A car that always stayed true to its DNA while undergoing changes during its decade and a half run in India. The Maruti Swift is a quintessential ‘first-off car as the Swift was the first time we Indians got to taste a true affordable sporty hatchback. From a Family car to a souped-up fast ride for the streets, the Swift can be anything you want it to be. It is due to this dynamic persona, that Maruti was able to sell over 2 million examples of the Swift in India.
Read More – Maruti Suzuki Swift: The Limitless Hatchback
A brief history on the Swift | how it all began
The Swift came at a time when Maruti didn’t have something new to offer and Maruti’s competitors were slowly catching up. That is where the Swift actually hit the mark being a revolutionary product back in the day. It was the first car that the engineers and designers from Maruti Udyog Ltd. worked on in collaboration with the team at Suzuki, Japan. This is the reason why a car like Swift which is a global offering, fits in phenomenally with the Indian standards.
Launched in 2005, the Swift targeted the most popular, hatchback segment in India. It was a perfect blend of ergonomics and excitement, simply unheard of in the market. It was a more premium and desirable hatchback. All this made the Swift a hit even before it was launched as Maruti received a record-breaking number of bookings for the Swift. People literally did stand in queues outside the Maruti dealership to get their hands on the new Swift.
Today, the Swift hatchback seems to have evolved a good deal. Despite the emergence of various modern-age hatchbacks, the Swift is keeping up with the times phenomenally as it is still one of the top-selling cars in India.
As the 2020 Swift recently got a BS6 update, we decided to pit the third-gen Swift with its first predecessor and see what all has changed over the years.
2005 Maruti Swift vs 2020 Maruti Swift | Design Evolution
Exteriors
The Swift’s design over the years has never evolved to something which wasn’t in the family genes. Swift’s design has always followed the winning formula of sleek, compact, and sporty proportions with spacious interiors. The 2020 Swift looks radically new, it looks much sportier and has modern styling cues. Despite that, it has still retained the styling norms of the first-gen and looks like it is from the same family. Elements like the headlamps and taillamps, the curvaceous rear design, and the overall proportions of the new Swift has successfully retained a similar silhouette.
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Interiors
The Interiors of the new Swift is the area with the most drastic changes. While the old Swift had a mere functional dashboard layout(which was still better than a lot of other cars back in the day), the new Swift’s interiors are very sporty with elements like a flat-bottom steering wheel, red accents on the instrument cluster, etc and come with all the bells and whistles.
2005 Maruti Swift vs 2020 Maruti Swift | Powertrains
The 2005 Swift got a differently tuned version of the 1.3 Litre, four-cylinder, N/A petrol engine derived from the Maruti Esteem making 87PS of power and 113Nm of torque. It was not until 2007 that the swift got a Fiat-sourced 1.3 Litre, four-cylinder DDiS engine which made 75PS of power and 190Nm of torque. It was the diesel that turned out to be the more successful motor for the Swift in the later years. All these engines were mated to a 5-speed manual transmission.
With the BS6 norms kicking in, the 2020 Swift surprisingly enough has no diesel this time around and comes only with a BS6 complaint, 1.2 Litre, four-cylinder K12B engine making a similar 83HP and 113Nm of torque mated to a 5-speed manual and a 5-speed AMT as well.
However, there might be a facelifted version of the third-gen Swift coming sometime around Diwali 2020 which will house a 1.2 Litre Dualjet motor that will bump up the power to 90HP.
2005 Maruti Swift vs 2020 Maruti Swift | Features
The 2005 Swift had features like ABS, dual airbags, auto climate control(top-spec), alloy wheels (top-spec) and a company-fitted entertainment system. All this might sound fundamental these days but they were a big deal back in the day.
The 2020 Swift comes with a host of features like a touch screen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Andriod Auto, a Navigation system, Voice Command assist, LED projector lamps and DRLs to name a few. Safety features include ABS with EBD, Dual airbags(both as standard), Reverse parking camera and IsoFix compatible seats.
Find Out More – 5 Hot Hatches We Wish Would Make A Comeback!
2005 Maruti Swift vs 2020 Maruti Swift | Pricing
The Swift is from the ruthlessly competitive hatchback segment and pricing is a key aspect. Let’s how the prices of the 2020 Maruti Swift stack up against the first-gen Swift
| Variants | 2005 Maruti Swift | 2020 Maruti Swift | Difference |
| Base Variant Price
(ex-showroom) |
Rs.3.87 Lakhs | Rs. 5.19 Lakhs | Rs. 1.32 Lakhs |
| Top Variant Price
(ex-showroom) |
Rs. 4.85 Lakhs | Rs. 8.02 Lakhs | Rs. 3.17 Lakhs |
The Maruti Suzuki Swift has been an iconic car and remained to be a popular choice even after 15 years. There are many more milestones for Swift to achieve in the Indian market and we would like to see more exciting iterations of the car in the years to come.
I really love my Swift zxi2005 model still give good performance
Hi Shakeel
It is so great to hear that your 2005 Swift ZXI is serving you seamlessly. Even though we wish the day won’t come but if you ever find any troubles with your Swift, You should definitely reach out Gomechanic for all your car needs.
I agree. My SWIFT ZXi 2005 July rocks still even after daily use