The mini pick-up van segment is one of the highest growing segments in the Indian automobile industry. The segment is currently being dominated by the Tata Ace. The high growth rate has lured many other key automotive players to venture into the market. The mini pickup truck segment is booming and every other automaker is either preparing to make a presence or is already present in the segment. The top automotive names in the country has already appeared in the mini pick-up truck segment like, Tata, Mahindra, Ashok Leyland and Piaggio and other main players like Baja Auto, Daimler and Maruti Suzuki is planning to get into this high growth segment. There are rumors about Maruti being trying to come up with a smaller pickup truck from one of its under construction factory in Gujarat.
The new truck from Maruti will be appearing with the carrying capacity of 1 to 1.5 tons. The mini truck is expected to be powered by the diesel engine as most of the mini trucks are powered with the same. Interestingly there are also news about Suzuki being developing two smaller turbo diesel mills, a 1 litre and a 1.4 litre engine.
The mini truck is expected to use one of these new diesel engines. Currently the only diesel engine in the Maruti Suzuki product lineup is the 1.3 litre Multijet diesel engine outsourced from Fiat.
The mini pickup truck from Maruti Suzuki is code named as Y-9T. The factory in Gujarat from Maruti will be fulfilling the domestics and export demand of the truck. In the African countries, the demand for the pickup trucks is quite high, these vehicles are also known as bakkies in that part of the world. So, it is also expected that this Maruti truck may also make its way towards the African countries. With the work going on it is expected that the Maruti will be launching this mini truck will appear in the Indian market somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Currently Maruti is targeting to get over 40% of the market share in the small vehicle segment. This clearly indicates that how excited is company about the launch of this vehicle.