rgxsingh
Elite
India has seen a rapid growth in car population especially after Independence
If you stand on high ground and look down to a road, you will see a mass of jelly bean shaped cars – zipping through at some stretches, or crawling bumper to bumper on others. To someone who is a little less initiated in automobiles, all these cars look the same. He cannot, for the life of him, distinguish between a Matiz and a Zen Estilo as they zip past him. The roads in India are overflowing with the latest automobiles and they come from all over the globe.
It has been 60 years since we became an independent nation and the explosion in the automobile industry happened in the last 10 years or so.
Automobiles were manufactured in India even before the country became independent. Ford and General Motors had set up their factories in Mumbai, but they closed shop when the new Indian government passed a legislation that required them to hand over majority stake on to some Indian partner.
In 1942, Hindustan Motors tied up with Morris Motors of England to produce passenger cars for the Indian middle class. The first car that HM produced was the Landmaster, the forefather of the present day Ambassador, the pride and joy of the huge Indian middle class and the government babus for a very long time.
In 1949, HM launched the Hindustan 10 which was actually the Morris 10 and a year later out rolled the Baby Hindustan which was in reality the hugely popular Morris Minor. Hindustan Motors went on to produce the Austin A40 and the Austin A70 before finally getting stuck with the Ambassador which has evolved mechanically over the years but the shape has essentially remained the same.
Around the same time that HM was making the Landmasters, another Indian company, Mahindra and Mahindra set up operations. In 1949, M&M entered into an agreement with Willys Overland of America to assemble the Willys Jeeps in India.
The Jeeps were of the same model that did duty with such distinction in the World War II and they remained the mainstay of the Indian army and administration for many decades. M&M also entered into an agreement with Kaiser Jeep Corporation and American Motor Corporation (AMC) in 1954 and the company continued making virtually indestructible but fuel guzzling petrol engine Jeeps until 1979 when it tied up with Peugeot of France to produce diesel engines for the Jeeps which had by then evolved into the CJ (Civilian Jeep) series.
M&M continued to enjoy near monopoly with the army, police and the local administration until the arrival of the Gypsy from Maruti Suzuki in the early 1990s. Almost overnight the sales of the Jeep plummeted to abysmal level and it kept declining year after year until the Scorpio turned around the fortunes of the company in the late 1990s.
After their exit from India, Ford and General Motors were not interested in tie-ups with any Indian manufacturer and the message was conveyed to Premier Automobiles Limited when the company approached them in 1940.
But the third big American manufacturer, Chrysler, reached an agreement with Premier Automobiles and the partnership set up a factory at Bombay. It was an assembly plant initially and the vehicles came in a CKD form (completely knocked down). Premier assembled Plymouth, Dodge and DeSoto passenger cars as well as Dodge, Fargo and DeSoto trucks.
Premier Auto tied up with Fiat in 1956 and manufactured the Fiat 1100 Millicento as well as the cute little Fiat 500. In the later years, the company manufactured the Fiat Padmani which remained almost unchanged until its demise in the mid 1980s, hastened by the arrival of the Maruti 800.
The other prominent vehicle manufacturer in India was the Standard Motor Products of India Limited which set up a production facility at Chennai in 1948 in collaboration with Standard Motors of England. Initially it rolled out the Standard Vanguard and in 1955 made the Standard 8/10 followed by the Standard Pennant in 1959. The company made its most popular car, the two door Herald in1961 through to 1970 and was powered by a 1200cc Triumph engine. The company also made the four door Gazel till 1977 and production ceased in 1988 with the failure of the Standard 2000 which was in reality the Rover SD1.
There were other manufacturers too. In 1954, Tata and Mercedes Benz had a collaboration to produce a 1200cc truck that proved indispensable to the Indian army during the wars with China and Pakistan. The government also has agreements with Nissan of Japan and MAN of Germany to manufacture the 1Tonne truck, the Jonga Jeep and a transport truck for the Army.
And yes do you remember the Dolphin and the three wheeled Badal? Decent vehicles those but they never took off.
Compared with the four wheeler segment, the two wheeler segment never really took off in the initial period. Royal Enfield set up a manufacturing unit in Chennai in 1955 to produce the Bullet 350 motorcycles and in 1960 Ideal Jawa (India) started manufacturing the 250cc Jawa motorcycles under license from Jawa Motorcycles of Czechoslovakia. 1960 also saw the arrival of the third motorcycle in India. Rajdoot was manufactured by Escorts in collaboration with CEKOP of Poland.
Somehow, all the three motorcycles had well defined markets. The Bullet 350 was used by the army and police, the Jawa was used by the college crowds and the Rajoot did duty in the rural areas.
Being part of the British Empire ensured that India had its fair share of motorcycles and cars from the homeland and the vehicles kept on coming years after India gained independence. In fact India was the biggest market for the British luxury car manufacturer Rolls Royce.
There were fewer pre independence American cars in India as compared to the British ones but after 1950, a lot of big American cars found their way to the Indian shores and they are in great demand now.
Sixty years seems a life time and over the years, the automobile scenario has seen drastic change. From an annual sale of hardly 20,000 vehicles in the 1950s, the auto industry had raked up a sale figure of 9,735,216 units in 2005-2006 and this is minus the tractors. A long way indeed.
In the initial years the manufacturers were finding it hard to keep business afloat because of the low sales. The government hiked up the import duties many times over which in turn increased the car prices and at the same time announced incentives for the local spare part manufacturers to encourage industrialisation.
When the Indian automotive market opened up after the liberalization, an overwhelming number of major auto manufacturers made a beeline for the Indian market and they have reaped the benefits. The Indian automotive market along with China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and none of the major manufacturers the world over can afford to ignore it.
There was a time when kids used to wait by a deserted roadside to catch a glimpse of a car as it roared past- one every few hours but now the constant flow of the cars makes it difficult to see the other side of the road leave alone cross it.
That’s where we have reached in 60 years. The next few decades will see even more cars and manufacturers make India their home but where are we going to drive all those fine cars?
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