Another hot-hatch bits the dust. The Baleno RS is no longer on sale in India. Don’t even expect it to come in a BS6 (Bharat Stage 6) guise. For Maruti Suzuki, the go-fast Baleno couldn’t have made a good business case. The model never received the kind of cult fan-following that Maruti Suzuki hoped it would. With that already on the table, the cost of upgrading the powertrain to meet the stricter emission norms would have further dampened the model’s portfolio.

The Baleno RS housed a 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder turbo-petrol engine, which Maruti Suzuki tagged as Boosterjet. It produced 101bhp/150Nm, which is 12bhp/37Nm more than the second most potent petrol engine. Unlike the standard Baleno range, which has the option of a CVT with non-hybrid petrol mill, the RS came only with a 5-speed manual transmission. Even with all that power, the ARAI-certified mileage figure was 21.1kmpl.

Alongside introducing the BS6-compliant Baleno range in April last year, Maruti Suzuki bumped up the prices of the BSIV diesel variants and the RS. Less than two months later, the company confirmed that the Baleno brand had surpassed 6 lakh (600,000) lifetime sales. By the time October arrived, Maruti Suzuki had realised that increasing the price of the Baleno RS was not a good idea and hence slashed it by Rs 1 lakh.

Maruti Suzuki introduced the Baleno RS in March 2017. Do the math, and you’ll notice the hot-hatch went out of production in less than three years. In India, no one expects such a short lifespan for a Maruti Suzuki model. For keen drivers, the RS’ demise is sad. But such consumers are negligible in numbers when you compare them with those who shortlist cars on more tedious aspects such as mileage, resale and maintenance.

Are you disappointed that the Baleno RS is no more? With that gone, and if you had to buy a go-fast pocket-rocket, what will you do? Enter the used car market, or spec-up your current ride?