Likely to be based on the Bayon, the crossover will be positioned below the Creta and alongside the Venue.
To spruce up its offering in the growing SUV and crossover market in India and maintain its top-three position, Hyundai will introduce an all-new SUV alonside the Venue and below the Creta. This new model will be based on the Bayon sold oversesas.
Sources say a crossover based on the new-gen i20 platform, called Bc4i, is under development and it will hit the roads in the financial year FY2027. The crossover will be in its second generation when launched in the market, and it will challenge the Maruti Suzuki Fronx, Toyota Taisor, Citroen C3 and Tata Nexon – the crossover SUVs.
- Hyundai’s Fronx rival to be priced in the Rs 10 lakh-15 lakh area
- Will have a lot in common with the i20
- Engine likely to be shared with the Venue Â
The model will be positioned in the core of the Indian passenger vehicle market – i.e. Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh market – and offer a different-looking alternative to its existing Venue SUV.
People in the know say the model, to be produced from the company’s existing Sriperumbudur facility, can potentially add about 1 lakh units to its SUV volume. The addition of a crossover will help Hyundai sustain its high-capacity utilisation at the factory, with the all-new Venue (codenamed QU2i) moving out of the South Indian factory to Talegaon, Maharashtra, in 2025.
The Bayon is a crossover SUV based on the i20, in a similar fashion to what the Fronx is to the Baleno. It made its global debut back in 2021 and has received a mid-life update recently. The facelifted Bayon gets a full width LED light bar like the Verna, along with a horizontally positioned grille with headlamps positioned at each corner. It has coupe-SUV like silhouette with a tapering roofline at the back.
On the inside, it has quite a few common bits with the i20 in India including the dashboard, seat, infotainment screen, instrument cluster and control stalks, among other elements. The high level of common content between the i20 and the Bayon should help Hyundai price it competitively, which means a price difference similar to Baleno and Fronx can be expected with the i20 and the Bayon.
Abroad, the Bayon comes with a 1.0-litre turbo-petrol engine in two states of tune. For India, expect the SUV to share its engine options with the i20 and the Venue, for greater economies of scale.
Expect more details on Hyundai’s Fronx rival to be revealed once the launch nears.
Also see:
Hyundai Bayon SUV image gallery
Hyundai Ioniq 5 long term review, 15,900km report
