Modified Maruti 800 looks dramatic!

Maruti 800 is one of the most iconic vehicles in our country. Most people have once owned the 800 in their family. Maruti 800 had a production run of 31 years and was on sale in India till 2014. In certain parts of our country, you can still find an 800 that is running. Here is a Maruti 800 that has been extensively modified. The car belongs to Mr. Midhun who is from Kerala.

From the pictures, we can see that the 800 is now finished in a bright shade of red and the roof is finished in black. The front bumper is all-new, it is now deeper and looks more aggressive. It also has four LEDs on either side that are embedded. There is also a front splitter that makes the hatchback looks more sporty. The splitter has been taken from the Hyundai i20. The grille is now finished in black colour and headlamps have been given a smoked effect.

On the sides, there are side skirts and the windows have been tinted black. The stock Maruti 800 was offered with steel rims whereas the Midhun has installed chrome alloy wheels. They are 8J rims that measure 13-inches in size and use 175-section tyres.

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The owner has not modified the engine of the vehicle. So, it still uses a 796 cc, 3-cylinder, naturally aspirated petrol engine. The engine produced 37 bhp of max power and 59 Nm of peak torque. It was mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox. Later, Maruti bumped up the power to 45 bhp and introduced a 5-speed unit.

The 800 was launched in 1983 which makes it one of the cars that remained in production for the longest time. It was also the first vehicle that was front-wheel driven. This reduced the cost of the 800 significantly. So, the manufacturer was able to price it very competitively. The 800 was the first vehicle in many households of India.

At first, the 800 was brought to India as a CKD or Completely Knocked Down unit and it was priced around Rs. 47,500. The first generation of 800 was based on Suzuki Fronte SS80. Maruti 800 competed against vehicles like Hindustan Ambassadors and Premier Padmini. However, the 800 was more affordable, fuel-efficient, easy to drive and came with relatively more modern features.

What killed Maruti 800 was sibling rivalry. Maruti Suzuki also had Alto in their line-up but it did not sell well as compared to 800. People were still buying the 800 because of the trust factor and it cost lower than the Alto. The Alto used a heavily reworked version of 800’s F8D engine. It used to produce 47 bhp and 69 Nm.

Upcoming Celerio

Maruti Suzuki is now all set to launch the new generation of the Celerio in the Indian market. It is expected to launch on November 10th. The new Celerrio will be based on their modern Heartect platform and will ditch the tall boy design that we have seen on the current Celerio. The exterior has been heavily redesigned and the dimensions of the hatchback are also expected to grow. It will be offered only with a K10C petrol engine that will come with DualJet technology. The fuel efficiency of the hatchback is expected to be somewhere around 26 kmpl.

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