Vitara Brezza Interiors Suck! Worse that Celerio & WagonR

Looking at the Vitara Brezza's interior was one if the biggest disappointments of my life. As the first teasers of the Vitara Brezza started rolling out, the expectations started growing. The test mules had cleverly hidden the excellent detailing and we'll matched exterior trims of the Brezza. But as Maruti's marketers started giving us a glimpse of the finished product, we were thoroughly impressed. There's seemed to be just the right amount of chrome detailing, the right colour shades, the well executed contrast roof and perfectly chosen trim textures and colours.

Until now the interiors were yet to be revealed. Spy shots of the prototypes were circulating on the web. But looking at the exteriors, we definitely expected the production interior to be just as premium. After all the Brezza was going to have to complete with the likes of the Hyundai Creta. But when we saw the expo exhibit we were aghast! Surely there must have been done mistake. These cannot be the interiors of the end product.
Even Maruti's own products that are available at less than half the price of the Brezza have more premium interiors. Check out the Celerio's interiors. They are dual-tone, have a better design and equally good if not better fit and finish.

And Celerio is not an isolated example  either. When the WagonR has better interiors than the Brezza.

In today's day and age customers will expect an interior as premium as the Ignis, which is Maruti's own upcoming product and which is actually going to slot below the Brezza in terms of pricing.

But will these interiors lead to rejection of the product by the customers? Not really. So sadly it may only lead to cheaper and cheaper interiors in Maruti's upcoming cars in the near future.

Maruti-Suzuki Ignis - Failure Guaranteed, yet again, just like S-cross, A-star and Ritz

Why does a supremely successful manufacturer like Maruti-Suzuki end up making failed products, sometimes? A company which claims that it understands the Indian car market and the customer like the back-of-its-hand, still it cannot avoid sinking in 1000 Crore rupees in development costs of a failed product every two years. That's because just like every other automobile manufacturer in the world, Maruti-Suzuki is also largely clueless about what customers want, but because they have 2000+ dealerships and because they were the only Japanese car maker who was allowed to establish themselves by Gandhis for a decade before 1991 economic reforms, they are able to sell even the most generic products in huge numbers.

So why are we putting our neck out to bet against the behemoth of the Indian automotive industry? It's because we believe that we understand the Indian car buyers way better than all the automotive manufacturers, combined. That does sound like a tall claim, but this is where we want to start proving it. We promise that if the Ignis succeeds, we will publish a public apology to Maruti-Suzuki. So what is the criteria that we would define for its success? Well anything selling upwards of 10,000 units per month has to be counted as successful. If it sells around 7000 units per month like the Celerio, we would still count it as successful. However, if it self less than 2500 units a month like the S-cross, A-star or Ritz, it is roughly 1 car per sales & sevice touch point and that would definitely be counted as a failure.

So why do we think that the customers will reject the supposedly up and coming micro-SUV segment vehicle from India's favourite car maker? Well, firstly however much Maruti may hope, customers are not going to perceive it as a SUV. Making a car tall and boxy does not necessarily make it an SUV. Secondly, it is smaller in length and width than the Baleno hatchback and even the Swift. This means, it's 'Prestige' factor is bound to be somewhere between that of the Celerio and Swift, closest to that of the WagonR. Thirdly, it is going to be more expensive than the Swift and Baleno and maybe even the Dzire, because it uses higher quality components and switchgear from Suzuki's future parts bin. This means that its 'prestige-to-price' ratio is going to be really poor. The offering could be verbally explained as 'Ritz facelift at the price of a Ciaz' in the words of the prospective customers. Which makes it quite obvious that there's gonna be very few buyers for it.

If you disagree with us, let's get the debate going in the comments below. As for the veracity of our claim let's wait and watch how it fares in monthly sales reports till six months post it's launch.