OPINION | 3 reasons why Toyota's carbon copy Starlet outsells its original Suzuki Baleno sibling

It was in 2017 when Toyota Motor Corporation and Suzuki Motor Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding for a business alliance. For Toyota, the benefit of this partnership was that it didn't need to build a car from scratch, which is a massive saving on production costs. 

In an article published in 2021 on News24 Motoring, Suzuki SA said the partnership did not mean it was getting ripped off by Toyota selling rebadged versions of its vehicles. The Toyota Starlet, Rumion, Urban Cruiser and Vitz are rebadged versions of Suzuki's Baleno, Ertiga, Grand Vitara and Celerio, respectively. 

If anything, Suzuki is benefitting from the alliance because it has achieved numerous sales milestones in the past few years.