I remember driving the first Maruti 1000 about 7 - 8 years ago. At that time, I quite liked the thing!!! Now, with all these new cars being so much more powerful and capable than that old M1000, the old one’s 45-odd horses seem quite funny :-)
But then Maruti never did stop doing up the car. We had the 65bhp Esteem, which was way more capable than the wheezy old M1000, and now we have the same 1.3 litre engine in fuel-injected guise, which puts out a healthy 85 horses. Starting the thing, I could hear the 4-pot mill howl and rasp, and knew this was going to be fun! And fun, it was. The Esteem is quite a lightweight, and less weight means better power-to-weight ratios... :-) Indeed, the Esteem MPi revs up very fast, and accelerates off the line HARD - enough to surprise some bigger and more powerful cars! A top speed of around 165-ish is about okay, though a Palio 1.6 GTX blows the doors off it on the Pune Expressway (where else...!)
The styling is old-hat, and the interiors are ordinary. Platic abounds. The brakes are barely average. The 5-speed box is reasonably smooth though, and the clutch will take a lot of abuse without complaining. Handling prowess is inadequate, with the car feeling loose and flighty when you are deep into triple-digit-speeds zone. Its easy to unstick the front end while cornering hard, and equally easy to get the back end out of line in panic braking situations. Watch out!
If you are looking at a cheap hot-rod, the engine will do fine (with some tuning mods...). However, what this car really needs is firmer suspension settings, bigger wheels (15-inch alloys will do nicely), and sticky tubeless radials. ABS, if offered as an option, would be welcome. Properly kitted out, the Esteem MPi will give cars like the Ikon 1.3 and the Corsa 1.4, a good and proper kicking...! The old girl has it in her yet.... :-)
But then, if you take sentiment out of the equation, this car’s past it, really. Speed on a budget? Buy the Palio 1.6 GTX. Speed, but you also have to have a 3-box unit? The Ikon 1.6 SXi, the Hyundai Accent Tornado, or even the Siena 1.6
Nope. The Esteem needs to go now... :-(