Maruti Suzuki Baleno
Maruti Suzuki BalenoPR handout

Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest car-maker, launched the Automatic (Continuous Variable Transmission-CVT) Zeta petrol variant Wednesday, April 6. The new Zeta with CVT has been priced at Rs. 7.47 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). With this, automatic transmission is now available in the  Delta and Zeta mid-variants of the Baleno. The Delta Baleno was launched with CVT option in India.

"Baleno has rapidly found success to become a popular premium hatchback owing to its design, technology and performance. We are thankful to customers for the support and continue our efforts to improve its availability. The automatic option – Continuous Variable Transmission – offered on the Delta variant has been much appreciated by the customers. We are now offering CVT on the Zeta variant as well, to popularise two pedal technologies," RS Kalsi, executive director (Marketing & Sales) of Maruti Suzuki India Limited, said in a statement.

The Baleno, the global hatchback that made its India debut in October last year, is sold through the new Nexa premium chain of dealership. The premium hatchback bagged over 1 lakh bookings in four months and the company has delivered over 44,000 cars so far. The India-made Baleno is also exported to over 100 countries, including Japan. The Baleno is offered in four trims (Sigma, Delta, Zeta and Alpha) and comes in seven body shades, which are Granite grey, Solid fire red, Premium urban blue, Autumn orange, Metallic premium silver, Pearl arctic white and Ray blue.

Under the hood, Maruti Baleno includes 1.2-litre K-Series petrol engine and 1.3-litre DDiS diesel engine. While the 1.2-litre K-Series petrol engine is tuned to develop 83bhp and 115Nm of torque, the 1.3-litre DDiS diesel mill churns out 74bhp and 190Nm of torque. Both the engines are mated to a five-speed manual transmission and the petrol engine is also available with CVT automatic gearbox.

[1 lakh = 100,000 | 1 crore = 10 million | 100 crore = 1 billion]