Photo: Suzuki
Badge engineering goes back a long, long way as far as the automobile is concerned. One of the results of this means of doing business is how Mazda agreed to sell the sedan version of the Mazda2 in the United States of America as the Toyota Yaris iA.
Now we take a trip to India, where Suzuki is present through Maruti Suzuki. The Baleno is one of the cars on sale in this part of the world, and starting from the next fiscal year, Toyota will badge-engineer the subcompact hatchback for all the right (and wrong) reasons.
Even though everybody knows it is built by and engineered by Suzuki, Toyota decided to re-market the Baleno as a means to grab a larger share of the new vehicle market in India. LiveMint expects the newcomer to “undergo some minor changes in its exterior and interior” before arriving at dealers nationwide.
According to the cited publication, Suzuki “is likely to supply as many as 25,000 Maruti Suzuki Baleno premium hatchbacks each year to Toyota as the car gets set to become the first cross-badged product of the automakers.”
It should be mentioned that the source cites insider information, with spokespeople from Toyota and Suzuki declining to comment on the matter. What we do know for sure, however, is that both parties signed an agreement in March 2018 to sell each other’s models in India.
As part of the agreement, the Vitara Breeza sport utility vehicle will be marketed by Toyota and the Corolla sedan will be sold by Suzuki. For the time being, it should be mentioned the Baleno sells an average of 15,000 examples per month in the South Asian country.
“Toyota anyways doesn’t have any major investment plans in India until 2020,” one of the sources told LiveMint, “and the Baleno is a product which is being exported to other countries including Japan hence there will be no issue regarding quality.”
Even though everybody knows it is built by and engineered by Suzuki, Toyota decided to re-market the Baleno as a means to grab a larger share of the new vehicle market in India. LiveMint expects the newcomer to “undergo some minor changes in its exterior and interior” before arriving at dealers nationwide.
According to the cited publication, Suzuki “is likely to supply as many as 25,000 Maruti Suzuki Baleno premium hatchbacks each year to Toyota as the car gets set to become the first cross-badged product of the automakers.”
It should be mentioned that the source cites insider information, with spokespeople from Toyota and Suzuki declining to comment on the matter. What we do know for sure, however, is that both parties signed an agreement in March 2018 to sell each other’s models in India.
As part of the agreement, the Vitara Breeza sport utility vehicle will be marketed by Toyota and the Corolla sedan will be sold by Suzuki. For the time being, it should be mentioned the Baleno sells an average of 15,000 examples per month in the South Asian country.
“Toyota anyways doesn’t have any major investment plans in India until 2020,” one of the sources told LiveMint, “and the Baleno is a product which is being exported to other countries including Japan hence there will be no issue regarding quality.”
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