The Suzuki Vitara has enjoyed varying success in the Philippines. It has survived the 90s, 00s, and even the mid 10’s, sadly though it seems its time locally has passed.
Based on the Suzuki Philippines website, it looks as though the Vitara has been removed from the vehicle list.
The Suzuki Vitara Story
As mentioned earlier the Vitara had been a long-standing nameplate locally, first making an appearance in the 90s it was a worthy opponent to the CR-V and RAV4 because the Vitara was also an all-wheel-drive crossover.
As time went on and the market changed, the Vitara adapted as well. It offered variants that weren’t all-wheel-drive and in fact, during the mid-2010s the Vitara enjoyed a lot of success when Suzuki introduced it as an affordable “small crossover”.
Things started to taper off (sales-wise) when the China automakers came in and started undercutting the Vitara’s price, and offered more features as well.
The last hurrah came in 2021 when the Vitara was given the all-wheel-drive treatment again as the Vitara All-Grip. Strangely Suzuki also chose to remove the none AWD variants, which in return skyrocketed the price to almost PHP 1.4 Million.
By doing so, the Vitara All-Grip didn’t enjoy the same sales success as its previous iteration, which could have been the contributing factor to its eventual demise locally.
Although Globally the Vitara is still available, in fact in other countries there is a hybrid variant. Given that our local market has become more receptive to hybrids maybe there could still be a Vitara in the future, but for now, we can only speculate.
