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.

Honda have debuted the ini­tial ver­sion of the new Honda New Small Con­cept at the Delhi Auto Expo.

The car is designed specif­i­cally for the boom­ing Indian small car seg­ment, with the pro­duc­tion ver­sion expected to fetch around $12,000 with Honda work­ing to ensure the car is locally pro­duced to keep costs down in the highly com­pet­i­tive segment.

Details are sparse on the spec­i­fi­ca­tions for the new con­cept, but engine, econ­omy and appoint­ments are expected to exceed offer­ings from Volk­swa­gen and Maruti Suzuki, India’s cur­rent mar­ket leader to occupy a lux­ury tier of the small car segment.

Honda New Small Concept