[Stanher]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

We don't have an exact date so far for the launch of the Standard Herald in India. I've assumed it to be around 1961/62, here we have a car being advertised in the 1960s, mentioned as a late 1961 registered model. So that narrows it down a bit

Attachment 1979028

Definitely '61. My elderly neighbour, a niece of late Mr. K Gopalakrishna, founder MD of Stampro, bought her (husband's) originally blue and white ( ) Herald in 1961 when they were posted in Delhi. Unfortunately she cannot recall the month/time of the year etc.! NO pics. either, though she had (and drove) the car until 2010!

[karlosdeville]

From Blitz, 11th June 1960.



The DAF car on offer to the Government of India for progressive manufacture as an ideal people's car by United Provinces Motor Company.

[KartikeyaL]

Shared by Bajaj Heritage

[KPS]

Originally Posted by KartikeyaL

Shared by Bajaj Heritage

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Tempo import, probably explains the LHD configuration

Cheers

KPS

[karlosdeville]

Some time back there was a discussion on whether Hindustan Motors built Chevrolet trucks - I am not sure where. Here is a Hindustan Motors supplied Chevrolet Bus to the Nepal Transport Service, along with a rare document, the original guarantee. Interestingly the guarantee document is the same for both Bedford and Chevrolet chassis. Dated 1959





https://archive.org/details/1959-che...mber%20130.jpg

[karlosdeville]

Was this the introduction of the conventional Petrol Pump in India?





Courtesy Ash Nallawalla and Bombay I Remember

[karlosdeville]

December 4th 1943, the 15th anniversary of the General Motors plant in Bombay.

[travancore]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

December 4th 1943, the 15th anniversary of the General Motors plant in Bombay.

Opening day of the GM factory (1928) and a 3rd anniversary (1931) advertisement, all from the Bombay Chronicle.




Bombay Chronicle, Dec 4, 1928
--------------------------------------------------------------------



Bombay Chronicle, Dec 4, 1931

[karlosdeville]

This 1931 advertisement proudly speaks of 4 assembly plants for Ford's Indian operations. There were already 250 dealers too.

[camitesh]

Someone shared this little newspaper column about car price increase 5 decades back in India. Interestingly the transportation charges isn’t a recent (last decade or so) phenomenon.

[karlosdeville]

Here is an interesting 1960 advertisement announcing the conversion to the metric system - gallons of petrol were now replaced with litres.

[karlosdeville]

As late as 1987 the Citroen 2CV was being evaluated for sale in India. Tested here by the Indian Auto Journal in March 1987.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by camitesh

Someone shared this little newspaper column about car price increase 5 decades back in India. Interestingly the transportation charges isn’t a recent (last decade or so) phenomenon.

Thank you for sharing. The key point in this old news item is that the Govt is announcing the prices. In those wonderful good old days of a Controlled Economy the bureaucrats, those all knowing, all wise people would decide how much you could produce of everything from cars to toasters, how much steel & other raw materials you could purchase to produce what you were licensed to and what price you could sell at. All this equaled our fabled Hindu rate of growth or 3% p.a. Fortunately we have evolved away from the joys of this Mahalanobis model.

[sankar009]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for sharing. The key point in this old news item is that the Govt is announcing the prices. In those wonderful good old days of a Controlled Economy the bureaucrats, those all knowing, all wise people would decide how much you could produce of everything from cars to toasters, how much steel & other raw materials you could purchase to produce what you were licensed to and what price you could sell at. All this equaled our fabled Hindu rate of growth or 3% p.a. Fortunately we have evolved away from the joys of this Mahalanobis model.

Sir, That last sentence although sounds contradictory,nice to see some one mentioning the joys of the Mahalanobis Model. There was less pollution,less congested roads, and lesser road rage

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by sankar009

Sir, That last sentence although sounds contradictory, nice to see some one mentioning the joys of the Mahalanobis Model. There was less pollution, less congested roads, and lesser road rage

Less pollution, less congested roads, and lesser road rage - Yes, yes and yes. As some one whose first 9 years of working life were spent in the
last 9 years of the Mahalnobis magic I would add - less jobs, less growth, more bureaucracy, less opportunity for the young, lower wages, more inflation, lack of food, shortage of essentials, queues for kerosene, waitlists for everything from phones to gas cylinders to scooters, a nation stifled by the perverse and narrow thinking of petty bureaucrats, punishment for investment in job creation, 97% income tax rates, luxury items were refrigerators, air-conditioners, butter, cheese, toothpaste (all facts) and so on. Don't get this old man going I could vent fury on Mahalanobis and the asinine methods of those days for 10,000 words.

An amusing anecdote which I once shared with another D-BHPian - At the start of my career, before I got engaged I booked a Hindustan Petroleum gas cylinder because the wait time was so long with the hope that by the time I get married the gas cylinder too would arrive. My sagacious foresight did not earn me a dowry but it earned me appreciation, some years later, from my M-i-L to be.

Today when I see my domestic staff carrying mobile phones, owning scooters, watches, educating their children to graduation I thank God almighty that Mahalanobis and that generation of bureaucrats are dead. For those below 48 today it is almost not possible to understand the hopelessness you experienced as a young Indian in those days - the hopelessness that there is no way out of the stifling all pervasive bureaucracy that attempted to control everything down to the number of milk bottles a family could get.