It has emerged that leading Indian auto maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd would directly benefit from the recent deal for contract manufacturing of Ertiga MPV that has been signed between parent automaker group Suzuki and Mazda.
As we reported yesterday, the Mazda VX-1 that has recently been launched in Indonesia is essentially a rebadged Maruti Ertiga MPV. The kits of Maruti Ertiga are being shipped by MSIL to Indonesia, where the MPV is being sold with a Suzuki badge. As part of the latest agreement, some of these CKD kits later go to Mazda, where they are rebadged and slight styling changes are made. Now, Maruti directly benefits from this deal as it gets to sell 1.4 litre K Series petrol-engine to Mazda.
Visually, the Ertiga and the VX-1 are almost the same, with only the VX-1’s grille being different. Other minor differences include addition of chrome door handles, side skirt and door moulding.
As we have been telling our readers, Indonesian car market is very favourable to sellers of MPVs and such is the demand for such vehicles that Eritga is among the highest selling cars in the country. While the recent deal will give a marginal push to the revenues of MSIL, it will also help the carmaker with completely utilizing its petrol engine manufacturing capacities.
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. currently supplies more than 50,000 units of Ertiga to Suzuki Indonesia annually and this number looks poised to head north with the recent deal that has been signed between the Suzuki and Mazda.
via TOI