Maruti Suzuki Swift Cross: This is what it’ll look like

Maruti Suzuki currently has two SUV/Crossover under its product lineup in India. This includes the subcompact SUV Maruti Suzuki Viatara Brezza and the S-Cross. The company has been planning to launch a new bigger SUV to challenge the Hyundai Creta since some time now. The company already has market dominance in almost every segment under the Rs. 10 lakh price mark and a Maruti branded Corolla sedan will help it to further broaden its lineup. However, going by the new trend of creating crossovers of popular hatchbacks by manufacturers, what if Maruti Suzuki tried to create a crossover version of its popular Swift hatchback? The answer to that is what you see below in the form of this Maruti Suzuki Swift Cross rendering.

Created by CarToq in house visual illustrator Vipin Vathoopan, the Maruti Suzuki Swift Cross mixes the designs of the popular mid-size hatchback with the ruggedness of an SUV. The hatchback crossover segment in India is populated by players like the Renault Kwid, Tata Tiago NRG, Ford Freestyle, Toyota Etios Cross and the Fiat Avventura. Maruti also offers the Celerio X in the segment but truth to be spoken, it doesn’t really measure up against the other more powerful and feature-rich rivals. Therefore, it would make perfect sense for Maruti to enter the segment with the Swift hatchback.

Talking about the Maruti Cross here, it gets a host of changes both aesthetically as well as mechanically. The nose is slightly recessed in and has a more butch appearance than the sharp nose of the Swift hatchback. The bumper is a new unit with its bottom end blacked out and gets different foglamp housing design. the sides feature bigger and slightly flared wheel arches to accommodate the large wheels. Speaking of which, the Swift Cross runs on big rims that have been blacked out for added visual appeal. Black body cladding runs all across the lower body of the car to give it a more tough look along with providing protection from lower body scratches. The ground clearance of the car has gone up considerably which will enable it to counter broken tarmac without any issue.

The suspension setup of the car would also be made a bit stiffer and also raised to some extent. However, the suspension would have to be tuned carefully so as to provide a smooth ride at low speed along with preventing body roll at high speeds and shard turns. The orange paint shade looks quite good on the car and is aptly contrasted by the black coloured elements across the car’s body. As for the engine, the new 1.5 litre diesel powertrain that will be launched on the Ciaz and Ertiga this year could be used here too.

The Swift Cross could be a feasible concept should Maruti decide to bring it to production. We are saying this based on the recent market trend which shows the SUV/Crossover segment to be among the fastest growing sectors in the auto industry globally. Global bigwigs like Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini (though they made an SUV some decades back), Aston Martin and now Ferrari getting onto the SUV bandwagon is something that further strengthens this claim. In India too, the past decade has seen a lot of new SUV segments coming up which includes hatchback crossovers, sub-compact SUV, and compact SUVs. Therefore, a Swift Cross is not a bad idea at all.