Beta Covet INDIA spec / Covet 800 1.0

A cheaper Covet built for the Indian market, later exported all over South Asia, South East Asia, LATAM, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South Africa. It's pathetically slow, but it gets you from point A to B reliably. Just don't crash into a tree even at 40kmph...

As of now this mod comes with 2 configurations, a "base" Covet 800 and a "MPFi" variant. The base variant is the most basic one as the name indicates. That means it's got a carburetted inline 3 engine that makes around 34hp at 6000rpm, with peak torque of around 65Nm at 2200-2500rpm, it's also got plain boring steel wheels and plastic trim, side skirts and bumpers. It's got no side mirror on the passenger side either. The MPFi variant has a much better fuel injected inline 3 making 54hp at 5500-6000rpm and 74Nm of toque at 2200-2500rpm.

Images attached below, and changes made are below the images.

Interior:



800 lettering:



Engine bay:



Overall vehicle:



List of changes:

1. Lightweight chassis, doors and hood bringing down weight to ~691kg
2. Custom Indian number plate
3. Custom lettering on tailgate
4. Inline 3 engine in Carburetted and Fuel injection variants, 3d model and textures adjusted as per needed, headers edited to fit 3 cylinder engine as well
5. Raised springs for height
6. Custom gauges, removed tachometer and other warning and indicator lights except side indicator
7. Replaced disk brakes with drum brakes
8. Adjusted radiator cooling efficiency
9. Reduced fuel tank capacity from 40 litres to 28 litres
10. Adjusted engine, doors and hood sounds

Lore:
In 1986, Ibishu launched the Covet 3 door hatchback in the Japanese, European and American markets with relative success. 2 years later in 1988, they were looking to enter the Indian market, and the Covet was the perfect car to introduce to the nation because of its price and reliability. There was just one small problem; even the cheapest Covet model sold in the world at that time, the 13s, was deemed to be too expensive for the Indian market, and it was a market too big to ignore.

So the engineers went back to the drawing board, and heavily modified the original design and specifications. And what came out of that program as a result, would change the Indian automotive scene forever.

The Covet 800 was engineered as a heavily stripped-down version of the base Covet, emerging after cutting costs at virtually every corner. For instance, they took the 13s' 1.3L inline 4 engine, chopped off a cylinder, made some changes to the cylinder head, detuned it for reliability, and a new inline 3 engine was born with a displacement of roughly 800 cubic centimeters(cc); hence the "800" in the name. The interior had work put into it too. The gauges were reworked, the tachometer was removed entirely. So was the music system, and the aircon just blows surrounding air into the cabin like a normal fan does, so that's not really an aircon. Even the disk brakes were replaced with weaker and cheaper drum brakes.

While the overall chassis design remained the same (except for a few added supports), the steel used to construct it was lighter and of lower quality, hence it was weaker. But it was also marginally cheaper, albeit way more unsafe in a crash even compared to the already dangerous base Covet. Overall weight of the vehicle came down to just under 700kg compared to the base Covet's 1100kg. So it was a win in their books.

The Covet 800 launched with 2 variants in the country, the "base" 800 and starting from year 2000, a "MPFi" (Multi point fuel injection) variant. The base 800 had a carburetted engine mated to a 4 speed transmission making 34hp, while the MPFi had fuel injection (duh), was mated to a 5 speed transmission, and made 54hp. While the base 800 came with no left side mirror, standard steel wheels, plastic trim and side skirts as well as plastic bumpers, the MPFi variant had a left side mirror, stylish tri-spoke hubcaps, metal trim and side skirts. It still retains the plastic bumpers, but gets an added lip on the front, for more style points.

It was also decided to raise the suspension by around 5cm to accommodate for poor road conditions, the 800 can take on the worst of potholes without a hitch.

The 800 was a huge hit in the country, emphasising reliability and solid build quality which set a standard so high, around 3 million Covet 800s were sold all over the country over a period of 26 years (14 for the MPFi variant). The carburetted 800 sold in huge numbers in the plains of central-north, and north-west India while the MPFi variant sold more in the southern and north-eastern regions of the country due to their hilly geography; the MPFi variant was really good at tackling uphill roads due to the higher torque, compared to the carburetted variant.