HOT ON THE HEELS of Honda’s New Small Con­cept, Suzuki has thrown another small car con­tender into the boom­ing Indian com­pact seg­ment in the form of the R3 MPV concept.

The new con­cept is (as usual) sparse on details, but we could expect to see any one of Suzuki’s 1.2 or 1.4 litre engines, a Fiat 1.4 or even an offer­ing from the Volk­swa­gen sta­ble, which now owns a con­sid­er­able stake.

Given Maruti’s 50% mar­ket stake in India, the vehi­cle is expected to do well within the coun­try, but may also find it’s way to Europe.

Maruit Suzuki R3 MPV Concept

PRESS RELEASE

Suzuki Announces Exhibits for Auto Expo 2010 in New Delhi

Suzuki Motor Cor­po­ra­tion is pleased to announce that its Indian auto­mo­bile pro­duc­tion sub­sidiary, Maruti Suzuki India, will be exhibit­ing the fol­low­ing vehi­cles at Auto Expo 2010 in New Delhi (to be held from 5 to 11 Jan­u­ary 2010*):
Con­cept model: R3

The Indian mar­ket is chang­ing rapidly and con­sumer lifestyles evolv­ing fast.
To cater to one such mar­ket need, Maruti Suzuki has devel­oped a con­cept car, R3.
The Con­cept R3 model is a Com­pact Multi Pur­pose Vehi­cle (MPV) for such peo­ple.
Designed by Maruti Suzuki India’s Research and Devel­op­ment Depart­ment, it com­bines com­pact dimen­sions with a styl­ish pro­fil­ing.
The Con­cept com­pact MPV accom­mo­dates six peo­ple in three rows.
Ref­er­ence exhibits (eco-​​vehicles): SX4 Hybrid and Eeco Elec­tric Vehicle

Maruti Suzuki India is tak­ing part in an Indian gov­ern­ment project that pro­motes hybrid and elec­tric vehi­cles.
It will be exhibit­ing two pro­to­type vehi­cles that Maruti Suzuki has devel­oped for the project: the SX4 Hybrid and the Eeco (Every+) Elec­tric Vehi­cle.
Pro­duc­tion mod­els and other ref­er­ence exhibits

Maruti Suzuki India will be show­ing 16 other auto­mo­biles includ­ing ten pro­duc­tion mod­els (13 units in total) and two ref­er­ence exhibits: the Kiza­shi and SX4 Hatch­back (three units in total).

Maruti Suzuki pavil­ion will also be high­light­ing Suzuki’s two-​​wheel lead­er­ship by show­ing nine motor­cy­cles: the Hayabusa, Intruder, and other large mod­els; the Thai-​​produced Sky­drive 125 scooter; and the Burgman Fuel Cell Scooter, which was last seen at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show.

Suzuki has piqued inter­est ever since the unveil­ing of the Kiza­shi con­cept back in 2007. After all, it’s not often we see a large car con­cept from the car­maker, known for it’s rally and motor­bike her­itage and a his­tory of com­pact (and very com­pe­tent) small cars.

The new Kiza­shi fol­lows some of the flow­ing lines we were shown with the Kiza­shi 2 con­cept, while clearly show­ing a refine­ment from the con­cept to an almost pro­duc­tion appear­ance. Gone are the daz­zling paint jobs, 4WD ride height, crossover sports wagon styling, and head­lights. Instead ver­sion 3 of the Kiza­shi rides on 21 inch, 9 spoke chrome wheels, sports a new, sharper head­light design, wider split grille, a more mus­cu­lar front end, and 350z style rear haunches becom­ing almost a 4 door sports car.

Along with the stun­ning styl­is­tic update come some juicy details. The new Kiza­shi will carry a 300HP ver­sion of the GM’s new DOHC 24-​​valve 3.6L V6, come with Suzuki’s advanced i-​​AWD sys­tem mated to a paddle-​​shifted 6 speed auto­matic trans­mis­sion and will com­fort­ably seat 5 persons.

It’s one of the most solid close-​​to-​​production con­cepts we’ve seen and Suzuki claims we will see pro­duc­tion of the Kiza­shi in some form in 2010, with con­struc­tion planned to be at Suzuki’s new Sagara plant in Japan. Here’s to see­ing Suzuki build this, and since we’re wish­ing, we might as well throw in a wish for the X-​​HEAD too.

Kiza­shi 3 Concept:

To all inter­state and local Ade­laide Japan­ese car lovers, a new event is on the hori­zon! Here’s the low down, straight from the horses mouth:

What is All Japan Day?

Sick and tired of car shows that spend so much time pro­mot­ing them­selves that they’ve for­got­ten all about the cars?

So was the All Japan Day organ­is­ing com­mit­tee! We decided to band together and cre­ate a sim­ple event that ‘got back to basics’ and allowed entrants and spec­ta­tors to do what they love doing best — just admire and talk about the sen­sa­tional cars on dis­play. By keep­ing it sim­ple, we’ve also kept the costs down, which has ben­e­fited both entrants and spectators.

We are very excited about our inau­gural event on 27 April 2008 and we hope its suc­cess will encour­age suit­able entrants from inter­state (maybe even over­seas? Mazda please send us a 787B racer!) in future years.

So, come and enjoy us for a relax­ing day out and be daz­zled by some of Australia’s finest Japan­ese automobiles.

So for those of you in Ade­laide who love Japan­ese cars, head over to the All Japan Day web­site to learn about becom­ing an entrant and spectator.