[dragracer567]

Alternate history is one of the most interesting niche genres around, it gives you an insight into what the world could've been if one event/decision had changed in history. Offcourse, we've all thought about how our life would have been if we had attended a certain university or accepted a certain job for example. There are also some very interesting literature on this genre with Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle bring amongst my favourite. I also religiously follow Youtube channels that postulate various alternate history scenarios (Alternate History Hub, Monsieur Z, whatifalthist etc).

This got me thinking, why don't we do the same for the automotive world? As in, what if at various points in automotive history, different decisions were made by car-makers or different events had played out that would've radically transformed the industry today. Here are a couple of topics off the top of my head:

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1) What if Maruti had partnered with VW instead of Suzuki?

The decision to partner with Maruti was probably the wisest decision that Suzuki had ever made. India is right now, Suzuki's largest market by a fair margin and is a juggernaut of the Indian car industry with a market share of 40-50%. Effectively, apart from Japan, India remains the only market where Suzuki is a dominant player with fellow Japanese car maker Toyota dominating the rest of the world.

However, Suzuki wasn't always destined to enter the Indian market so early. Infact, VW was the first car manufacturer to be approached for a potential partnership which eventually didn't materialize for some reason (perhaps senior Bhp-ians could explain why). But had VW been the chosen partner, the Indian automotive market would've been unrecognizable. For one, Maruti-VW wouldn't have been as dominating as Maruti-Suzuki is now given the different business culture that the Germans would've brought over as compared to the Japanese Zaibatsu culture of giant conglomerates. Maruti under VW would've been less monopolistic and we'd have much higher competition in the car market with other manufacturers getting a bigger share of the pie and the market composition (not size) would be fairly similar to the Chinese market today where VW was an early entrant as well. If that's the case, Ford probably won't have left India but GM probably would, given their shattered reputation towards the end due to selling rebadged SAIC cars. A bigger available market share would mean than Japanese Companies like Toyota would bring in their entire global portfolio and might even be the largest car maker in India piping Maruti-VW. The Tatas and Mahindras will have a harder time competing with global products being launched in India much earlier, keep in mind that the Safari and Scorpio became so popular initially because they had no global competitors.

Coming to Suzuki, it would be a much smaller and niche player globally without the Indian market to soak up so many of its products and it would probably have left the US market much earlier. Also, given the low margins, its likely that modern Suzuki cars like Swift, Ignis and Baleno would never have been developed. Either Suzuki would've evolved as a company that makes larger cars akin to Nissan/Mazda or would've gone extinct in most markets like Mitsubishi.

2) What if Porsche never made the Cayenne?

This is a fairly easy one to theorize. The Cayenne effectively saved Porsche making it one of the richest car manufacturers around. So, would Porsche have survived without the Cayenne? It probably would have survived given just how popular the brand is all over the world. If the brand survived on its own, it would probably have stayed on in a similar vein to Maserati or Aston Martin with a small market share and products that are of a lower quality to its German rivals. We would probably still have a 911 but without the profits that the Cayenne and Macan brought in, it would be a much more lower quality product similar to the last gen Astons.

Another possibility is that VW would've absorbed the brand much earlier circa 2004-05 when VW was on a purchasing spree. If this is the case, Porsche would've survived and made top-end cars but these would be more VW clones than the Porsche of today (speaking of which, Porsche would probably have made an SUV in the early 2010s on the Q7/Touareg platfom). While the modern Cayenne and Q7 share the same platform, the Cayenne till has its own identity but if Porsche was absorbed by VW at a position of weakness (and not a position of strength like in our timeline), Porsche wouldn't have been able to retain its identity as say Lamborghini was able to due to its Italian heritage.

More importantly, there wouldn't be a sport-SUV market. The super-fast and good-handling SUV trend started with the Cayenne, so there would be no ML63 AMG, no BMW X5/X6 M, no Urus, no Ferrari/Aston Martin/Maserati SUVs. Rather SUVs would probably have remained benign cross-overs with the thought of 'fast, good handling SUVs' still being considered oxymoronic.

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Offcourse, many of you may disagree with my postulations and might have your own theories on how these alternate histories might've played out.

Please do share if you can think of any such alternate history scenarios in the automotive world, I'll share more in due time in this thread as well.

[V.Narayan]

Very interesting thread.

What if.....

The Govt of India had not implemented its industrial licensing policy that restricted not only the manufacturers of automotive products, but also what they could produce and how many pieces a year. As a consequence we go frozen in the 1950s with Premier, Hindustan & Standard as far as cars went

What if.....

We never had the so called Tarriffs Commission in 1952 that disallowed only assembly of cars {as opposed to manufacture} and disallowed car makers who did not have an Indian partner. As a consequence three assemblers packed up and left - General Motors, Ford and Hillman/Humber.

What if.....

The Govt, which controlled everything in the 1960s, had permitted Tata Motors {then TELCO} to manufacture Mercedes Benz cars and vans as JRD and Benz wanted to do as a continuation of their very successful collaboration on trucks.

[Eddy]

What if.... Maruti had not partnered with Fiat and got that brilliant 1.3 in India? The automotive scene in India could have been quite different.

