Maruti Omni, The Iconic Kidnapper Van Of Bollywood, To Be Discontinued After 34 Years!

When you’re in an Indian movie and you wanna kidnap, what you gonna drive? Maruti Omni!

Okay sure that’s probably a rather bad parody of the Ghostbusters title song, but I dare you to refute the claim it makes! Maruti Suzuki’s iconic Omni van, apart form being a spacious family wagon car, was also Bollywood’s favourite crime wheels!

We, regular folks, used it for roadtrips or private school vans or luggage carriers. But Bollywood had special plans for this one! Whether you were kidnappers planning to abduct some sethji‘s kid or simply a gang of goons sprouting out of a car to bash up the hero. It was most probably a Maruti Omni van you’d find them in!

Nostalgia, anyone? Well, time for some sad news.

Maruti Suzuki has confirmed that it will be be discontinuing the Omni from October 2020!

That’s when the Bharat New Vehicles Safety Assessment Program (BNVSAP) comes into effect, and the Maruti Omni is not compatible with those safety norms.

R C Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India told NDTV Car And Bike,

“There are certain models that cannot be made ready to meet the upcoming safety norms and we will have to discontinue them, Maruti Omni being one of them. The Maruti 800 was a very important model for us but we had to discontinue it, in a similar manner we will also discontinue the Omni.”

A lot of the desi folks on Twitter felt a twinge of sadness to see this iconic car go!

People have so many memories associated with the Maruti Van, as it would be called. The person in the neighbourhood who owned one always had people borrowing it for trips or during events like weddings to ferry guests! Ah those old days!

Omni has been a part of our lives forever! https://t.co/WgfJeaXM1I

— CarToq (@CarToq) October 26, 2018

The major concern was for Indian movies, in which the Maruti Omni played quite an important role!

Indian movies have to reconsider an option for their car crashes after the discontinued maruti omni.

— IbrarBercha (@IbrarBercha) October 26, 2018

Big blow to kidnappers. https://t.co/FNJU7eKeTP

— Siddharth Singh (@siddharth3) October 26, 2018

The Maruti Omni has been on Indian streets since it was first launched in 1984. It’s had only two revamps so far, but we can definitely say, it has served as real good.

Alvida, Maruti Omni!