It has been a running theme on this site since forever, but I don’t like cars. I have never really owned one in my life, having always driven my dad’s i10s, two of them. But I’m getting old, and find myself slowly drifting towards the warmth and comfort of these shitboxes, away from the fear and excitement of bikes.
When the marketing hype for the Jimny began, I got really interested in buying it. The i10 we have at home is 14 years old, and my dad was surprisingly open to the idea of finally getting rid of that piece of junk. But, our garage space is quite small, anything bigger than the i10 would mean problems.
That’s why I really wanted to get the Jimny, it would fit in our garage. But more than that, I wanted a small car. I absolutely hate this trend of massive SUVs that has taken over the world for some reason, these things take entirely too much space on the road, and should all be crushed and burnt.
But, I also wanted a car that won’t be too boring. There are small cars available in the market, the choice is limited, but there is a selection. However, I only drive automatics, because as a macho man I don’t want want to be touching and fumbling around with a long and hard knob every few seconds.
The list of small non-boring automatic cars that don’t cost a bomb is very small. If, like me, you live in a small town with no VW showrooms around, that list is empty. To make things clear, you may suggest that I get an i20 N line, but an i20 is not a small car, at least not small enough for my garage.
And so, the Jimny really interested me. A tiny car with 4×4 that looks exciting checked all my boxes. The marketing hype cycle was annoying as hell, what looked like the same car jumping around from the Auto Expo to random dealerships, while the “journalists” shat new “scoops” everyday.
And then the nightmare began.
The first time that I got concerned about this car was when I read an interview with the marketing head or something from Maruti, and he kept repeating the same keyword again and again, “premium”. Maruti is not known for their premium cars, they make simple and cheap boxes of metal that go slow and don’t burn too much fuel in the process, while failing every crash test humanity throws at them. This was a huge red flag, Maruti was building this narrative that their upcoming product is “premium”, and the only reason they’d need to spin this obviously stupid story is because they’re gonna price it at an obviously stupid level.
But the hype train carried on, and the next station it crashed into was the Engine and Gearbox Central. When the powertrain options were unveiled, I was gobsmacked, it literally felt like a large gob had repeatedly smacked me in the face at high speeds. The thing was low on power and torque, but that was kinda expected and not a deal breaker for a light and tiny car, what blew my mind was the automatic gearbox being offered with the car.
My i10 has a 4 speed auto transmission, it sucks quite a lot. Because there are only 4 gears, shifts are very noticeable, especially if you need instant power for overtakes, which pushes the RPM uncomfortably high, which leads to single digit mileage figures. I like driving smoothly, and it is basically impossible to do that with that tranny. But, 15 years ago this gearbox was fine, there were very limited options in automatics, and this was better than everything else in our price range.
Maruti put basically the same 4 speed box in the Jimny. Maruti put decades old technology in their latest “premium” car. My day was obviously ruined, and I was angry.
Now, there are people on forums like Team-bhp who’ll tell you the 4 speed is enough and not a deal breaker at all, but I don’t buy that shit. Yes it is an off-roader, but 90% of the Jimnys will spend 90% of their life on the highways, mine will spend even more. Why the hell would I compromise so much on a fundamental feature of a “premium” car? Overtaking in it would be a royal pain, mileage will obviously suck, but most importantly, you will be stuck with a half-assed product. Maruti have better powertrain options in their stable, they chose to do this lunacy, why should I pay them money and support this idiotic choice?
At this point I was almost certain I’m not going to buy this thing, but I still had some hopeless hope somehow. The pricing hadn’t been announced, and if it was cheap enough maybe I could ignore the constant pain of living with that gearbox? It is important to remember that I don’t like cars, I have to convince myself hard to buy one, and the one car that I wanted to buy kept getting worse.
And then the pricing was announced.
My anger changed into laughter pretty quickly, it was obvious Maruti had made the biggest blunder anyone can make, believing in your own hype. Pricing this cute little matchbox of a car at nearly the same level as a Thar was hilarious. I was not going to buy it now, obviously, and that made me a little sad. It is a flawed car, but it’s a good idea. Maruti let their own greed and stupidity destroy what could have been a genius product, what an absolute waste.
I made a video about this whole situation afterwards, you can watch it here:
Fast forward to now, Jimny sales are far below Maruti’s expectations, and that makes me happy. They’ve already reduced the price massively, spitting directly in the faces of early adopters, and further price cuts would not surprise me. It panned out about the same as I’d predicted in my video, but that thing only got like 99 views, so I can’t take all the credit for Jimny’s failure, as much as I’d like to.
Now, it is fine if you like the Jimny, and it’s great if you bought it and are enjoying it. I have no beef with you, and I hope you enjoy it for years. My problem is with Maruti, with big corporations more broadly. People don’t seem to understand that the decisions they make in terms of which products they buy directly affect the way these gigantic companies behave. They’re like little kids, if you don’t constantly discipline them, you end up with cute little Hitlers. If Jimny had been a success, it would’ve essentially destroyed the affordable car market in India. Other auto companies would’ve noticed that a shit car that was sold as “premium” at a ridiculous price still sold well, and they would’ve done exactly the same. The whole “free market” bullshit really doesn’t work when all the big players in the market decide to jack up the prices together. These companies need to be constantly kept in check, and luckily in this case it seems like a majority of the people made the correct decision and said fuck you to Maruti.
It may sound like idealistic babble, but individuals can make a difference against big companies. It is sad that we don’t usually band together and call out the bullshit of these megacorps, but it is beautiful when it happens. Maruti aggressively cut the pricing because obviously they did, the Jimny is not worth 17 fucking Lacs by any goddamn standards. I’m surprised that a couple thousand people are still buying it every month, but it is still absolutely clear, the Jimny is a failure.
The Jimny is a failure, but it didn’t have to be this way. Maruti didn’t have to let their greed take them so far, and the sad thing is that ultimately people like me will have to pay for their fuckery. The next time Maruti engineers come up with an idea of a small and exciting car that’s trying to appeal to the enthusiasts, the management will nuke it. They’ve burnt their fingers on the Jimny, and the lesson these dickheads are most likely to learn from this is that India isn’t ready for products like the Jimny. The actual lesson is that you shouldn’t half-ass your products and still try to charge a fortune on them, but that kinda attitude doesn’t get you to the boardroom now does it.
The ultimate tragedy here is that I’m still stuck driving my dad’s i10, with no signs of that situation improving in the future. I want a small car, but nobody else seems to want it, so nobody seems to be making them. The Jimny got so close, but the whole hype and crash experience feels like waiting for the happy ending after a massage, but getting punched in the nuts instead. Fuck cars I guess, time to spend that money on a 100hp two wheeled death machine.
100hp two wheeled death machine? The new Daytona I guess?
I hate that thing! Feels like a Trident with fairing, that underbelly exhaust just doesn’t work for me, too much Ninja 650 vibes. I would prefer to get the Striple.