What if.... Tata had marketed the Nano better?

[Kosfactor]

What if ... Ford did not release Model T. We will be talking about horses and boats , perhaps some nice shoes etc.

[aargee]

This is taken from 110cc Scooters segment from the July 2021 Motorcycle & Scooter Sales Figures & Analysis



What if....Bajaj strived to stay in the scooter segment in the early to mid 2000s? The 60% of healthy pie might have...who knows?

OT - The August & September sales figures are very badly missing!!

[Porcupine]

Very interesting thread!

What if ... Hindustan Motors and Premier also found foreign partners and stayed competitive with Maruti and eventually Mahindra and Tata?

Originally Posted by Eddy

What if.... Tata had marketed the Nano better?

This should have been the real game changer that wasn't, one of the biggest "what if's" of the modern Indian automotive history.

[saikarthik]

My biggest alternate story would have been,

What if the CMVR (MoRTH) hadn't introduced the stupid sub 4m and 1.2L category. We would have had a lot of other global options and epic proportionate cars with more NA large capacity vehicles.

P.S - am not against environmental decision or the congestion.

[TorqMaster]

What if GOI would have adopted safety above other preferences in automotive sector (cars, traffic, infrastructure etx) sooner than what they have done now? We would have been a safer driving country and possibly our dear ones may still be around.

[TorqueMonster]

Another major What if? question of the automotive sphere is what if Lamborghini was not bought by the VAG.

The Acquisition of Lamborghini by Audi is one that has changed the way Lamborghini has been forever. Lamborghini is that one brand that had to, unfortunately, see a lot of owners throughout its history, while its fellow Italian exotic brands like Ferrari and Maserati had been under the umbrella of Fiat.

From being sold to a businessman turned artist, to then being sold to V'Power in Indonesia, and in between all this, a few years under Chrysler, all of these are too many ownership troubles.

The acquisition by Audi is one of the best things that could have ever happened to the brand. With now access to millions worth of resources, that too under the stable ownership of one of the biggest car makers in the world, Lamborghini had the chance to flourish. And from then, cars such as the Gallardo, Murcielago, Aventador and the Huracan, all were created, leading to its massive success and delivering the automobile world some of the best cars the brand could offer.

But, I personally believe that had it not been for Audi, Lamborghini would have died a sad death, or will be massively diminished. It may have easily ended up being one fancy trademark under the hands of a wealthy businessman, or be a niche smaller manufacturer like Lotus.

[DicKy]

Superb thread idea!!!
Ever since I read Jayant Narlikar's 'The Adventure' in class XI(?) I was fascinated by alternate history. Not to say, learning car history always makes us go "Sigh...what if?"

1. What if license raj never happened? - As much as I despise the license raj, if it was a free market since Independence, we would have ended without much of strong local manufacturers. But...

2. What if GOI had allowed tech transfer and actively promoted exports? - Maybe not beat Japan, but we would have been something between Japanese and S.Korean car manufacturers...

3. What if Nano.. - No factory flight or fight, no cheap car tag, none of the compromises. What if Nano could realy shift India from two wheels to four wheels.

4. Infra- We had a separate thread on roads vs railways. Too lazy to write on it. What if the GQ was built atleast by the 1980s?

5. Magna - What if Tata went ahead with the Tata Magna? Not sure about market success. But we would have a cheap used hoonable RWD sedan by now.

6. What if Tata managed to launch the Accord - We could very well guess what could have stopped at the time. The powers to be might not have liked the Tata- Honda JV t go through.

7. What if the 407 flopped? - Unpopular opinion. The success of the 407 and the decline of the Japanese LCVs pulled back our LCVs quality/standards by atleast 2-3 decades.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

1) What if Maruti had partnered with VW instead of Suzuki?

That's a deep rabbit hole!!! The first few chapters of Shri.R.C Bhargava's 'Maruti Story' is filled with what ifs... We were more likely to get a Renault 7(?) than VW. But a visit to Tokyo motor show changed their mind. Even then. What if Mitsubishi wasn't too big for Maruti? What if Daihatsu didn't double cross Maruti? What if the Suzuki official didn't pick up the India Today mag on his flight? What if grief stricken Indira Gandhi give Maruti a free hand? What it Sanjay Gandhi was not car crazy? What if the 1959 LK Jha committee had kickstarted the 'national car' project. What if...Okay, I am stopping here.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

2) What if Porsche never made the Cayenne?
More importantly, there wouldn't be a sport-SUV market. The super-fast and good-handling SUV trend started with the Cayenne, so there would be no ML63 AMG, no BMW X5/X6 M, no Urus, no Ferrari/Aston Martin/Maserati SUVs. Rather SUVs would probably have remained benign cross-overs with the thought of 'fast, good handling SUVs' still being considered oxymoronic.

