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When the first wheels rolled into India

December 23, 2008

It was in 1897 that a resident of Calcutta brought the first car to India. The next year, there were four cars in Bombay, one of them owned by Jamshedji Tata and the other three also by Parsis. That same year, the first pneumatic tyres arrived in Bombay, with Dunlop opening an office in the city.

Madras, it would appear, lagged behind, though it is related that a car was seen on Mount Road on a brief outing in 1894. If that unconfirmed appearance is ignored, the first recorded date of a car being in regular use in Madras is 1901.

The car was owned by A J Yorke, a director of Parry & Co. He drove it daily from Ben's Gardens, Adyar, to Parry's in 'Black Town'. The South's first registered car, MC-1, belonged to Francis Spring, at that time Secretary of the Madras Railway Board and, in 1904, to become the Chairman of the Madras Port Trust and 'father' of the Madras Harbour.

The first Indian-owned car in Madras, MC-3, was building contractor T Namberumal Chetty's.

Image: The Australian flag (L), the Goodyear logo flag (C) and the Dunlop logo flag (right) flutter on flagpoles at the South Pacific Tyres facility in Somerton, Victoria, about 20km from Melbourne. | Photograph: REUTERS/Mick Tsikas