From maharajas to mass market

Book review of The Indian Automobile - An Indian Love Affair

From Calcutta's famous Swan car to a prototype manufactured by the House of Birla to a car called Swaraj, Gautam Sen, veteran journalist and author and the man who started India's first mainstream car magazine (Indian Auto) in 1986 has it all in his latest book The Indian Automobile — An Indian Love Affair.

Written simply, without fanfare and pretence, the book offers petrol-heads a rich tapestry of facts and figures about India’s automobile history from its infancy. Mr Sen, a self-professed disciple of automotive design and history who lives in Europe, leverages his know-how and vast network across continents to garner data and insights that start with buying patterns and consumer behaviour of early target markets— Indian nobility and industrial tycoons.

The maharajas’ car buying habits later became the stuff of urban legend. Several of them revolve around Rolls-Royces. One has it that the world’s finest automobiles were used as waste collection cars by the Maharajas of Punjab. This story is well known but Mr Sen dives deeper. He offers glimpses of how scions from the Royal family of Bharatpur were reputed to have kept two dozen Rolls-Royces with one of them specially equipped for, what else, shooting tigers. Mr Sen writes, “Kishen Singh’s specially bodied Rolls-Royce Twenty was one of the few hunting cars ...a very unusual body style, termed a howdah, the four door car has folding dickey seat at the rear that when opened out faces backwards so that guarding against a tiger attacking from the rear becomes easier.” 

Other anecdotes trace in detail the colourful lives of the royals from Kapurthala, whose heir ended up marrying an Englishwoman who was a dancer in Paris. Stella Mudge, renamed Narinder Kaur, received as a wedding gift a car. Not just any car, but the 1937 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS Sports Coupe, which was, according to Mr Sen, one of the most beautiful sports cars in the world at the time. What made it so special? Mr Sen tells us that only 14 were made and Stella’s version was all-aluminium, came with a sun-roof, painted wheels and a cloisonne hood ornament in the shape of a royal crown.  Sidenote: The book comes with stunning photos of rare cars over the ages. 

Instead of getting bogged down by the automotive escapades of the jewelled classes, Mr Sen moves on to detailing the history of commercial production of cars in the subcontinent. Like many large corporations, the big action was in Calcutta, once India’s capital. Steuart & Co. and later the French Motor Car Company set up offices to import and distribute Minervas, Cadillacs, Studebakers  and more. 

Title: The Indian Automobile - An Indian Love Affair

Author: Gautam Sen

Publisher:  Penguin

Pages: 270; Price: Rs 699

As India’s independence approached, the Birlas and the Walchands looked at partnerships and auto distributions with the likes of Chrysler. Interestingly, as the nation opened up, there were several attempts to make cars, not all from big business houses. 

Shankarrao Kulkarni from the small town of Ichalkaranji made a small car called Meera, inspired by German bubble cars of the 1950s, specifically the Goggomobil. Other novelties that other enthusiasts made and verged on experimentation included the Swan Car which, the author tells us, both frightened and intrigued Calcuttans at the time. 

The story of Sanjay Gandhi and his passion for motoring has been well chronicled by other writers but Mr Sen contextualises his efforts into setting up the manufacturing of the Maruti and the history of the company that is India’s largest and best-selling car-maker. 

The book covers the decades from the 1960s to post-liberalisation India, offering readers a glimpse of how well-heeled collectors and the masses would commute and transport themselves around the country.  The evolution in some ways also mimics the growth of India’s economy as it moves from importing European cars to starting its own mass-scale production with Maruti and the later arrival of Korean auto major Hyundai, and then to the ambitious Nano  that Tata Motors launched circa 2008. The car project, touted as the world’s cheapest car, had observers agog not just in India but across the world. When it finally launched, there was much fanfare that included a “halo of lights and theme music from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic 2001: A Space Odyssey ”. 

If Mr Sen offers details on the pomp and show around the Nano launch, he doesn’t hesitate to explain what prevented the little car that made headlines for its Rs 1,00,000 price tag from becoming an international phenomenon.  It failed, Mr Sen, says for several reasons. One was the combustibility of the ignition in some cars; that was fixed but it scared off some customers. The other was managing the difficult Rs 75,000 factory price. Finally, there were the long delays in fixing minor addressable issues (such as getting power steering, and redesigning the car with a hatch door or boot opening). Despite all that, Mr Sen writes that the car was an impressive testament to Indian manufacturers’ capability to create a vehicle from first principles with back-to-basics design. In fact, even as late as 2012, American TV show host Jay Leno ordered one. 

Bollywood has its own fascination with the automobile and Mr Sen thankfully does not overlook it. Mention of Dev Anand’s Olive Green Triumph 1800 Roadster to Kishore Kumar’s Ford and Jackie Shroff’s penchant for collecting cars are all documented. Ultimately, The Indian Automobile  makes the point that India’s love affair with the car isn’t ending anytime soon and the rich history it has enjoyed across states and socio economic classes over the last century all point to the need to preserve its heritage as best as we can.