THE WANT FOR MORE

A morning with the SS80 and BE 6 shows how much we've gained — and what we've quietly lost

- By Yash Sunil Photographs Kaizad Adil Darukhanawala

I've never really been a classic-car guy. I can respect them, but I don’t melt at the sight of chrome bumpers or wooden steering wheels. What I do appreciate, though, is the ingenuity that crank-started mobility in the first place. Think about it, the first cars in the late 1800s weren’t glamorous machines. They were noisy, unreliable, and in many cases, slower than the horse they were meant to replace. But they offered something no animal could — independence. No feeding, no stabling, no manure to shovel. Just crank it, curse at it, and if you were lucky, it moved.

That independence was addictive. Once people got a taste, ‘just getting there’ wasn’t enough anymore. The question quickly became, how far, how fast, and how comfortably? That appetite for more has shaped the car’s story ever since, from noisy contraptions cobbled together in backyards to today’s whisper-quiet EVs stuffed with screens. Through this story, I also had the opportunity to experience a slice of Indian automotive history — the Maruti 800. Why was this little hatchback such a big deal? Let’s rewind to 1973, when the government invited a handful of companies to design and build an affordable car for the masses. Nothing much happened until 1982, when Maruti teamed up with Suzuki.

And then, boom — in December 1983, the Maruti 800 (originally the SS80, based on the Suzuki Alto) rolled onto Indian roads. It was tiny, efficient, and about as bare-bones as a steel lunchbox, but it was accessible. For the first time, India’s middle class had a car they could realistically own. The SS80 wasn’t just a vehicle; it was freedom on four skinny wheels, dignity parked outside the house, and for many, the first spark of modernity.