In the coming months, Toyota will launch its second Maruti Suzuki model, centered in India. The latest car will be based on Vitara Brezza, and is expected to be branded ‘Town Cruiser’ as part of its technological and marketing sharing joint venture with Maruti.
The root of the term, we think, resides in Toyota’s Land Cruiser heritage.An integral aspect of Toyota off-roader tradition, the LC – or Land Cruiser – brand is so well known that it is often used as a suffix like on the Land Cruiser Prado.That’s where the second component of the name’Cruiser’ comes from because it is intended to show that this SUV falls from a long and revered line of off-roaders Toyota.
The name is often intended to build heritage as there is a whole lot of talent associated with the title. The new model based on Toyota’s Brezza is tough in its own right. Underpinned by a design that was designed and developed to be marketed in Europe — and met crash safety requirements there — the Maruti Vitara Brezza has received a 4-star ranking in Global NCAP evaluations.
Although the latter is not the final word on protection and is just a general measure, it is a good predictor of the performance. This lightweight SUV also has a reasonable amount of ground clearance which is adequate to make it easier to travel across rugged terrain.
However, the small Toyota SUV won’t come with true off-road capability, which is where we think the name’s Urban aspect falls in. The prefix was used to suggest that this is sort like a runabout rather than an off-road extreme. In reality, the name of the double barrel fits pretty good, once you get used to it’s tone-it rolls off the tongue pretty nicely.
However, this is not the first time that Toyota has called an SUV or a ‘Street Cruiser’ crossover. The label was formerly used for a hybrid which was marketed in Europe and Japan. Expect further info to be released regarding the Toyota Urban Cruiser in the coming days.
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