India’s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki hopes to hard sell Eeco family car as an upgrade of the existing Maruti Omni model. There has been consistent demand from the customers to upgrade omni.

Mr. CV Raman, Maruti's chief general manager for engineering research, design and development said, "We have seen demand for Eeco growing since its launch last week from users of Omni and new customers looking for a family car, with more space, more leg-room and greater comfort."

Maruti Omni, which was first launched in 1985, has remained successful as customers had been constantly exchanging their multi utility vehicles (MPV) with the newer versions of the van.

Raman further said that the demand for exchanging Omni van with Eeco is high on the backing of the trend in which 30% Omni customers exchanged their vans to newer versions during the last two decades. The situation is favorable to the company as demand for Eeco is high even though the company promoted Eeco as a family car while Maruti Omni was positioned as a commercial vehicle.

The car is priced at Rs 269,263 for the five-seater and Rs 285,259 for the seven-seater. Eeco conforms to the latest emission norms and is ELV compliant according to a senior official.

The company has invested around Rs. 60 crore to design and develop the car. Eeco is being produced at the company’s Gurgaon plant and will come with 90 per cent localization. The company has set a target to produce 40,000 Eeco units in 2010-11.