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Suzuki Swift’s Chief Engineer who is the man in chart of developing Suzuki Swift.

here is what we got from him

—-Youre credited as being the ‘father of the Swift’. What was the biggest challenge in designing the Swift?

To go from the concept (Concept S) to the production model was the biggest challenge because we wanted to stick to the original concept as far as possible. We also had to meet all the requirements and customer preferences for the four markets where we are selling this car. There were many factors we had to consider for all these markets.

………What was the thinking in choosing a distinctively European design and not a more Asian look for the Swift, especially since three out of the four markets the Swift will be sold will be Asian?

There are many good compact cars in Europe. In fact, Europe sets the standard for compact cars and we wanted to benchmark the Swift against the best in the world. Therefore we considered European taste and driving characteristics.
Our target was to make a global car and to achieve that we had to look beyond the original Suzuki way. The Swift is the beginning of cars that will be made with a local perspective.

………You clearly benchmarked the new Mini’s styling?

Yes, in terms of styling we did benchmark the new Mini and thought that our Swift would be much cheaper than the Mini but if it looked just as good that would be to our advantage.

………What has been the contribution of overseas engineers in the development of the Swift car?

For the Indian Swift, Maruti engineers came from India to Suzuki’s office in Japan. For this car, the Japanese and Indians collaborated in terms of technical inputs.
For the European Swift, some of our Japanese engineers stayed in Europe. We conducted some suspension tests there with European engineers. As for the Chinese model, we collaborated with the Chinese supply chain engineers. Indian engineers stayed for 18 months in Japan to complete the project.

………What about a three-box or sedan version of the Swift?

The Swift platform can, at some stage, be used to make a three-box car. It is possible to re-skin the car and make other derivatives and we are looking into this possibility

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