Maruti Suzuki has always been a brand that remains very close to the hearts of Indian car buyers. They have offered several models to customers in India. Some of them are popular among family audiences, while others are quite popular among enthusiasts. Maruti Suzuki did launch a couple of cars in the market targeting the enthusiast community. Not all of them did well in terms of sales. One such model that Maruti launched was the Zen Carbon and Steel. Currently, it is a collectible car as it was only sold in limited numbers. Here, we have a video of a Maruti Zen Carbon that has been neatly restored by its current owner.
The video has been shared by Weekend Automotive on their YouTube channel. In this video, the vlogger introduces a car and bike collector from Nashik who owns around 30 cars and over 120 motorcycles. One of the recent additions to his garage was a 2003 model Maruti Suzuki Zen Carbon. In this video, the owner talks about how he came to know about the car, how he bought it, and restored it. As mentioned above, the owner of this Zen Carbon is a car collector, and the first car in his collection was a Maruti Omni that his father had bought.
The van is still there in his garage, and he works on it every five years to maintain it in mint condition. As part of his hobby, he was looking for some old or first-generation Zen hatchbacks. One day, his friend called him about a Zen that was abandoned under a tree. He asked his friend to send the pics, and only after seeing the images, did he realize that it was a Zen Carbon, which is a limited-number model in the Indian market.
This was the 3-door version of the Zen hatchback, with 300 units in black shade and 300 units in Silver shade (Steel). The owner got excited and asked his friend to get the details of the car. The friend traced the old owner’s house and asked about the car. The car was actually left abandoned under a tree and was covered in dust and bird droppings. The owner had left the car at the spot after an accident.
The front of the car was damaged, and the owner never cared to get it repaired. The old owner told them that he was interested in selling the car, and that too for Rs 80,000 as he considered it scrap. The current owner negotiated the price and got the car for Rs 55,000. The car was bought, and the ownership was transferred. Once the ownership was transferred, they started restoring the car. The front end of the car was all replaced. It got new headlamps, turn indicators, bonnet, fenders, grille, and bumper.
All these parts are the same as a regular Zen. He got the apron under the bonnet, which was damaged in the crash, straightened too. Other than that, he got the whole car repainted in the original black shade. He mentions that he is one of those people who likes to buy cars with documents. He also mentions that after buying the Carbon, he bought and restored another Zen and Zen Classic. He restored all of them with genuine parts.