Suzuki Ravi (called as the Carry LCV elsewhere) is Tata Ace’s rival in Pakistan. The upcoming Indian version is yet to be named.
Maruti Suzuki being the No.1 manufacturers of cars in the Indian market is also planning to enter into the LCV segment. Way back in 1983, when Maruti Udyog Ltd. was set-up in India, it had opened countrywide bookings for its Maruti 800 model and the Carry LCV. While the M 800 received 121,000 bookings, the Carry had only about 2,000. Thereafter, the company decided to drop the plans for launching the LCV.
After seeing the considerable growth of LCV’s recently in the Indian market, Maruti has now decided to go ahead with their plan which was actually on hold. Maruti’s new LCV is expected to be launched in two years in a view of competing Tata Ace, Mahindra Maxximo and Ashok Leyland Dost which is of great demands in the current market. It would be based on the Suzuki Carry platform which is currently on-sale in China, Indonesia and Pakistan.
As per the reports, Mr. R C Bhargava, Chairman, MSIL, said “It was planned in our original agreement (with SMC) in 1982 that the Carry LCV would be launched in India but at that time, due to poor response from the market, it was shelved. Now the situation has changed and the board has given approval to go ahead for launching the LCV in India. Our engineers are working on adapting the diesel engine that we have licensed from Fiat (1.3-litre MultiJet) to be used in the LCV. This will be a pure goods carrier.”
The new LCV being in its initial stage of development is expected to be produced in the upcoming Maruti’s Gujarat plant which is likely to commence its production from 2015.
Check out more pictures of the same, after a jump.
Also see – Maruti Suzuki gets approval from the Board in order to Manufacture LCV
Suzuki Ravi – FrontView
Suzuki Ravi – SideView
Suzuki Ravi – RearView
Source – Financialexpress.com
