Maruti Baleno-based Toyota Glanza premium hatchback: Is this it?

Toyota has just teased the Glanza – a premium hatchback that’s a badge-engineered version of the Maruti Suzuki  Baleno. Rendering artists have already gotten to work, trying to put together renders of what the Toyota Glanza could look like. Here’s one such render coming in all the way from Indonesia, put together by Motoris.id.

As the render indicates, the Toyota Glanza retains the silhouette of the Maruti Baleno and even the alloy wheels, but  has a totally different front-end styling, which seems to be inspired by the Corolla sedan. This chrome-heavy front end styling is something that even we expect on the Toyota Glanza. Toyota has been known to go heavy on chrome on its cars sold in the Indian market, and the same could be the case with the Glanza as well.

While this render is what a lot of buyers would be expecting the Toyota Glanza could look like, it’s unlikely that Toyota would make such a drastic change in the car’s front end. Expect minimal changes  between the Glanza and Baleno, and this is likely to be the case even on the inside. The badge engineering exercise is likely to be limited to giving the car new badges considering the fact that the teaser indicated the same wheels, tail lamps and the rear bumper.

Under the hood, the Toyota Glanza is expected to be a petrol-only offering. The 1.3 liter Fiat Multijet diesel  engine, which the Maruti Baleno currently features, will soon be discontinued as it’s not ready for the Bharat Stage  6 (BS6) emission norms, which come into effect from April 2020. Globally, Toyota is moving away from diesel engines,  and its latest launch for the Indian market – the Yaris C-Segment sedan – is also a petrol-only model. What the  Toyota Glanza could instead get is the 1.2 liter DualJet petrol engine and mild hybrid combination, which has recently been introduced on the Maruti Baleno.

The 1.2 liter DualJet petrol engine uses two injectors per cylinder instead of the conventional one injector/cylinder  in order to burn fuel more cleanly. This layout boosts power and torque, and reduces fuel consumption and tail pipe  emissions. The motor makes 90 Bhp-120 Nm, which is a marked increase from the 1.2 liter K-Series naturally aspirated motor’s 82 Bhp-113 Nm outputs. The gearbox is a 5 speed manual, and Toyota is also expected to offer the CVT automatic gearbox as an option. The 1 liter BoosterJet turbo petrol engine is unlikely to be offered on the Toyota Glanza. A higher 3 year/100,000 Kms warranty is expected to offer on Toyota’s version of the Baleno.

It remains to be seen if Toyota exports the Glanza to other emerging markets around the world. Apart from the Glanza, Toyota has plans to build a range of other badge-engineered cars. The Brezza, new Ertiga and the facelifted Ciaz are the three other Maruti cars that will get badge engineered by Toyota mainly for the Indian car market. Some of these badge-engineered cars will be sold in other emerging markets of the world as well.