Youngsters take a 25-year old Maruti 800 on a road trip across 20 Indian states

After lockdown last year, we have been seeing several videos on internet where people are doing long distance road trips. While some of them do a Kashmir to Kanyakumari road trip, there are some who are interested in all-India road trips. Mode of transport they choose for these trips also differ. Some use motorcycles while some prefer a car or an SUV. There are even travelers who went from Kerala to Manali or Kashmir on bicycle or on foot. Here we have a video of a group of youngsters who took their 25 year old Maruti 800 on a road trip.

The video has been shared by Maruti Suzuki on their Youtube channel. The video is all about four youngsters from Kerala’s Malappuram district. Post lockdown, these youngsters took their 25 year Maruti 800 hatchback on a road trip. In this trip they covered almost 8,500 kms and crossed over 20 states.

Four friends from Kerala’s Malappuram district had started this road trip in their Maruti 800. This is a second generation Maruti 800 that is seen in the video here. They had made minor modifications to the car to make it more suitable for their road trip. The steel rims that were standard on Maruti 800 hatchback were replaced for aftermarket alloy wheels. The luggage rack was installed on the car and a set of auxiliary lamps were also installed on it.

Other than that no modifications were seen on the outside. It took them almost 27 days to complete their road trip. The trip had started from southern part of India and from their the group travelled towards the north covering states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and many more. The video does mention that, things were not easy for this small hatchbacks, it got stuck in loose sand, it was driven through places were there were no roads.

The Maruti 800 did perform very well on all these terrains and it finally reached the snow covered roads in Manali. The car overcame all the hurdles and performed pretty well. Maruti 800 is a very iconic car in Indian automotive history. It was one of those cars that realised the dreams buying a car for many middle class families. Maruti had started the production of Maruti 800 back in 1983. The first Maruti 800 is still present in the country and it was recently restored to factory condition.

The car belonged to Mr. Harpal Singh and the keys to the first Maruti 800 was handed over to Mr. Singh by the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. Back when Maruti had launched 800 in India, the price of this hatchback was around Rs 47,500. The first generation was based on Suzuki Fronte SS80 and the first batch was imported to India as CKD unit.

In comparison to other cars in the market, Maruti 800 looked a lot more futuristic and that attracted a lot of customers to this small hatchback. The basic design of Maruti 800 remained the same through out its life cycle and had received only minor changes. It was powered by a 796-cc, 3-cylinder petrol engine. The first generation Maruti 800 generated 35 Bhp and later generations generated upto 45 Bhp.

The post Youngsters take a 25-year old Maruti 800 on a road trip across 20 Indian states first appeared on Cartoq.

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