Get your 800 soon! Car on sale till April in 13 metros

Maruti’s Indian icon, the humble 800 that did the same job that the Nano is trying to achieve now will be dropped off the showrooms of 13 Indian metros once the new Bharat Stage-4 norms come into effect in April, Chairman R C Bhargava said on Friday. Dropping sales has prompted Maruti not to upgrade the model. The car will now be sold only in Tier-2 cities vacating a huge space in Maruti’s lineup that could see an all new model in the future.

Maruti’s current (and rather crowded) lineup of hatchbacks consist of the 800, Alto, Estilo, WagonR, A-Star, Swift and the Ritz. Maruti is now looking at reducing the number of its vehicle platforms. While the Swift and Ritz ride on the same platform, the Alto, WagonR and Estilo use similar platforms. Maruti already phased out the Omni from the metros which is now replaced by the cut-price Eeco.

The 13 metros moving towards Bharat Stage-4 from April 2010 are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Surat and Agra. The rest of the cities will move to Bharat Stage-3 meaning the 800 and Omni will remain to be sold there. 800 and Omni will be phased out of India by 2015-2016 when even the Tier-2 cities move to Bharat Stage-4. We feel the life of the 800 will end even sooner considering the fact that the availability of Nano after its mass production starts could quite literally kill the 800.

Maruti had earlier phased out one of its iconic brand Zen. Even as it launches more and more new cars to keep customers within its fold by offering a wide basket of products, the company is also looking to sharpen its edge by making the Alto — its most successful model — even more price efficient. It would mean moving to a new engine series and more cost reduction to fill the gap vacated by the 800. Moreover, Maruti is reportedly working on introducing the Cervo int he low cost segment. We are not sure if this is true but we will keep you posted once we get concrete news.

Till then, we request all aficionados to grab an 800 so that they have a slice of the Indian automotive history with them.