Currently on sale in South AfricaPowered by a 1.5-litre K-series engine

The cross-badging saga continues

The cross-badging saga for Toyota and Maruti is expected to take a new turn later this year with the possible arrival of the Rumion MPV. It is a rebadged version of the very successful Maruti Ertiga MPV and is currently on sale in South Africa. It will be the fourth shared product between the two Japanese automakers and will be the third time that Toyota has tapped into Maruti’s mass market expertise. Now officially both manufacturers are being tight-lipped about the Rumion’s India arrival but we think it will make a good case for itself in the Indian market and here is why…

Toyota is the king of MPVs

Toyota has a strong reputation for two things in India- After sale with service and making sturdy people movers. The latter should play into their hands very well. It had no reason to stop the Qualis in 2005 and replace it with the Innova but did so and it seemed to have little effect on Toyota’s sales and in fact, boosted their numbers.

It’s a similar story with the Crysta and the Hycross, though in the current case, both vehicles are selling side-by-side. Our point in this is that Toyota has won the battle of Innova becoming an aft used term when talking about MPVs in India. It should be able to build on Innova’s nearly two-decade-old reputation to sell a lower-priced people mover even if its obviously a rebadged car. There’s also the fact that Toyota sells well over 6000 units of the Hycross and Crysta every month without fail and this in a segment where touching 1500-2000 units a month is a massive number.

Rumion is produced in India

A majority of Maruti’s budget cars are produced in India for global markets either as CKDs or CBUs, Ertiga and Rumion included. This means that the car is already here and Toyota would just have to prep its sales and service network to bring in the car for the domestic market.

Has support for 1.5 engine and allied components

This is actually a continuation of the previous point but deserves its own space. The Rumion is powered by Maruti’s 1.5-litre K-Series engine producing 102bhp/138Nm and can be had with either a five-speed manual or a six-speed torque converter automatic. This is the same engine offered in the mild hybrid versions of the Urban Cruiser Hyryder. This means that Toyota already has in place its service network for this engine and its allied components.

Ertiga sales numbers

Since its launch in early 2012, the Ertiga has been an absolute titan in terms of sales numbers usually selling between 5000-8000 units every month without fail. Even post the peak Covid period when the market opened up, Maruti was still able to move up to 3500 cars a month. Based on this success and the fact that people now know a re-badged product works, the Rumion should see good numbers. This is of course also dependent on how Toyota prices the car. It will be priced higher than the equivalent Maruti product but going by the pricing trend of a current lot of shared products, it’s expected to be in the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 30000.