Maruti 800, the country's first small car, that revolutionized personal transport in modern India will bid farewell to Indian customers starting next year and the venerable car model will be completely phased out by 2016, when the country is expected to embrace new emission norms, Maruti Suzuki India said on Wednesday.
Along with the M800, the company will also phase out its second oldest model, the utility van Omni.
In the initial phase, the two models will be done away with in 11 cities from next year, where the Bharat Stage-IV emission norms will become applicable.
"Once Euro-IV emission norms are applied across the country, which is likely to happen around 2015-16, then M800 and Omni may not be a saleable product. We will have to eventually phase (them) out then," MSI Chairman R C Bhargava said.
The company would not upgrade the engines of these two models to meet better emission standards, he said while also ruling out their replacements.
"We regularly introduce new models in the market, but at present there is no plan to bring out substitutes for these two cars," he added.
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