The Zen Estilo is a cute car, though not cute as a rabbit like the Matiz. It is more of a warped cuteness. It's more like a cross between Drew Barrymore and the Mogwai from Gremlins. To put it in perspective, I loved it, my wife hated it. It should have been the other way around since it is supposed to be a cute car.

But it's not the cuteness that the Zen Estilo is about. The new hatchback from Maruti is all about the company playing on its strengths and playing to the gallery. So what we have is a very dependable package at a very attractive price.

The dependable package comes from the ALTO platform which already provides the underpinnings for the Alto and Wagon R models from Maruti. The ALTO platform is recognized in Suzuki under a large number of names (YC3 / YC4 / YC5 / YR3 / YR6 / YL6 etc etc) though the iteration which provides the underpinnings here is the YL6 version. The body shell look quite similar to the just out-of-production MR Wagon though I am not sure if Maruti shipped some moulds and dies from Japan to India.

The Estilo comes with the same engine as the Wagon R and some bits and pieces in the interiors can be traced to some other Maruti models. Sure cost saving is the buzzword here, though it walks the thin wire of adding to the sales volumes and eating the Wagon R for breakfast. The closeness to the Wagon R cannot be avoided and Maruti marketing will have a tough task of positioning the Wagon R and Zen Estilo with minimum cannibalization.

Maruti is again playing the introductory price gimmick with the Estilo - the car will be available for an unbelievable price of INR 319,000 till the time Maruti marketing boffins decide that enough is enough. The gimmick worked very well with the Swift and it seems to be working fine with the Estilo - with 10,000 bookings in 10 days.