There are quirks. And then there’s the Maruti 800. If you’ve driven one (admit it, you lived with one!), you will find second gear acting like the only gear there ever existed on that car. How? Well, come to a complete halt at a junction and you can go ahead in second gear with a hint of engine clatter if you abruptly release the clutch. Then if your airconditioning works just fine, the windshield will fog up the insides (admit it Maruti, it’s because of the thin glass that cuts costs!) and the wipe-down cloth emerges straight out of the door pocket. And if the AC isn’t working (admit it, you forgot to ‘charge’ the gas), rear seat passengers will keep popping their heads just above your shoulder to get that blast of air. And if it’s at a traffic signal and the compressor cuts off, well, your passengers will ensure that it wasn’t the last time you’d heard of ‘the big mistake you made by buying an 800!’ theory.
But then the Maruti 800 has always been so. Especially in this day and age where the average man’s small car is the Alto or, unbelievably quickly, the Hyundai i10. So where does a Rs 2.45 lakh hatchback with an engine that was born just after John Lennon kicked the bucket figure? Well, if you thought sliding sales and a 25-year old concept can’t be saved, Maruti gleefully plans to prove you wrong. Enter the Maruti 800 Duo LPG – the one quick fix if you (in this case Maruti) don’t have an ultra-small capacity diesel engine. And a better fix for doing some lane hopping, banzai mode.
A drive in the Maruti 800 in the inner alleys of south Mumbai’s famous Fort area can revive memories. Especially one that tells you that there isn’t any power steering to help you cut across the parked handcart, nor are there super-effective disc brakes all round. So if you have to avoid the vegetable vendor at the last minute, you must use a combination of signing a five-year plan, yanking the handbrake and going down a gear in tandem. A world hustles and bustles around you, and everything moves very close. Yet, the 800 squeezes in between a parked rickshaw on one side and a flower vendor on the other with microns to spare. No other car in production so far (the Nano isn’t out yet), I would imagine, could do it without breaking into a sweat. And no one on the outside doubts it either, because the M800 has been around for so long, more Yugoslavians would do a double take when a Yugo passes by than an Indian for a Maruti 800. Its ubiquitousness has time and again been raked up at countless beer and nuts discussions across homes in middle-class India, and yet, there is a sizeable proportion of them who not only want their car to be cheap to buy, but equally cheap to run.
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