Urban Cruiser or Vitara Brezza? 2021 Motoring Newsmaker No 3

Compact SUVs are very popular and Toyota and Suzuki offer a car in this segment that seems very similar.

Toyota/Suzuki joint venture set to result in new coupe-like compact crossover

Toyota’s joint venture with Suzuki is set to expand to another segment in 2023.

Two-thousand-and-twenty-one was an interesting year for the South African motoring landscape.

Some things changed, like an acceleration towards greener cars, while others stayed the same like Toyota topping the monthly sales charts.

In this series of 2021 Motoring Newsmakers, The Citizen looks back at the top 20 most popular online stories of the year. The series is dominated by South Africa’s most popular body style, bakkies, while the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 was by far the most viewed single model on our website. Other local favourites in the form of hot hatches, fuel efficient hatchbacks, big, mean SUVs, compact SUVs, Mercedes-AMGs and BMW M cars also drew their fair share of attention.

In February Suzuki introduced the Vitara Brezza to the local market, a compact SUV that has sold like hot cakes in India over the last five years. Hot on the heels of the Vitara Brezza was the Toyota Urban Cruiser, which is essentially the same car. The vehicle is the result of a collaboration between Toyota and Suzuki similar to the ones that produced the Baleno and Starlet hatchbacks and Ertiga and Rumion seven-seaters.

But even though the Urban Cruiser and Vitara Brezza are very similar barring a few styling tweaks like the front grille, there are quite a few differences for buyers to consider. These include pricing, trim levels and after sales backup.