Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), the country's largest passenger car manufacturer, may shelve the manufacturing operations of its Zen Estilo brand model, owing to its rapidly falling sales figures in the domestic market. The Zen Estilo compact car, a revamped version of the past big selling Zen hatch, has failed to capture the imagination of domestic car enthusiasts, since its launch on Indian turf in 2009. Sources suggest that Maruti Suzuki is presently working on towards a replacement model of the Zen Estilo, which could see Indian daylight somewhere around the 2013 October – November Diwali festivities.
The Maruti Zen subcompact small car was one of the best selling models of the company in the past, but started witnessing problems in terms of sales with the advent of Hyundai Santro during the late 1990s. The surging popularity of Hyundai Santro among domestic audience led Maruti Suzuki to introduce a number of facelift variants of the Zen car. However, the new Zen trim-levels failed to recreate the glorious success of the original model and were dubbed failures in the Indian auto market. Maruti Suzuki modified the carline and introduced the new Zen Estilo in a 'Tall Boy' avatar. Last year, Maruti Suzuki declared that last year it has slashed production operations of its WagonR, A-Star and Zen Estilo models, in order to avoid pile up of their inventories.
The upcoming Zen Estilo replacement model from Maruti Suzuki is anticipated to be a new variant of the A-Star hatchback, with the launch expected sometime during this year's Diwali festivities. As per reports, designing of the 2013 Maruti Suzuki A-Star hatch is in the final stages at Suzuki's factory floors in Japan. Sources have also suggested that Maruti Suzuki could also introduce a Cervo compact hatchback with a 1.0 litre engine, if it discontinues the Zen Estilo brand in the Indian auto market.
