Changhe Suzuki to produce new WagonR
Kei car fans across China can now really start to rejoice, first it was the the new Alto that Suzuki put into production in China (albeit with Chang-an Suzuki) but the new WagonR is about to be produced in China as well with Suzuki’s other JV partner, Chang He.
It was rumoured that the Changhe car producing venture was soon to be canned in favour of other more profitable ventures, but it seems that may have been a ruse to get Suzuki to further invest in the JV that currently only produces the mark 2 WagonR and the badly in need of replacement Suzuki Liana, whilst Chang-an Suzuki gets all the good stuff (SX4, new Alto, and Swift).
The new WagonR is expected to launch in 2010 with the 2008 Japanese model, which has been a top seller in the Japanese market over the past few months. Although the Japanese model gets a 660cc engine, the Chinese model is likely to get a 1.4L engine and the choice of a 5 speed or 4 speed automatic gearbox.
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wow! awesome news – any idea what the pricing is going to be? now just three steps to go:
1. get a chinese license
2. convince my wife that this is a good idea
3. enter the shanghai auction for a plate (probably nearly as expensive as the car itself, haha)
Which model will it be? The 2008 model in Japan is out of production so they are sending tooling to China?
I love China.
i think they mean that it would be the 4th-generation WagonR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Wagon_R). this was first released in japan in 2008, although as you mention that year is probably out of production now.
who knows how it works – do they send over japanese-made tooling? do they recreate all of the worker processes that happen in japan? is the quality really the same?
the same goes for suzuki’s indian partner, maruti, who also makes a version of the WagonR.
I saw the Maruti model and it looks totally different than the Japanese one. It is pretty ugly.