This Maruti Brezza wants to be a Land Rover

A lot of Maruti Brezza owners across India seem to have a thing for Jeeps. How else do you explain hundreds of Brezzas running the signature 7 slat Jeep Grille in place of the stock grille that Maruti offers. And it’s not Jeep alone that has caught the fancy of Vitara Brezza owners across India. Land Rover is another iconic brand that many Maruti Brezza owners want to ape, and here’s evidence. As the image indicates, the Maruti Brezza gets a Land Rover honeycomb grille – a design that was last seen on the likes of the Freelander2 and Discovery.

Image courtesy BalajiMG

The Maruti Brezza is India’s best selling SUV by far. The sub-4 meter, high ground clearance SUV is offered as a diesel-only model, and yet manages to outsell competition, which offers both petrol and diesel engines, and a significantly larger set of variants. The Brezza is powered by the 1.3 liter Fiat Multijet turbocharged diesel engine in 89 Bhp-200 Nm state of tune.

A five speed manual gearbox is standard while an automated manual transmission is offered as an option. Maruti Suzuki will discontinue the diesel engined Brezza from its line up come 2020. From April 2020, Bharat Stage 6 (BS6) emission norms kick in, and these norms will be a lot more stringent than the existing BS4 norms.

Enter the Brezza Petrol!

Maruti Suzuki is working on a petrol engine for the Brezza, and the petrol engined variant is likely to be launched later this year, along with a mid life makeover for the SUV. The petrol engine in question is the 1.5 liter K-Series unit that made its debut on the facelifted Ciaz. This motor makes 104 Bhp-138 Nm, and is offered with a 5 speed manual gearbox.

There’s a 4 speed automatic gearbox that’s also on offer with this engine on the likes of the Ciaz and Ertiga. We expect the same to be carried over to the petrol Brezza. Another thing about this engine is the fact that it’s offered only with a mild hybrid option. We expect even this to be offered with the Maruti Brezza Petrol, which will make the SUV the first petrol-mild hybrid vehicle in its segment.

The Brezza is also expected to get a bunch of new features considering that the competition has really upped the game when it comes to having a well rounded feature set. The recently launched Hyundai Venue and Mahindra XUV300 sub-4 meter compact SUVs has dramatically increased competition in this segment, and it’s about time that Maruti responds with not just the petrol-hybrid powertrain but also with a proper facelift and a improved feature set.