Maruti to roll out new-look Esteem

Maruti Udyog, India's biggest carmaker, will launch a 'new look' mid-size sedan 'Esteem' early next week with an aggressive pricing strategy.

The new look 'Esteem', which would be competitively priced, has been designed in-house. The move was aimed at sprucing up the image of the car, which was launched about 10 years back, industry sources said.

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The 'Esteem', which topped the list of J D Power and NFO, global market survey agencies, for its quality and cost of ownership, needed a new look, they said.

The new entry-level mid-size car, which has 1300cc MPI engine has been developed in India by the engineers of Suzuki.

Maruti, which is 54.2 per cent-owned by Suzuki Motor Corp, Japan, has already designed the variant of compact car 'Zen' in India.

The new version of 'Esteem' would help Maruti garner a considerable share in mid-size car market, which was growing at a considerable pace, they said.

The 'Esteem' is pitted against Ford's 'Ikon' and Tata's 'Indigo'.

At present, the base model of 'Esteem' sports a price tag of Rs 476,000 (ex-showroom, Delhi).

With Suzuki taking over the management control of Maruti, the Japanese mini car major had announced that Maruti would be an R&D hub for its Asian operations.

Maruti was able to design the 'Zen' variant in India late last year.

The in-house design of the upcoming 'Esteem' would help the company launch more variants in future, industry experts said.

At present, 'Esteem' is available is five variants.

Sales of 'Esteem' grew 10 per cent to 11,500 units last year.

The move to introduce a new variant of its mid-size car comes close on the heels of Maruti's efforts to strengthen its compact car category which consists of 'Alto', WagonR' and 'Zen'. The company has also brought down the prices of its premium mid-size car 'Baleno'.