Red sunset

The peoples car is not a staid object of history,never mind the permanent association of its origins with a state-owned project begun on the wishes of Adolf Hitler in the late 30s. Except that,Volkswagen was not the first to try,and it would not be the last to succeed. For more than two decades before the conception of the Tata Nano,a little car that had rolled out of Maruti Suzuki Indias Gurgaon plant on December 14,1983,had been Indias original and ultimate peoples car. Frighteningly diminutive,shockingly red,wobbling over potholes that punctuated the roads of unreformed India,the Maruti 800 came at a then-princely sum of a little over Rs 40,000 and quickly built itself into an icon of middle-class aspiration. Our original hatchback,it also unleashed a deluge of colours on the road. Even as Maruti prepared to celebrate rolling out its millionth vehicle in a single financial year last month,the M800 remained the instant signifier of the Maruti brand.

So theres nostalgia for this 796cc icon,which will no longer be sold in 13 major cities as BS-IV emission norms come into effect. That in itself is a mark of the distance weve travelled when emission controls constantly remind us of climate change,our own death-in-life. But in preferring business logic to sentiment,Maruti Suzuki also demonstrates the inexorable laws of life and economics: its no longer feasible to upgrade the M800,especially when its sales have been falling for five-plus years. In 2015-16,when BS-IV norms begin applying to the rest of the country,the M800 will finally ride into its sunset.

Offering the practical manna of low cost,light weight,fuel efficiency and once-high resale value,the M800 encouraged people to experiment,to aspire,to dare. Somewhere along the way,it laid the basis for the Rs 150,000 crore Indian automobile industry of today,with a dozen manufacturers and more than 50 car models.