Toyota’s Maruti Baleno: CLEAREST render of the upcoming premium hatchback

You must know by now that Japanese car maker Toyota will launch re-badged versions of the Maruti Baleno and the Vitara Brezza in India. It’s said that the Toyota-badged Baleno and Vitara Brezza will carry some new styling elements that will lend them their own unique identity. Here are a couple of renders by Kleber Silva that show what the Toyota-badged Maruti Baleno could look like.

As per the render above, the front-end of the Toyota-badged Maruti Baleno will have an updated styling. It will get a new grille, a set of new head lamps and a new bumper. The new head lamps will be sleeker than those sported by the Maruti Baleno.

The car will also have a sleeker front grille and a larger air dam. As visualized in the above render, not much will change in the side profile. The only new bit here will be the new design alloy wheels.

At the rear, the car is expected to get an updated bumper and a set of wrap-around tail lamps. The engine options are likely to be carried over unchanged. Currently, the Baleno is available with three engines – a 1.2-litre K-Series petrol motor that produces 82 Bhp-113 Nm, a 1.0-litre turbocharged petrol motor that outputs 100 Bhp-150 Nm, and a 1.3-litre turbocharged diesel engine that produces 74 Bhp-190 Nm. All the engines come mated to 5-speed manual gearboxes as standard. The 1.2-litre petrol engine also gets a CVT as an option.

While the Baleno you see above looks pretty snazzy, it’s not the actual car and is merely a speculative render. The company is yet to make any sort of official statement on the updated styling of the Toyota-badged Baleno. So far, TKM has maintained that the changes on the badge-engineered Baleno and Brezza are still being finalized.

Here is what the company has said –  The changes on the badge engineered Baleno and Brezza are still under work-in-progress and how the final products get rolled out will be known over the course of time. Toyota will further boost their outlook on components localisation in support to ‘Make in India’ initiative, to achieve cost-effectiveness. We understand the price sensitivity of the Indian market. We will continue to keep up the price momentum in these directions. Further details are under discussion at this point in time.

Renderings courtesy – Behance