Final flag fall for Mumbai's venerable fleet of colourful Padmini taxis

To anyone who's ever visited Mumbai, they are as evocative a symbol as the Gateway to India. The boxy, black-and-yellow Premier Padmini taxis have plied the city's streets for nearly half a century, defying their old age to become a part of the fabric of this chaotic metropolis.

Now, a new city regulation is beginning to send the venerable Padmini - known as "Fiat taxis" after the Italian make they were based on - to scrap heaps. With them will go a piece of India's history - and the taxis' colourful personalised upholstery that has dazzled so many passengers that websites have sprung up to celebrate them as an art form.

The order that all vehicles more than 20 years old be taken off the streets took effect last week. That would take some 4,500 of the remaining 9,500 Fiat taxis out of commission as their licenses expired and were not renewed, said A.L. Quadros, head of the Mumbai taxi drivers' union. The rest will be phased out when they reach 20 years.

For Quadros and many others, the new regulation represents the end of an era. "This Premier Padmini is iconic," he said, adding that people worldwide identify it with Mumbai.

The car harkens back to when India's policy of economic self-sufficiency meant domestically produced cars were the norm. For most, the only options were the Padmini and the Ambassador, made by Calcutta-based Hindustan Motors.

The first Padminis rolled off assembly lines in 1964 at a factory in Mumbai (then called Bombay) under a licence from Fiat. Within a few years, there were 62,000 of them in the Bombay taxi fleet alone, Quadros said.