s only after the successful development of this ‘India car’ that the company would take the next big step — building of an independent platform. This would probably take place soon after the ‘India car’ was launched, senior MSIL executives said.

“Only after successfully launching the car by 2011 can we focus on developing our very own car, which will be built from scratch. The car will be completely made in India. That will actually test our abilities.

As part of its long-term corporate strategy, Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) is planning to outsource the development of small cars completely to Maruti Suzuki.

The company is making India its small car focal point in a bid to take advantage of the frugal manufacturing processes here.

This would aid SMC in focusing on other dimensions, including sedans, sports utility vehicles and alternative fuel technology. Many of the engineers hired by Maruti are currently undergoing training at SMC’s facilities in Japan.

MSIL had worked on the development process of a car earlier too in the form of the Swift Dzire, the sedan version of the popular Swift hatchback. The car was launched by MSIL in March last year and has met with success in the market.