The Padmini has its roots in a 1952 license agreement that allowed Premier Automobiles of India to produce a version of the Italian Fiat 1100, or Millecento, said Maitreya Doshi, Premier’s managing director.

In socialist-leaning post-independence India, the auto industry was tightly controlled. “The government believed we were making a luxury product, and there was an attitude that it really should not be part of India’s growth story,” Mr. Doshi said. Changes to prices, production or to the car itself had to be cleared by the government, he added, and requests were routinely refused. Production was capped at 18,000 cars a year, he said, though demand was much higher and taxi sales were subsidized.

The government insisted that the car become indigenous. By 1973 Fiat was out, and the Millecento became the Premier President until a bureaucrat objected to the name, which he said denigrated a government office. From 1974 until production finally wound down in 2000, the car has been the Padmini, named for a 14th-century Rajput princess. To the company’s chagrin, many still call it a Fiat.

The remaining Padminis that patrol Mumbai’s roads today are essentially Fiat 1100Ds, circa 1963.

Until the early ’80s, only one type of car in each class was produced in India. There were the small, sporty cars made by Standard Motor Products, which were indigenous versions of a British Standard-Triumph, and the bulbous Hindustan Ambassador, a copy of a 1956 Morris Oxford III that is still favored by many government officials. The four-door Millecento was the car for those aspiring for the middle class. (An ad for a later model announced: “Go-getters! Achievers! Decision-makers! Your Car Is Waiting.)

In the early ’70s, Mr. Doshi said, taxi drivers began switching from Ambassadors to Padminis because they were more fuel-efficient and easier to drive. “It became the preferred brand, although there was not much to compare it to,” he said.

Padminis excelled as taxis in Bombay — as the city was known until 1995 — because they had a large trunk and their 1.1-liter 4-cylinder engine provided a good power-to-weight ratio, Mr. Doshi said. “It had lots of cargo applications,” he added. “So you’d see film crews with five people inside, their paraphernalia on the roof, stuff in the trunk and this little car coughing and sputtering and carrying on, able to pull the load.”