India’s best-selling car Maruti Suzuki WagonR’s journey to 30 lakh sales explained – Times of India

Maruti Suzuki today announced that the WagonR has achieved the 30 lakh sales milestone in India. The Maruti Suzuki WagonR has been constant in the list of India’s best-selling cars in its journey of over two decades. Introduced in 1999, the Maruti Suzuki WagonR hit the 15 lakh sales mark in 16 years, i.e. – 2015, and the second milestone of 15 lakh sales was achieved in just eight years.
The company launched the Wagon R in December 1999 with a tall-boy design and a 1061cc engine, which produced 66 hp of power. Later in 2003, the hatchback received a minor facelift and the upgrades included chrome in the front grille, and a body-coloured bumper among other changes. Initially, the exterior design of the car was disapproved by many as people found it to be too ‘boxy’. But due to the same boxy and tall-boy design, the WagonR offered significantly more space than its dimensions suggested. This made the car a hit among family-oriented buyers who wanted space for people and their luggage without having to pay a big premium. In its initial years, the WagonR had only one key rival in the form of the Hyundai Santro, which was also based on a tall-boy design. However, the wider network of Maruti Suzuki across the country and the Santro eventually being phased out left almost no direct rivals for it. Over the next few years, the WagonR competed with the Hyundai i10 and Chevrolet Beat with a milder tall-boy design approach but by then the WagonR seemed to be out of range of any attempts from its rivals to intercept its growth.

In 2006, Maruti Suzuki introduced the WagonR facelift with LPG as a fuel option. The 2006 WagonR facelift drew power from a 1.1-litre petrol engine, which made 66 hp power.
WagonR recorded sales of five lakh units in 2008 and a 10 lakh sales milestone in the year 2012. It achieved the 15 lakh sales milestone in 2015 in the Indian market. The hatchback continued to receive good traction from Indian customers and hit the 20 lakh sales mark in 2017.
In 2019, Maruti Suzuki introduced the third-gen WagonR, featuring the K-series Dual Jet, Dual VVT with Idle Start Stop (ISS) engine options (1.0L and 1.2L) combined with manual and AGS transmission. Available in dual-tone and monotone colour options, the WagonR is also available in 1.0-litre S-CNG variants in the Indian market.
Underpinning the fifth-gen HEARTECT platform, the current-gen Maruti Suzuki WagonR features Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) with Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD), Electronic Stability Control (ESC), and Hill-Hold in AGS. Prices for the current Maruti Suzuki WagonR range between Rs 5.51 lakh to Rs 7.30 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).