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Originally Posted by Steeroid  Are you sure? AFAIK, Hino engines came into Leylands in the '90s while IVECO and the Hindujas came into AL when British Leyland (or what was left of it) sold their interest to them.
IVECO officially exited when the Hindujas bought out IVECO from LRLIH, UK - a company that the two acquired together from the Rover Group. LRLIH held 51% of Ashok Leyland.
So now the Hindujas hold 51% of AL - I think. |
AL collaborated with Hino in 1985 for licence-production of the 6 litre W series engine which came to be fitted on the regular AL bus chassis. For some reason, the engine was not introduced on AL trucks initially. Sometime later, a chopped-off 4 cylinder, 4 litre derivative of the same engine was introduced in a LCV named Cheetal which didn't succeed. The 4 litre version even found its way to a few crudely built, Jonga-derived SUVs made by the Defence Factory, Jabalpur which even tried to sell them to civilians but without any success.
The Hino engine became famous for its fuel efficiency and is now found on almost all AL products including trucks.
The collaboration with Iveco materialised in 1987 and but the Iveco range of LCVs made by AL appeared only in the nineties.