Maruti Celerio diesel review, road test

As with the exterior, Maruti has played it very safe with the cabin. The two-tone dashboard uses a rather basic design, and though the instrument cluster is easy to read, it looks very bland. Plastic quality is good, but still not up there with Hyundai. It scores decently on practicality too, and though the front door pockets are slim, the rear ones house bottle holders. There’s another bottle holder between the front seats, a pair of cupholders near the gear lever and a medium-size glovebox. For luggage, you have 235 litres once you get past the tall loading lip, but you can also split-fold the seat for even more room.

Space is a strong point of the Celerio, with good headroom in all seats. Three adults in the back is a bit of a squeeze, but legroom is decent, and you get a good sense of space too. Apart from a slightly short seat squab and the low-set, fixed head restraints, the seats are really comfortable as well. Even the fixed-headrest front seats, though they don’t look the plushest, serve up a good mix of softness and support. The equipment level is acceptable and this ZDi (O) gets features like Bluetooth, driver’s seat height adjustment, steering-mounted controls, electrically adjustable mirrors, ABS and two airbags.

On to what makes this car tick – the brand new diesel engine. You will have read all about this motor (codename: E08A) and how it came to be back, on page 50 of this issue, so we’ll stick to the essentials here. It’s a 793cc, all-aluminium, two-cylinder motor that produces 47bhp at 3,500rpm and 12.7kgm at 2,000rpm. Its primary goal is to be as efficient as possible, while at the same time achieving acceptable levels of refinement, smoothness and driveability. It also has to be light and compact to be effective in Maruti’s small cars, as well as future-proofed for emissions – a tall order when costs have to seriously be kept in check. So what’s the end result?