India’s largest automaker, Maruti Suzuki has launched the mid-life facelift of one of India’s most popular and most loved cars, the Maruti Suzuki Swift. Maruti Suzuki had introduced the Swift way back in 2005 and since then it has kind of been dominating the hatch/premium hatch segment. Despite the rising competition, Swift has not lost its ground. Nope, not an inch. Here is a list of changes that the 2021 Swift differs in over its predecessor.
More details
First of all, a noteworthy point. As aforementioned, this is merely a mid-life facelift of the Swift so there aren’t any drastically major changes as such.
Design
Starting off with the design aspect of the 2021 Swift, the biggest and perhaps the most noticeable difference up front by far is the redesigned front fascia. It now gets a large honeycomb grille upfront with an authoritative chrome strip that runs across the grille through the centre-line. Moreover, the Suzuki logo now sits in the upper half, above the chrome strip and the number plate seemingly below the strip. Its rear end remains mostly intact barring the slight tweak to its bumper. All these design changes are intended to freshen up the look of the Swift every now and then and keep it up to date with the modern design language to ensure it doesn’t lose out to the competition.
On the sides, the alloys are redesigned as well. The new Swift will be available in three dual-tone shades: Pearl Arctic White with Pearl Midnight Black Roof, Solid Fire Red with Pearl Midnight Black Roof, Pearl Metallic Midnight Blue with Pearl Arctic White Roof.
Updated cabin with more features
Moving to the inside, it is again, majorly the same as its predecessor. Noteworthy changes include a revised fabric upholstery, and a new audio head unit with reworked controls. The top trims now get a cruise control feature which should ease out the drive on the highways. Also included in the top trims is a new MID unit in the instrument cluster and auto-folding ORVMs. All of these are aimed at further easing the work of the driver.
Updated powertrain
The biggest change overall sits under the hood. The Swift is now powered by a K12N 1.2L, naturally aspirated dual jet VVT petrol engine that now pumps out 89BHP of peak power, up 6BHP from 83 in its predecessor, while the peak torque output remains the same at 113Nm.
Also included with this new engine is a start/stop system which should help conserve fuel; very helpful considering how the fuel prices are shooting up and up and up some more, with its sight set for a century. The claimed fuel economy is up as well, over its predecessor, claiming 23.2kmpl for the manual transmission and 23.76 for the AMT unit, a considerable rise from 21.2 kmpl which the previous version offered.
The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission and a 5-speed AMT unit which now gets a hill-hold function for further convenience of the driver.