> Their cars have a reputation of being reliable and their spares are cheap. It is hard to quantify how big a leap Maruti was in the 80s and early 90s for the

> Their cars have a reputation of being reliable and their spares are cheap. It is hard to quantify how big a leap Maruti was in the 80s and early 90s for the Indian middle class. The reliability jump from a Fiat rebadged as a Premier Padmini("If there's no oil under it, there's no oil in it") to a Maruti 800 was world changing. The Ambassador was reliable, but maintenance heavy & the Contessa was ridiculously expensive to maintain. Plus they were the first cars to come out with the "normal stick shift" with synchromesh instead of the steering shift bar which required way more delicate balancing of the throttle. Also the service center distribution along with the dead simple 3-cylinder configuration meant that every bike or truck mechanic had enough tools to "fix it up" to drive to the nearest service station. And the parts were cheap because everyone bought one (the monsoon season was different from a car, than a rain-coat on a bajaj). The entirety of the scenes playing around me those years was literally identical - went from Bajaj Chetak to a Maruti 800, then an additional Kinetic Honda for the wife and the kids buying a Scooty or a Pulsar.