Maruti S-Presso BLASTS past 10,000 units in a single month: Ahead of Vitara Brezza

The Maruti S-Presso is going great guns. It just sold 10,634 units in October 2019 – its second month in the market. These numbers mean that the S-Presso is actually ahead of Maruti Suzuki’s best selling SUV – the Vitara Brezza, which managed to do 10.227 units in the same month. As for direct competition – read Renault Kwid – the S-Presso has outsold it by nearly 5,000 units. Maruti Suzuki calls the S-Presso a ‘micro SUV’, and even lists it under the SUV section in its website. This effectively means that the S-Presso is the automaker’s best selling SUV, although it’s more of a raised hatchback as far as most buyers are concerned. Key selling points of this S-Presso are its butch styling, high ground clearance of 180 mm and highly affordable price tag (starting at Rs. 3.69 lakhs).

The S-Presso shares its underpinnings with a wide range of Maruti cars including the WagonR and the Ertiga. It’s based on the HEARTECT platform, which uses high tensile, light weight steel to keep weight low and structural rigidity high. In fact, the S-Presso is Maruti’s lightest car, weighing just 726 kilograms. This makes it lighter than even the Alto 800.  The car is offered with a 3 cylinder, 1 liter K-Series petrol engine that is Bharat Stage 6 (BS6) emission norms compliant. This motor puts out 67 Bhp of peak power and 90 Nm of peak torque. There are two gearbox options on offer – a 5 speed manual and a 5 speed automated manual transmission (AMT).

The light weight of the S-Presso means that it quite peppy, and fuel efficient. The ARAI certified mileage of this car stands at 21.4 Kmpl for the manual variant and 21.7 Kmpl for the AMT trim, which makes the automatic version of the car more efficient than the manual, at least on paper. In the real world as well, the Maruti S-Presso AMT is likely to be highly fuel efficient car. Expect to get at least 15 Kmpl in real world conditions, on an average from both the manual and AMT trims of the car.

Talking safety, the S-Presso gets a driver’s airbag, seat belt reminder, ABS, reverse parking sensors and speed alerts as standard features across variants. The top-end trims offer an additional passenger airbag. In terms of convenience features, the car gets a power steering and air conditioning as standard features. Higher trims get a touchscreen infotainment system running Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The S-Presso rivals the Renault Kwid Climber in price terms. Maruti will soon launch a CNG-Petrol dual fuel version of the car in select markets across India.