Toyota Urban Cruiser

Toyota enters the hotly contested compact SUV segment with the Urban Cruiser, the rebadged version of the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza

- Suvrat Kothari

IN EARLY 2019, TOYOTA announced a joint product development effort with Suzuki, including technology transfer by bringing together Toyota’s strength in electrification and Suzuki’s mastery in developing compact vehicles. While we haven’t seen an electrified Maruti Suzuki yet, as a part of this partnership, we have already seen the Toyota Glanza, a rebadged Maruti Suzuki Baleno. Now with the Vitara Brezza being supplied to Toyota and rebadged as the Urban Cruiser, Toyota will be able to gain a foothold in the crowded compact SUV segment.

How different is it?

At first glance, the Toyota and Suzuki appear identical, however look really closely and subtle differences are visible. The Vitara Brezza’s grille has been swapped for Toyota’s own dual-slat version, clearly inspired by the Fortuner’s. The front bumper has been redesigned and so have the (faux) skid plates (at both ends) along with chrome fog lamp surrounds. Together, these changes do make the Urban Cruiser a wee bit more SUV-like. The alloys get the Toyota logo and the thick chrome plate on the boot lid now reads Urban Cruiser in a font similar to Land Cruiser. These really are very subtle changes and it will be very hard to differentiate the Urban Cruiser from the Vitara Brezza at first glance unless you’re an automotive nerd.