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Originally Posted by 1100D  Highlands are not only in the parts mentioned by you, on the REAL highlands on the northern part of India where the Himalayas are situated, you can buy a lottery when you see a Lay-land.
Leyland does sell at places where some officials decide which brand of vehicles to induct in the fleet.
Leylands never had a face only names which are as mocho-est as it can get in India - Cheetah, Tusker, Viking Oh God what names) I also want to know the name designations of the Leylands (for the Viking Comet etc) |
In Kerala, as has been mentioned, even teh private operators run Leylands in teh high ranges.
In TN, once upon a time, in Nilgiris District (Ooty area) and Madurai District (Kodaikanal area), there used to be Tatas for the highlands - now they are all Leylands. the North Indian market has had a special love for Tatas, and that is perhaps why they are more popular in Himachal and J&K. But please note that these Tata buses in the Himalayan highlands are short buses - not the normal full-length ones - and may be running the same engines, giving them a lighter payload but a lot more power. Leyland never could come up with a good short bus although they did try with the Cargo passenger vehicles (which incidentally is used to run on the Srinagar (J&K)-Muzafarabad (POK) route nowadays.
I am sure no one will miss the fact that the entire Indian military runs on Leyland Stallions nowadays, having moved away from the earlier Shaktiman (an old Tata model) and these run on the toughest mountain terrains in the world. When I was in Ladakh, my Matiz car failed to climb up the world's highest road - the Marisimk La (taller than the Khardung la) - but the army guys told me that they do it regularly in their Leyland Stallions.
The last 3 years have seen Leyland take almost a total monopoly in tractor-trailers, starting first with their 2514s, consolidating with the 3516s and now strangling the competition with its 4018s (40-tonner). The Volvo FH12 is ousted from the highway market, although I can see the AMW's 49-tonner catching up fast in that category. Tata has lost out on this segment even in "Tata-centric" markets in the Delhi region.
And yes, Leyland is very strong in the STU segment - but that is also a testimonial to that they are considered to be more breakdown-proof (in testing public transport abusive driving conditions) and turn out better mileage. They seem to have, however, lost out in the CNG bus category to Tata.