The Vision IN based compact SUV from Skoda remains to be one of the most eagerly anticipated car launches taking place in India this year. There was a lot of hype generated for this vehicle, particularly after Skoda had unveiled it in concept form during the Auto Expo last year. Add to it, the near-production version of the compact SUV was also spied on a couple of occasions while in its testing phase.
Amidst all the hype and potential comes some very interesting news from Skoda’s side. It is of the matter that the automaker have decided that the compact SUV will be christened the ‘Kushaq’ ahead of its launch. This was recently confirmed by Zac Hollis, Director of Skoda India via Twitter.
Interestingly, the name Kushaq is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Kushak’, which means King or Emperor. Skoda also said that the name was a perfect illustration of their marketing claim – ‘Driven by Inventions and Clever Ideas since 1895’. Coming to the name Kushaq, it is in-line with Skoda’s strategy of having similarly sounding names for their set of SUV’s.
That is, every upcoming SUV from the automaker will have their model name starting with the letter ‘K’ and ending with a ‘Q’. Hence, the Kushaq does join the likes of the Kodiaq and Karoq in Skoda India’s SUV line-up. The trio will further be joined by an upcoming mid-size SUV currently in the making.
Skoda are likely to be bringing the model here next year. As for the Kushaq, it is slated for an India launch in the middle of 2021. It will also be one of the first Skoda models to be underpinned by the MQB AO IN platform.
This platform has been developed by the Volkswagen Group exclusively for the Indian market, with their core focus being on keeping production costs at check. Hence, we can expect more models from Skoda to roll out in the near future employing the given platform. The Kushaq will particularly come powered by a new set of turbocharged petrol engines.
These include a 1.0 litre, three-cylinder version and a 1.5 litre, four-cylinder version of Turbo petrol motors. At the moment, both Volkswagen and Skoda do not have a single diesel engine on their portfolio here and like all their current models, the Kushaq will also be coming with a petrol-only model. We can expect Skoda to aggressively price the Kushaq by the time of its launch.
It could arrive here with a price tag starting from Rs.6 lakh onwards and going all the way to Rs.12 lakhs for the top trims. When launched, the Kushaq will come up against some formidable competition such as the Kia Sonet, Hyundai Venue, Tata Nexon, Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, Mahindra XUV300, Ford Ecosport and the recently introduced Nissan Magnite. Skoda will be having a lot of high hopes on the Kushaq and it remains to be seen whether the model could repay the faith induced by the automaker in terms of sales numbers.
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Also see: Skoda Vision IN SUV patent images leaked online
GALLERY: Skoda Kushaq
