Suzuki Motor counts on new sedan for U.S. sales
Suzuki Motor Corp. showed a production version of its new Kizashi sedan, a car the Japanese automaker plans to begin selling in the U.S. late this year or early in 2010 to help halt a sales decline.
The Kizashi is the largest car Suzuki has ever built and is meant to compete with established models such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Camry, General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Motor Co.'s Taurus.
Suzuki is a maker of small cars and sport-utility vehicles, and the mid-size models are a segment into which "many of our customers migrate," Gene Brown, vice president of marketing and public relations, said at the company's event today in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.
Suzuki is among smaller automakers trying to hold on as the U.S. auto market tumbles to a three-decade low. The automaker's sales plunged 60 percent in this year's first half to 22,408, according to Autodata Corp. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. Suzuki sold 84,861 vehicles in all of last year, dropping 17 percent for its first annual decline since 2003.
The company, which has its U.S. headquarters in Brea, California, will announce the Kizashi's price later this year, Brown said. The name means "something great is coming" in Japanese, he said.
The Kizashi will have a 2.4-liter engine and either a six- speed manual transmission or a continuously variable transmission.
Suzuki, based in Hamamatsu, Japan, is that country's fourth-largest carmaker and also produces motorcycles.
Yuuki Sakurai, chief executive officer of Tokyo-based Fukoku Capital Management Inc., which manages about $10 billion, earlier this month suggested that Suzuki and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. withdraw from the U.S. Mitsubishi's first-half sales tumbled 51 percent to 26,467.
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