Super Affordable Pocket Rocket: The Maruti Alto’s erstwhile 1000cc Avatar will be back soon

Maruti Alto

Once upon a time the Maruti Alto was a hoot to drive. This, as it came with a 1,061cc four potter that also did duty on the Maruti Suzuki WagonR. The 1.1 liter four potter petrol was particularly rorty on the Maruti Alto and people doing easy one sixties on the Alto wasn’t unheard of. Needless to say, the Indian obsession for fuel economy simply killed the Maruti Alto 1.1 with the 796cc, three cylinder variant outselling it by manyfold, thus forcing Maruti to pull the plug on the 1.1 liter Alto.

Once the Alto 1.1 hit the dust along with the mighty Zen being replaced by the gargoyle like Zen Estilo, pocket rocket enthusiasts simply didn’t have any fast small car worth it’s salt in the under INR 4 Lakh range. Now, all this could change rather dramatically with Maruti Suzuki once again making the right moves at the right time. Fast forward to 2009. when the advent of the smooth, revvy and fuel efficient K Series Engine from Maruti Suzuki proved to the world that brilliant power delivery and fuel economy can be happy bedfellows. The 998cc, three pot K Series Engine will soon grace the Maruti Alto’s engine bay.

Now with the headline reading hot hatch, you may be wondering what all the noise is about. Ok, here are some figures to make you smile. The 998cc K Series Engine produces about 67 Bhp of max shove and 90 Nm of max twist. The A-Star weighs in at a light 860 kilos, the light weight looking incredibly porky especially if you consider the Alto’s feather weight 705 Kilo kerb weight. So, you get a power to weight equation that is close to 100 Bhp per tonne and twist to weight number that easily betters the 100 Nm per tonne mark.

This is some really serious power and torque numbers especially for the Alto’s feather light proportions. Allied to the terrific real world mileage figures of about 16 KMPL, the Maruti Alto is all set to be reincarnated as a hot, frugal hatch that comes in a terrific price too. We expect the K Series Alto to be about INR 50,000 costlier than the cheaper 800cc variant. With all this power and torque, the Achilles heel of the Alto however could be the extremely light feel of the car at three digit speeds. Better tyres and a safety features like ABS and Airbags are definitely a must for the K Series Maruti Alto.

News Courtesy: The Hindu

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May 19, 2010 | By Jay Prashanth · Tags: 1000cc Maruti Alto, K Series Maruti Alto

Comments

One Response to “Super Affordable Pocket Rocket: The Maruti Alto’s erstwhile 1000cc Avatar will be back soon”

Indian Autos Blog on May 20th, 2010 2:30 pm

That’s a fair assessment. It will be a pocket rocket with 100bhp/tonne, but why should Maruti reincarnate the Alto, which sells for its fuel efficiency, as a hot hatch?

I think the K-Series engine will be de-tuned and the fuel efficiency of the new Alto should be about 25kpl.

This is my two dents on the K-Series Alto.

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