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When the first wheels rolled into India

December 23, 2008

It was not till four years later, however, that a real beginning on Public Service Vehicles was made. A 22-seater body on a 2-ton Halley chassis was supplied in 1911, again to the Salem District. And this was followed the same year by a passenger-cum-goods body for the Travencore Commercial Company. In 1912 it built a motor ambulance for a local institution.

Simultaneously, Simpson's body-building activity for private owners of vehicles centred on building ornate, carriage-style bodies on car chassis. As English-made car bodies were expensive, only chassis were usually imported and locally-made bodies of varied designs were fitted on them. . .

When TVS commenced operations in 1912, motor transport received a fillip in South India. The firm was founded by T V Sundram Iyengar to operate a bus service. T V Sundram Iyengar and Sons Ltd (now Sundaram Motors) became a vehicle dealer in 1922 after the lifting of government restrictions on imported vehicles of all types had been put in place during the Great War (1914-18).

By 1920, the number of imported vehicles of all types had grown to nearly 13,500 and two international automobile manufacturers, Ford and General Motors, sensing the potential, set up local companies that year to sell and service their motor cars and trucks.

Image: A vintage 1955 Austin A30 is seen at Uruguayan Julio Hector Hernandez's garage in Montevideo. | Photograph: REUTERS/Pablo La Rosa/FEATURE/URUGUAY-CARS