Maruti Suzuki celebrated its fifth anniversary of the Swift in India on May 25, 2010. To commemorate this, Maruti organised three large, individual parades of the Swift in three cities – Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
The aim of the parades was to smash the Guinness record for the most number of single-make cars in a controlled environment. Japanese car manufacturer Mazda bagged this record back in 2005 with 249 MX-5s parading in a park in New Zealand.
On May 30, 2010, Maruti officially broke the record with 342 Maruti Swift at Gurgaon’s Leisure Valley Complex. In each of these three cities, hundreds of Swift owners along with their families joined and interacted with fellow car owners. Incentives for the participants included free fuel and free service/accessories coupons for Swift owners.
Though the number of Swifts gathered at Mumbai and Chennai far exceeded that of Delhi, it was a tiny catch that disqualified the parades held in these two cities. The Guinness rules strictly states that all the participating cars must carry out the entire parade in a formation of two rows. As the temperatures soared at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex and Chennai’s Sriperumbudur track, frustration and more so agitation appeared to have set in with the drivers – which lead to the breaking of this rule. Unfortunately this automatically disqualified the parades held in Mumbai and Chennai.