The country’s largest selling auto manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki has launched an updated version of its global small car, the A Star. The A Star is sold in many overseas countries like Europe and Latin America apart from being sold in the Indian market. The A Star, though a big hit in the European and other markets, didn’t quite become as much a success as compared to Maruti Suzuki’s other models. Now, however Maruti has made few changes to the 2012 version of the A star and first of all, all the changes made can be seen only in the interiors. The exterior remains the same and there has been no change to it. The changes made to the interiors include fresh upholstery, new front head restraints, ABS and air bags now made optional and new alloy wheels. Apart from this, the rear also gets a 50:50 split folding to double up as a boot when necessary.
The new A Star will now be available in Caffeine Brown and Glistening Grey paint jobs as well. The changes made are all welcome but there could have been many more enhancements offered. Under the hood, the car is still powered by the 1-litre, 3-cylinder K series petrol engine that delivers a power output of 67 PS at 6200 RPM and 90 Nm of torque at 3500 RPM. The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual or a 4 speed automatic gearbox and power is delivered to the front wheels. The car rides on 13-inch new alloys introduced. At the front, it features a McPherson strut and coil spring suspension while at the rear, it gets an isolated trailing link and coil spring. Stopping power is given by ventilated discs at the front wheels and drum brakes at the rear wheels. The updated A-Star is offered in all the 3 levels of trim. The updated A Star LXi variant starts at Rs. 3.66 lakhs while you have to pay Rs. 3.97 lakhs for the VXi manual variant. For the automatic, the VXi costs Rs. 4.47 lakhs while the ZXi costs Rs. 4.47 lakhs. With airbags and ABS, the VXi variant will retail at Rs. 4.40 lakhs.
