Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza
Maruti Suzuki Vitara BrezzaIBTimes India

Maruti Suzuki launched its first product to the burgeoning compact SUV segment on March 8. The Vitara Brezza has racked up over 40,000 bookings barely a month after its launch, and the company seems have been forced to increase its production due to the huge response.

An Economic Times report says Maruti Suzuki initially planned to produce 80,000 units of the Vitara Brezza a year. The increasing number of booking forced the company to hike the production to 1 lakh per year. The vehicle is also off to a good start with 5,563 units being dispatched in March. This is despite the fact that the deliveries commenced March 25.

India's largest car-maker by volume launched the Vitara Brezza for a starting price of Rs. 6.99 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The vehicle is available with only a diesel engine. It packs a 200DDis 1248cc mill that develops 88.5bhp at 4,000rpm and 200Nm of torque at 1,750rpmmated to a five-speed manual gearbox. The compact SUV also returns a class-leading claimed fuel efficiency of 24.3 kmpl.

The Vitara Brezza is the first model of Maruti Suzuki to be conceptualised, designed, developed and validated in India. It is offered in LDi, LDi (O), VDi, VDi (O), ZDi, ZDi+ and ZDi+ versions. Among the variants, the top-spec ZDis are in great demand. Reports say over half the bookings are for the ZDi variants, and the waiting period has now soared to six months.