Few days back, you might have read from the Updates in the sidebar that Maruti Ritz is to be launched on the 15th of May. What you might not have heard is the fact that Maruti officials are going around announcing that Maruti Ritz’ main rival is the Maruti Swift. How uncool is that? Let’s hear what Maruti Suzuki MD Shinzo Nakanishi had to say

Ritz will directly compete with Swift. In the past, when we have launched cars in the same segment, it has helped the market to grow. With the launch of Ritz, our customers would have two cars to choose from in the same category”

Just to remind you, WagonR and Zen Estilo are two Marutis competing in the same small car segment. Mind you though, the Wagon R was facelifted when the Esilo came out. Apparently, the idea was to create a spectre of two new cars being launched.

In Swift’s case however, no major facelifts have been done since 2004, and by seeing the number of Swifts on the road (75% in the compact car segment), i would’nt be surprised if someone says he/she has gotten ‘BORED’ of the Swift!

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Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, India’s largest car maker, unveiled an all-new BS-IV compliant K12M engine at its Gurgaon plant. The 1.2L all-aluminium engine is second in the K-series and is said to have technological superiority and higher fuel efficiency over the K10B engine that powers Maruti Suzuki’s A-Star.

The K12M engine has been specifically designed for Indian applications. Maruti Suzuki’s engineers worked as part of Suzuki’s Engine Design team for the design, calibration and testing of the engine in Japan and in India. It will be put to use in the new Ritz hatchback (a.k.a Splash) which is slated for launch in May ’09.