The Glanza may well be a rebadged Baleno, but Toyota will be treating it like one of their own, selling it via their own dealers and offering service support through their own channels. There is little to no change in the appearance to differentiate the Glanza from the car on which it is based apart from the badges.
Seen here with projector headlamps, fog lamps and possibly split LEDs like the Baleno, this is most likely a top-spec V variant of the Glanza. It gets the exact same rear bumper, same bootlid, same taillamps and even the same alloys as the Maruti hatchback. Toyota appears to have taken badge engineering even more literally than Renault and Nissan did, which would be a disappointment for loyal customers and fans of the Japanese brand.
While the spy image shows it to be in the same shade of blue as offered with the Baleno, the Glanza’s teaser showed it wearing the same red paint as available with the Nexa-model. So, colour choices are also expected to be the exactly same as those offered on the Baleno.
As the first shared product from the agreement between Toyota and Suzuki, the Glanza has set the expectations quite low for future models based on Suzuki cars. It remains to be seen how Toyota plans to attract consumers to the Glanza over the Baleno with almost no differences between them on the surface.
Toyota confirmed that the Glanza will be offered exclusively with a petrol engine but has not confirmed which one. It will likely be the same BS 6 compliant, 1.2-litre DualJet Smart Hybrid petrol engine that was recently introduced on the Baleno. However, Suzuki’s Smart Hybrid badging will not be present on the Toyota Glanza. This unit is only offered with a manual gearbox from Maruti as of now. However, the Glanza is likely to be offered with the option of a CVT as well. Toyota is likely to offer the hatchback in two variants with the option of manual or automatic transmission available on both variants.
More of the Baleno will be seen on the equipment list for the Glanza. The V variant model spied here featured a reverse parking camera, which leads us to believe that it is based on the Alpha variant of the Baleno. However, we need to await the variant-wise feature list to get a full understanding of what the Glanza will offer to potential buyers.
Toyota is expected to price the Glanza at a premium over the Baleno. While the Baleno’s petrol-hybrid Delta and Zeta variants are priced at Rs 7.25 lakh and Rs 7.86 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), the Glanza could have a starting price of Rs 7.5 lakh.