Maruti Future S micro SUV for India teased; Debut at 2018 Auto Expo

Maruti Suzuki has just put out a teaser of the Future S concept SUV. It will be officially revealed at the 2018 Indian Auto Expo, which is scheduled for the first week of February at Greater Noida. The Future S will be a micro SUV, to be positioned below the Vitara Brezza sub-4 meter compact SUV. In fact, the concept is said to measure over 200 mm shorter than the 4 meter long Vitara Brezza. This makes it a proper micro SUV in terms of size.

The market launch is expected to happen by the end of 2018, or early 2019. In terms of pricing, the Future S concept’s production model is expected to cost similar to the Mahindra KUV100. The new micro SUV from Maruti will be based on the Suzuki HEARTECT platform. This platform uses high tensile steel to keep weight low and stiffness high. It’s the same platform used by multiple Maruti cars such as the Baleno, the new Dzire and the all-new 2018 Swift.

The micro SUV is expected to share the 1.2 liter K-Series petrol engine that’s already avaulable on multiple Maruti cars. This engine puts out 82 Bhp of peak power and 112 Nm of peak torque. It is available with multiple transmission options – 5 speed manual, AMT, a CVT and even a 4 speed torque converter. For the micro SUV, the 5 speed manual and AMT options are likely to be offered. The diesel engine will be the newly developed sub-1.5 liter turbocharged engine that Suzuki will soon launch in multiple Maruti cars.

CV Raman, the Senior Executive Director (Engineering), Maruti Suzuki India Limited, speaking to Autocar said this,

The increasing preference for UVs and their bold architecture inspired our design team to study a new character for compact cars. Concept FutureS could mark a distinctive shift in how compact cars are shaped and designed in India in the future. That’s where we feel the market is evolving. But, we have to see how much lower we can go below the Brezza, and this is something we are experimenting with in terms of proportions and design. But, it’s always a challenge to do this in the compact segment. Trying to get high seating, good legroom, good visibility while balancing the proportions is quite tough but we feel we’ve managed to achieve this. We always look at large volumes and want to be the leaders in whatever segments we get into.