Apr 21, 2003 12:22 PM
10379 Views
(Updated Apr 21, 2003 12:22 PM)
MOst affordable,highly maintainable,sustainable,highly maneouvarable
etc... were the tags which made me to think towards this little car.....
Last week we bought a M-800,(no its not a tank, its maruthi 800).So even though I had initially Tata Indica,santro and the likes on the mind,i
took the decision in favour of M-800 because of its superior price-for-performance ratio and therby choose to save a bit of cash.....
Though its not exactly your luxury car,its fairy ergomanic and utilitarian.
many people reckon its been plagued by minor glitches ever since its induction into indian market in early 80's......
They go on about the absent lumbar support,inadaquetly powerful engine of 800cc,lack of passenger space,lack of luggage space,....etcc.....
I frankly dont know whether these people understand the economics of the production.....
i mean,for this price,you wont even get a decent bike in developed countries...
the amazing price tag and its success is illustrated by the enormous succes it got after its inital launch 2 decades ago...
think about it,hyundai,FORD,OPEL,TOYOTA and GENERAL MOTORS are no small companies ,in fact they are the masters of
mass-production(american style),masters of competetive pricing,and could quickly put lesser companies outta bussiness...even these have failed,i repeat,failed to get even close to the price of a M-800....
post globalization,liberalization these majors were expected to wipe out and replace M-800 in every road of india.
so what actually happened!!nothing.
IN fact so miserable have been their attempts,that their lowest priced cars are not even close to M-800 by even 1 lakh rupees!!!!!
BUt here,again,haters of MUL say that these companies have choosen to quality cars instead of cheap cars...
(A writer called amritha was particularly vociferous about it!!)
The same would have been probably said about the Ford's MODEL T,which was mass produced and made extremely cheap alternative to other elitist crates available at the time...
it is to be remembered that MODEL T became a rage in US and Europe putting other cars outta bussiness,also establishing FORD as a auto major in the process.
then why is it that even these Auto super-powers have not been able to produce such an affordable car??
certainly its not because of thier dis-interest in biggest car market in india.
The truth of the matter is,the credit of this should go to MUL(maruthi udyog),whose amazing study into the indian market,its capitals and requirements really brought about this remarkable machine....
credit should also go to the politicians who made it happen..
just look over to the other choices that were available to the indian car consumer at that point of time,the horrible ambassador(whose only USP is their toughness,hell,i would rather have a beetle!),whose horrible maintainance problems and FUel averages would make its owner squirm...
Then we had FIATs premier padmini,another horrible metal monstrosity whose steering wheel play was more suited to heavy truks...!!!
Then you realize how remarkable a venture the M-800 was..
so while stinking rich,and crazy coots pour their cash into so called better vehicles,call the M-800 very plebien,even beguile the M-800's weaknesses,the rest of the great indian middle class would enjoy the
hassle free investment of M-800...
i will update this article.
all comments are welcome....
