Designed and engineered specially for the Indian market, the Zen Estilo was a joint-venture development program to replace the Suzuki Wagon R.
In crowded cities, a small car would handle better and will be easy to park. With that starting point in mind, the biggest Indian car-maker, Maruti, joined its forces with the Suzuki to develop the small MPV Zen Estilo.

From the outside, it was hard to understand if it was a small Suzuki Alto that grew in height or if it was a Suzuki Wagon R that had a raked front end instead of a classic, horizontal, hood. Its design was inspired by the Maruti Innova, with a short raked hood and slightly swept headlights toward the A-pillars. From the side, there was some inspiration taken from Honda Fit/Jazz.

Inside, the Zen Estilo featured a simple dashboard design, with a fat dashboard, but without a center console, so the car could have been crossed from left to right. The center stack hosted the climate controls, the stereo equipment, the rear window defroster, and an unusually big hazard lights button. A nicely formed three-spoke steering wheel was the best-looking part inside the vehicle. The instrument cluster featured a tachometer, a speedometer, and the fuel level. Additionally, an LCD was mounted for the trip-computer. Since it was a small MPV, the rear seat legroom was limited, but due to its high greenhouse, it showed no problems for the headroom, according to interior measurements.

Under the hood, the Zen Estilo was fitted with a small, 1.1-liter unit carried-over from other Maruti models. It was mated to a standard 5-speed manual, and that was the only option.