If we go even further.
8. What if the US government classified SUVs as passenger vehicles and not trucks? - The main reason for the initial popularity of SUVs and pickup trucks was that they were exempt from the regulations and taxes of passenger vehicles. Then Toyota came up with the Rav4 and the rest is history. Though it is the Cayenne and all the later sporty SUVs that lead to the resultant trickling down of suspension/brake tuning and tech that made the present SUV/crossover craze possible.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Ofcourse, we've all thought about how our life would have been if we had attended a certain university or accepted a certain job for example.

C'mon. Not a day goes since my quarter life crisis that I regret things...

What if we had crude oil reserves, a national car project in the late 50e and the present NH network in the 1980s itself!!!

[AZT]

Originally Posted by Eddy

What if.... Tata had marketed the Nano better?

Agree. The Nano was a brilliant car ahead of its time. Bad marketing / product placement killed it.

OT but this thread is definitely inspired by the current ongoing Marvel What If... series

[Bibendum90949]

What if.... Maruti had given some attention to update Gypsy over the years. A diesel engine in the form of 1.3 MJD , AC, power steering, better suspension, airbags and conformance to crash norms etc would've meant that it would've have given the likes of even Thar, Gurkha, Bolero or the upcoming Jimny etc a run for it's money even today. Besides, it also would've raked in some serious sales numbers when the whole country got fascinated with diesels in that particular decade.

[TheHelix0202]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Infact, VW was the first car manufacturer to be approached for a potential partnership which eventually didn't materialize for some reason (perhaps senior Bhp-ians could explain why).

LINK

Alternatively, the costs would've increased by a fair margin too - the budget desi people's car would not have materialized.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Very interesting thread.

What if.....

The Govt of India had not implemented its industrial licensing policy

The license raj is absolutely the quintessential point that sealed the fate of not just the automotive industry but the nation as a whole.

The license raj affected the nation more than any other socioeconomic factor I can think of, so that's a really hard one to predict. Perhaps some of the following might have occurred in this scenario:

1) GM and Ford stay on in India becoming established players. Especially Ford which was adept in adapting to the local markets as they did in Europe & Australia.

2) Tata would start making cars much sooner, either with or without the help of Mercedes. This is the 60s, so Tata would have a headstart over the Koreans and will show up in export markets such as the US in the 70s after the oil crisis just as the Hyundai Pony did. Like Hyundai, Tatas like Hyundais of the day would initially be considered cheap imitations of Japanese and German cars but will eventually become a formidable global player. India will likely prefer smaller cars with bigger American cars being owned by the elites since the fuel still needed to be imported then.

3) Mahindra will rapidly diversity away from the Jeeps to making proper body-on-frame SUVs similar to LCs and Patrols that were also initially Jeep clones.

4) The country as a whole would certainly be much more industrialized and richer albeit not a developed country like Japan because we've to keep in mind that India's literacy was abysmal, even lower than Mao's China, industrialisation can't fix that. But a richer country means that the car market would be much bigger and more mature by now with real car culture and more developed motorsports.

5) There just won't be any Ambys. No Padmini either. With an open economy, Suzuki doesn't need to enter India via Maruti.

6) And indirectly, an India that industrializes so early would contribute a lot more in terms of Greenhouse gases, which also means that the global shift to EVs & renewables would've started much earlier due to bigger investments, maybe as early as the late 90s with temperatures already rising above the 1.5 C mark (now predicted for 2030 if all countries meet their Paris emission targets).

Offcourse, this is assuming that the country remains politically stable (and democratic) in this scenario. This is something I can't predict because I just don't know enough about this era except through some literary sources, so perhaps someone who has lived through this era could comment on this better.

Originally Posted by DicKy

Superb thread idea!!!
Ever since I read Jayant Narlikar's 'The Adventure' in class XI(?) I was fascinated by alternate history. Not to say, learning car history always makes us go "Sigh...what if?"

Just had an epiphany, that's where my interest in alternate history started as well and I completely forgot about it, thanks for the reminder! Yes, it was in Class XI in the 'Hornbill' textbook. God bless CBSE!

Originally Posted by AZT

OT but this thread is definitely inspired by the current ongoing Marvel What If... series

Haven't seen them yet I'd say it's more inspired by those YT channels I mentioned, I just love how they construct the scenarios by choosing the point of divergence in history.

[GTO]

Deadly thread . How did you even think of such a topic, man??

My What Ifs.

- What if VW had entertained the Maruti proposal in the 80s? Would our roads be flooded with VWs instead of Altos then? I don't think so & am glad it was Suzuki. VW isn't really a mass market brand for our tastes (reliability, FE, cost structure etc.).

- What if super aggressive & dynamic Daewoo HQ in Korea hadn't gone bankrupt? Would we have a formidable Daewoo fighting Hyundai tooth & nail then? I personally loved Daewoo's designs compared to the then weird Hyundais. Consider the beautiful Matiz or the Cielo.

- What if Mahindra wouldn't have divorced Ford? I'm sure it would've led to better Mahindras as well as better Fords. And also, better competition .

- What if Jaypee didn't have financial troubles or get drowned in debt? Imagine how awesome it would be to still host F1 races in India.

- What if Team-BHP wasn't created in 2004. Who would you trust today with honest reviews? Which platform would you use to interact with other petrolheads you'd never met? Where would you create this "What If" thread?