Maruti brings ‘democracy’ to car customisation

In a push to reinvent itself as a vibrant brand that resonates with the youth, Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, will offer buyers of the Vitara Brezza, its compact SUV, the option of personalising their cars.

In a push to reinvent itself as a vibrant brand that resonates with the youth, Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, will offer buyers of the Vitara Brezza, its compact SUV, the option of personalising their cars.

Maruti officials pose the Vitara Brezza at its launch in Auto Expo 2016. (PTI)

Personalisation as an option has been available in the country, but only in the luxury vehicle segment.

With the ‘i-Create’, Maruti is will offer 90 different combinations of exterior garnishes, body graphics, alloy wheels, seat covers, interior styling kits, infotainment options and mats, that will make your Brezza stand out in the crowd.

For instance, a red Brezza can come with seats with red stitches and dashes of red on the door trim, central console and dashboard. The car can also have exterior attachments to make it more bold, or prettier for a lady. A car can also be fitted with LED screen and five-amplifier speakers and woofer to give it a home theatre feel.

The move makes sense as India continues to grow younger, with more than half of the population aged below 30-years.

“Every car that comes out of the factory looks the same… It is uniqueness that we are looking at suiting the car owner’s personality,” said RS Kalsi, head of sales and marketing at Maruti Suzuki.

So far, car buyers have been limited to generic accessories available at dealerships or at post-sales outfitters. But buying accessories from local shops, especially electronics, puts the warranty of the car at risk. Demand has been sinking, and over the last few years, hundreds of such shops have shut down.

Maruti dealerships, on the other hand, have seen people spending more on accessorising their cars, from an average of ₹3,000 per car five years ago to ₹10,500 now. For Brezza that number is already at ₹24,000, and the overall range is ₹5,000 to as high as ₹1 lakh or more, if the buyer opts for alloy wheels, leather seats, door trims and navigation systems, LCD screens for the rear seat and a 5-speaker sound system. All coming, mind you, from Maruti itself, not the dealership.

All the 90 combinations are specially designed for the Brezza at Maruti design studio in Gurgaon by a large team of designers (not car engineers) from the National Institute of Design, Kalsi said.

This is only the beginning. “We will take it (customisation) to other models. We are ‘democratising’ customisation,” Kalsi claimed. Now to see how the competition responds.