History of cars in India before 1990

[pythonx]

Friends ,
I am going to take you through the car scene in india before 1990.

India all through 40 years till independence had a closed centrally planned socialist economy.This meant that there was ban on sales of any foreign product and foreign companies were given very little window to sell their products inside india.
This meant that indians had very little option because the key to variety is competition.Since there was no competition ,the local companies didn't produce variety as people were happy with any piece of box they can get.

When our pakistani folks across the border were enjoying several cars easily imported from dubai,usa,japan etc in those times we had very little access to cars.
Indian economy was called the SICKEST economy of south asia.We used to drive 50's model till the 90 :-#

Overall only 4 or 5 of cars were available for the common man to choose from!!

Fiat

Padmini

Ambassador

Mahindra jeep

Yup this is it!
These were some of the only 'options' people had.Importing a car meant paying 4x the price.

But in the 1991 the SOVIET UNION broke up.As you know India and USSR were allies and india followed the same centrally planned economic model which communist Russia followed. But the reason for the breakup of USSR was its weak economy because of centrally planning system which india also followed.

In 1991 India's reserved all dried up and it was left with only 21 days of reserves left!!!
Manmohan Singh then the Finance minister created an economic plan to open up the economy to the global market.
This was a turning point in India's modern history. Economic liberalisation in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suddenly Indian economy started roaring and it became one of the fastest growing and whatever india has progressed has been really only in the last 20 years!

[sanerider]

Good post. the reliability of British and Italian old marques which rattle like it's gonna disintegrate. also, engine oil change every 2500-3000kms(Ambassador) I remember. Those Cars used to get overheated albeit having simple mechanicals. During Ghat sections, We used to pour water to over-flooding radiator. parts qualities are exactly what it was in 1950s. but, spare parts of all cars were easily available and easily repairable too and yet cheap as well.

People from southernmost corner will go to Calcutta(now Kolkata) to get New Ambassador Cars because due to License Raj(Quota - only n no. of vehicles/year can only be sold in particular states) and drives down to their natives in Madras or Bangalore in time finishing the "running-in" of the vintage engine.(this is from 1980s). Alloy Wheels,Radio Cassette Player and Koyas Bucket Seats(http://www.koyas.net/) or Stanley Leather(http://www.stanleylifestyles.com/) as aftermarket Jobs. People used to disassemble Cars to repaint inside because of lacking quality.

License Raj - this feature explains it well
Wednesday Photo - Aamchi Italian Taxi

Same with Three Wheelers made by API under license from Innocenti of Italy. Innocenti Vespa Scootters once ruled India and even Bajaj Scootters are legacy of Italian marque. Royal Enfield,YEZDI(Ideal Jawa),Rajdoot,LUNA,KINETIC,KELVINATOR etc etc were the local two wheeler brands.

[dr3vil]

i like Padmini the red one not blue.
to be honest these cars remind me of all indian movies we watched from 90's i only remember in one scene of a movie AB was in it i forgot the name i saw a red 88 Honda Accord with black tints yes this was only import in old movies i saw
we have import scene here very long and now our local manufacturers are doing this scene here u guessed it i am talking about the one the only Suzuki Mehran,
and these 50's cars forget about it here yes we complain but PK had and have a very nice import scene like Honda launched cars in 96/97 in indie and Honda was in Pk since 72 Toyota well i think the oldest Japanese company operating in PK the 67 Corona when launched clean seeped the market in 60's from American cars.we love imports mate and all these cars above i once seen a Fiat which didn't looked like the green one but more like padmini.
BTW does any these cars had upgrades throughout years?
and when u say 90 then i think Maruti 800 compared to these old chaps was much better choice so indian and Pk car scene changed by the same car Suzuki Alto MkII

[sanerider]

How can I forget old ads from Readers digest(a old mag) advertised "give your amby a new life" - Which was the advertisement for aftermarket Full Body Shell available built by factories in Belgaum(mid between Bombayy and Bangalore). that was how desperate India's auto sector was during 70s and 80s. We do have other cars locally made like Sipani,Dolphin and rage was HM Contessa(Desi Muscle Car) and Standard 2000 available during those years as well as the dredded Yamaha Rajdoot RD 350 twin engined two stroker rocket(bike). Every Rich Man used to have a Contessa.

Hindustan Contessa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Standard (Indian automobile) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Bombaywalla]

Nice! I remember as a child, being ferried to school and back in a Prussian blue Contessa. That's a massively comfortable car. Isn't the Ambassador in the opening post an export model? It looks like one of the few cars that was exported back to the UK as a classic.

P.S: thank you, liberalisation.

[umerchaudhary]

@ekdrifter ab to redone padmini bhe nani ami ban gae hoge us pe nzar ha apke lol

[sanerider]

Fiat 1100D alias Premier Padmini.

[suresh123]

Thanks for reminding the vintage cars of India.My favorite one out of these is Mahindra Jeep.Almost more than 20 off-roaders are launched in India but no one can compete with this rowdy and rock solid Mahindra Jeep.This Jeep is a trademark of Mahindra which has also laid the path of success to the Scorpio,Bolero,xylo,XUV500 and now Quanto.People has this thing in their mind is Mahindra has expertise in making powerful and efficient off-roaders.
One more company has launched successful SUV and off-roaders and people has given them great love i.e. Tata.Its own SUV Tata Safari has been renowned as Indian lion because of its aggressive looks and power.
Now it <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">has also launched its new version Tata New Safari.

[Thinking]

what is the current car import and availbility policy?

what is the criteria for taxation?

[dr3vil]

How can I forget old ads from Readers digest(a old mag) advertised "give your amby a new life" - Which was the advertisement for aftermarket Full Body Shell available built by factories in Belgaum(mid between Bombayy and Bangalore). that was how desperate India's auto sector was during 70s and 80s. We do have other cars locally made like Sipani,Dolphin and rage was HM Contessa(Desi Muscle Car) and Standard 2000 available during those years as well as the dredded Yamaha Rajdoot RD 350 twin engined two stroker rocket(bike). Every Rich Man used to have a Contessa.

Hindustan Contessa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Standard (Indian automobile) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the black one oh yes this reminds me of Amresh puri aka Mugambo

[dr3vil]

@ekdrifter ab to redone padmini bhe nani ami ban gae hoge us pe nzar ha apke lol

lol hahahaha well in that case id stick to PKDM Mahnoor Baloch she is a timeless classic:D

[pythonx]

what is the current car import and availbility policy?

what is the criteria for taxation?

The tax rate is still very high for imported cars.
But now many companies have opened their factories in India so their prices has gone down.

For ex: BMW has factory in India but their market in india is less so cars made here are imported to other countries in the subcontinent or SE Asia.