By S.M. Boothem

Maruti Suzuki India’s Vitara Brezza has been a successful product ever since its launch in 2016.  The recently introduced new Brezza at a price between Rs7.99 lakh and Rs13.96 lakh has again won the hearts of customers by clocking more than 50,000 bookings. The Brezza in its new avatar comes as a feature-rich entry-level SUV.

“Conceptualized, designed and developed in India, Brezza, with its stylish design, bold stance and unmistakable road presence has redefined the compact SUV segment in India. The most loved compact SUV, with over 7,50,000 delighted customers has ruled the sales charts by consistently being among the top 10 best-selling passenger vehicles,” said Hisashi Takeuchi, MD and CEO, Maruti Suzuki at the launch.

“We started the Vitara Brezza in 2016 and it was a matter of pride for Maruti Suzuki’s engineering, design and development teams when we developed the Brezza from scratch.  And today after six years, we want to make the new Brezza stand out with better design, and performance and integrate more features for the new customers of today. So, all in all, the new Brezza is a great value proposition,” says CV Raman, Sr Executive Director – Engineering, Maruti Suzuki.

Suzuki standards

According to Raman, there were many challenges faced in making the new Brezza. From 2020 till 2022, the Covid pandemic created a lot of difficulties for the team, not only for Maruti but also its suppliers. There were setbacks in trying to meet timelines, keeping up quality levels and making sure everything was going just right.  But they also soon learned how to adjust to a new way of working in the digital age – working from home or working from anywhere, collaboration within the team and with the suppliers – to be able to meet the standards set by Suzuki.

A variety of features have been added to the new Brezza for the benefit of customers. The electric sunroof and the 360-view camera are the latest additions to the new Brezza. The 22.86 cm SmartPlay Pro+ Infotainment system with HD display offers an intuitive user interface with advanced Voice Assist. Wireless Charging Dock with LED indicator helps comfortable charging.

The Head-Up Display (HOD) allows customers to drive without taking their eyes off the road by displaying information like speed, rpm and fuel economy. It also offers 40+ connected features. Brezza sports six airbags, electric stability program (ESP) and Hill Hold Assist for the safety of the customer.

Young and aspirational customers

The compact SUV segment where Brezza is present has become the largest segment. Overall industry sales were 30.68 lakh units out of which about 12,30,000 were SUVs and the entry-level SUVs sold 6,52,000 numbers. It was not so large five years back. The top four compact SUVs were Brezza, Nexon, Venue and Sonet.