New Delhi: The owners of the first Maruti 800, which rolled out in 1983, have called for the car to be restored and have appealed to the automobile manufacturers to place it in a museum and receive recognition as being the earliest vehicle to be launched by the company.
"My late father-in-law Harpal Singh considered receiving the first car a blessing because he had been selected from lakhs of people. At that time, the dominant cars, fiat and ambassador, used to have a very low mileage, but this car gave almost twice the mileage. Eventually, everyone would shift from driving two wheelers to driving the Maruti. The then-prime minister herself gave us the keys to the car, so it is a very important relic for us," Tejinder Ahluwalia, the owner`s son-in-law told ANI.
"Maruti used to celebrate every significant milestone of the car... They sent for it when the car turned a year old, and then when it turned five, 10, 15 and so on. However, the car is currently lying abandoned and is rusting. The municipality might ask us to get rid of it. We don`t want that this car, with which we have had so many memories, meets such an end. We want that Maruti take ownership of the car, restore it and put it in a museum. We want that this car receive the same recognition it received throughout its life," he added.
Ahluwalia also stressed that the family does not want to sell the car.
"We don`t want any financial gains out of it; we want that it should be preserved and we want recognition that Sardar Harpal Singh was the first owner of this car," he added.
Harpal Singh`s daughter, Govinder Pal Kaur, recalled that her father thought of the car as a family member.
"When we got the car, we considered ourselves very lucky to own the first Maruti. Since we got the keys to the car from the prime minister, we have always considered it a part of our family and never sought to replace it, despite the newer models and cars that subsequently came out. We are very attached to this car because we have taken it on long drives and short drives, but it never gave us any trouble," she said.
Meanwhile, Maruti has reportedly offered to buy the car, adding that it will take to the family before long.
