2012 MARUTI SUZUKI SWIFT ALPHA EDITION PETROL MODEL LAUNCHED IN INDIA

Sales of petrol cars are nothing to write home about except in the entry level segment where the likes of the Alto, Nano and Eon continue to do brisk business. In almost every other segment, where there is a choice of a diesel engine option, car buyers are simply jumping on to the diesel bandwagon. One such model is the super popular new Maruti Suzuki Swift hatchback, which is a big seller for the Indian car maker. However, Swift buyers are showing a steep tilt towards the diesel engined model with petrol engined Swifts only making for 20% of the sales.

This means that Maruti is lining up every trick in the book to entice car buyers into buying the petrol engined models. Apart from lining up attractive discounts on most of its petrol cars to the latest move of pricing the Ertiga’s petrol variants super competitively, the country’s largest car maker is going a step ahead to woo petrol car buyers. This time around, the new Swift is the latest petrol car from Maruti Suzuki to get a host of goodies, at no extra price. Maruti has launched a new Swift variant called the Alpha Edition, which is available only for the VXi mid variant of the hatchback.

The good thing about this car is that Maruti hasn’t bumped up prices for the extra features, ostensibly to ensure that the model is attractive enough for petrol buyers. While Maruti calls the Swift Alpha petrol a “special edition” it remains unknown whether the car maker will make limited quantities of the car. Meanwhile, here’s what the Maruti Swift Alpha edition packs in in terms of extra equipment,

With Maruti having kickstarted the trend of offering more features on a petrol ca without hiking prices, the competition might take cue of this and might be lining up loaded petrol car variants in the coming months. However, it remains to be seen whether this strategy brings in the desired results as petrol cars still suffer the handicap of higher running costs due to the wide difference between petrol and diesel fuel prices. So, it might take more than just additional features to offset the big advantage that diesel engine cars have.