2018 all-new Maruti Swift hatchback races to 30,000 bookings in India

Weeks after Maruti Suzuki opened pre-bookings in India for the all-new 2018 Swift, the hatchback has already raced to 30,000 bookings. Maruti Suzuki Arena dealerships around India are now taking bookings for the 2018 Swift, with the booking amount pegged at Rs. 11,000. This amount is refundable in case of cancellation. The car will be officially launched on the 7th February, at the Auto Expo, along with the price announcement.

The large number of bookings, typical of high-demand Maruti cars, show that the Swift could be yet another mega hit for Maruti if the pricing is right. Pricing of the new Swift is likely to start from about Rs. 5 lakhs. Kenichi Ayukawa, the MD and CEO of Maruti Suzuki, was guarded while commenting about the great pre-booking performance of the Swift,

We have received around 30,000 bookings till now, but will see the real numbers when we announce the price. As we have not announced the price we can’t have a say on number of bookings as some people might cancel the bookings after the real prices are announced.

The 2018 Swift is in its third generation, and features a long list of changes. Styling is all-new, and is similar to the Maruti Dzire’s design, but with lesser chrome for a sportier look. The car also gets mechanical changes – AMT is now available on both petrol and diesel variants, which means that the Swift will be sold with automatic variants for the first-time ever in the Indian market. In fact, bookings for the AMT models have been higher than those for the manual gearbox equipped variants, indicating that the market is ready to accept the Swift Automatic.

The engines and manual gearboxes will remain unchanged. The petrol engine will be the 1.2 liter K-Series motor with 82 Bhp-114 Nm, and the diesel engine will be the 1.3 liter turbocharged Fiat Multijet unit with 74 Bhp-190 Nm. Both engines will get 5 speed manual gearboxes as standard. The new Swift uses the light-weight HEARTECT platform, which is expected to make it much more peppier and frugal than the outgoing version. Maruti is also expected to launch the Swift Sport in India by end-2018.

Via HBL