Third-gen Maruti Dzire will continue to be sold as Tour S

Maruti Suzuki will continue selling the third-gen Dzire alongside the all-new fourth-gen car that goes on sale this month. The Dzire Tour S that caters to the fleet and taxi markets will continue to be based on the existing third-gen car. 

1. More than half of Dzire sales are from the Tour S variant
2. Tour S rivals fleet variants of the Tigor and Aura

As is the practice with previous models, sales of the new-gen Dzire will overlap with the previous version for some time; the new car being sold to private buyers while the older one caters to fleet buyers as the Tour.

Speaking to Autocar India at the Dzire media drive, Partho Banerjee, head of sales and marketing at Maruti Suzuki said, "The new Dzire will not completely replace the current model. This [current-gen] one will carry on as the Tour version only, as we have significant sales of both versions."

While Maruti does not disclose the sales of the standard Dzire and the Dzire Tour S separately, Banerjee said that of the 1.6 lakh Dzires sold last year, around 60,000 units were the Tour variant. This means the average turns out to be about 5,000 units a month. 

That is a substantial number, and justifies keeping both versions in production for a while. The Tour S' numbers are impressive against rivals too, with the Tigor retailing about 1,300 units on average, the Amaze 2,300 units and the Hyundai Aura selling 4,500 units, on a monthly basis. The fourth-gen Dzire Tour will most likely join the line-up in the latter half of the model's life cycle.