Indian Autos blog

By Kaustubh Shinde

Today let’s take a trip down the memory lane to know more about the most iconic parcel delivering, tourist moving van – The Maruti Omni. Yeah we know, not the most glamorous of all topics.

When I first drove the Omni (and this was quite a long time back), there was this distinct feeling of disconnect from the gear box. Much to my horror, I got the same feeling when I was driving the Chevy spark. Baffled by this knowing, I started digging in deeper. Didn’t take me long to find that way back in 1986, Omni was actually built by GM in partnership with Suzuki.

The ‘Bedford Rascal’ and yes they did call it a Rascal. I guess back then product branding was by hairy-chested men who used to drink gallons of beer and arm wrestled all night long. Anyways, back to the story, the Rascal was jointly developed by GM and Suzuki and was sold under GM’s British-based Bedford marque. It was also sold by Suzuki in other markets under the name of Supercarry. Considering its diminutive strength, the name ‘Super’carry is honestly a bit optimistic. It was ambitious.

Although the Bedford Rascal, which is a pickup truck, and Omni, a mini van, were basically on the same platform, the former was more powerful (with a 4 cylinder, 44bhp engine) as opposed to the later (with a 3 cylinder, 37 bhp engine).

Yet to get to grips with the connection? Head over to Wikipedia’s Beford Rascal page to learn it better.

Maruti Suzuki has scrapped its plans of phasing out the Omni. The company is now working to upgrade the existing engine to make it BSIV compatible, as the mini van is still doing brisk sales (avg 7000 units/mth). The Maruti 800 however, will be phased out from 11 cities as planned.

Maruti Suzuki will be discontinuing the sales of Maruti 800 and Omni mini-van, in 11 major cities from 2010, due to stricter emission norms – Bharat Stage IV that will take effect next year.

Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Surat and Agra will be the first few cities where BS IV will be implemented in 2010. Other cities which will initially come under BSIII norms, are likely to follow suit.

Maruti Suzuki India today revealed its plans to replace three of its cars — the WagonR, Omni and Versa. A person dealing with the projects said the new WagonR will be based on the Suzuki’s MR Wagon platform(like the existing model), but the exterior and interior will be throughly made-over. The new Omni will be built on Versa platform to replace both Omni and Versa.