Competitors BEWARE! The big Maruti machine has started churning again.
After a dismal slump in sales (thanks to the factory lockout), Maruti Suzuki has finally stabilized itself and is ready to revive history. The successor to the legendary Maruti 800 – ‘Alto 800’ is ready to take center stage on October 16th
ZeeNews reports that the Alto 800 has already clocked 6,500 bookings even before its official price is announced in the market.
What’s more is that Maruti Suzuki is confident that it will cross 10,000 bookings when it actually launches the car in India.
The Alto 800 is Maruti’s answer to other small cars that have encroached its territory such as the Hyundai Eon, Spark, Nano and to future small cars that will enter this segment from Nissan, Renault, Datsun and Fiat.
The new Alto 800 runs on the same basic mechanicals as its predecessor. Under the hood lies a 796 cc F8D engine which has been tweaked to produce more power and torque. The engine is now rated at a power output of 47.5 bhp at 6000 rpm and 69 Nm of torque at 3500 rpm.
Maruti has reworked the gearbox to enable smooth shifts and recalibrated the suspension setup to suit the new package. The fuel economy is bumped up to an ARAI-certified 22.74 km per litre which is higher than the present Alto 800 and the K10.
A clever move by Maruti Suzuki is to introduce the CNG variant of the Alto 800 right from the launch day. This variant boast a fuel economy figure of 30.46 km per kg of CNG.
On October 16th, Maruti Suzuki will fully reveal the car to the Indian masses. We expect the petrol variants to be priced in the range of Rs. 2.45 lakhs – Rs. 3.0 lakhs and the CNG version will be costlier by around Rs. 45,000, variant to variant.
Stay tuned as we get you all the updates from the launch.
[Source: zeenews.india.com]
