India's largest passenger car manufacturer Maruti planning to launch the newer version of Maruti SX4 with more powerful engine. Maruti has stopped the manufacturing of this expensive mid-sized sedan model Maruti SX4 as it did not got much popularity as compay's other products and company planning to re-launch it with more powerful 1.6L petrol engine which will offer much higher acceleration in comparison to existing one. The new model will be more costly than its current top end (ZXI) variant. Maruti Suzuki India will also rope in famous Bollywood star John Abraham as the new brand ambassador for this sporty model Maruti SX4 to arrest its falling sales.

Maruti has launched Maruti SX4 in May 2007 with three petrol manual variants to compete Honda City which is the most popular and successful sedan in its segment. But Maruti SX4 could not compete with Honda City's superior technology and brand image. At the time of launch it good success in Indian market and it was ahead of Honda City with sales of more than 3000 units of cars in first three months but soon it sales decreased when Honda launched the third generation of Honda City in November 2008. Now the sales of Maruti SX4 is just few hundred units per month.


Honda has sold around 37,600 units of Honda City till August 2009 since its third generation was launched (November 2008) on the other hand Maruti has sold only 9763 units of Maruti SX4 during this period. The new Maruti SX4 will be launched also with the automatic transmission variant which will be the first sedan model from Maruti. The launch of new Maruti SX4 will be another attempt from Maruti to prove that it can build all kind of cars.