[SirAlec]

First Look
Well!, here is a change from what we normally are used to drive, test, abuse, praise and rant about. We see them making lot of noise and smoke during our daily commute. With the likes of Beemer, Lambos, Gypsy, etc here in tbhp none of us are interested in them.

I came across this one when some of our stuff was delivered to us from Udaipur in this instead of usual mahindra pickup. The driver was infront of our office trying to change the rear puncture. As the day was already going sort of boring i decided to check on this.
Ask the driver for a spin in return for using my tools, which he agreed and showed everything with great pride. Why not? he hauled 180 kms with 800kg of load with 29kmpl that too with diesel. We already have a Prius beater at a fraction of costs.

i asked him why this and not the Ace. with the price tag of 2.45lac. its little cheaper than ACe. He feels Ace is very fragile compared to this and parts of Ace are expensive as compared to this.

About the Creator
Well! little info about Vikram. Vikram is made by Scooter's India, located somewhere in that Crazy Moortiwali Lady's State.
Yeah! Scooter India is the same company that gave us Lambretta and Vijay Scooters. Now they just makes three wheelers.

Under (the hood) ki Baat
750D uses a Single cylinder liquid cooled Diesel engine sourced from Greaves. With little more than half a liter of engine capacity it makes just over 10 bhp but has a respectful 27Nm of torque, which does the real magic of hauling. It has 4F and 1 Rev gear coupled to the rear diff. through a pecular looking crude prop shaft. It has an odd looking rubber coupling just like we have in home water pumps. Hydraulic brakes on these are amazing, consideing the fact that this mule was heavely abused.

Images
Driving Intructor


Last minute instruction


Learning the shifter mechanism






The Cabin, with full HVAC (hot in summer, cold in winter, this is new; wet in monsoon)





Diesel filter and Radiator


The shifter, you can never go wrong with this. Check the slot, i have seen similar in AMG


Prop shaft with rubber coupling


The real thing, Check the engine mounting by using a pair of damper






rear suspension system




front suspension


PS: Please move or delete if inappropriate.

[pranava999]

A truly off beat review . Like you said a vehicle some of us don't even think of or take notice of. Waiting to read more. Wonder what the lifespan of these engines are.

[Comrade]

this might sound silly but that i thought some vikram guy owned a BMW 750d (i hope there is one such variant) and you drove it for a day

anyways, nice off-beat review there!!!

[IQBAL VEERJI]

Originally Posted by Comrade

this might sound silly but that i thought some vikram guy owned a BMW 750d (i hope there is one such variant) and you drove it for a day

anyways, nice off-beat review there!!!

There are plenty and plenty of them in Rishikesh. They travel from City bus stop to Lakshman Jhula ,during which they have to cover at least 2 kms of very steep climp which is covered very easily with at least about 10 to 11 passangers. they charge fixed humble 3/- as fare each. But the noise is unbearable. At times they trvel till Haridwar also a distance of 40 kms.

[SirAlec]

Originally Posted by pranava999

A truly off beat review . Like you said a vehicle some of us don't even think of or take notice of. Waiting to read more. Wonder what the lifespan of these engines are.

this particular example had done 54000 something kms.

Originally Posted by Comrade

this might sound silly but that i thought some vikram guy owned a BMW 750d (i hope there is one such variant) and you drove it for a day

anyways, nice off-beat review there!!!

Originally Posted by IQBAL VEERJI

There are plenty and plenty of them in Rishikesh. They travel from City bus stop to Lakshman Jhula ,during which they have to cover at least 2 kms of very steep climp which is covered very easily with at least about 10 to 11 passangers. they charge fixed humble 3/- as fare each. But the noise is unbearable. At times they trvel till Haridwar also a distance of 40 kms.

I told you its a Prius Beater. It has great mileage.

[extreme_torque]

I am simply amazed... 10 bhp and more importantly 27 nm of torque in a vehicle that itself would weight over 500 kgs is not much by any means. How is that little engine able to haul 500 + 800 kgs is beyond me.... love thy diesels.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team : Please take the time to use proper punctuation as per Team-BHP rules. Avoid...typing...like...this. Thanks.

[GTO]

I'm all for test-drives on different types of vehicles here (other favorites include the TBHP 747 and a cargo ship report). Thanks for sharing, Sir Alec.

Originally Posted by SirAlec

he hauled 180 kms with 800kg of load with 29kmpl that too with diesel. We already have a Prius beater at a fraction of costs.

Not to mention, one of the most basic engine-powered goods carriers too. However, the tyres are bald and the brakes, I'll take your word on. Good thing its got only 10 BHP. Not that I know anything about the Ace, but it looks like a more complete machine. I'd put my faith in Tata than a "vikram".

The Cabin, with full HVAC (hot in summer, cold in winter, this is new; wet in monsoon)

I find commercial vehicles very intriguing. Have been up close with most of them as part of work in our interiors business. Most wicked drive? A Tata 407 in Alibagh! Related post from a DCM Toyota Dyna thread:

Originally Posted by GTO

Hey Aadix, Awesome review. I know just what you must have felt, cos I have driven a Tata 407 for about 25 kms on the Alibaug highway. That thing was just so chuckable, and the acceleration was not bad at all.

[SirAlec]

Even spend a half a day with 713 4x4 last year, but i was requested not to take the images as a friend; CO of that unit's was uncomfortable a civvy driving a military vehicle and flaunting it, that too on rough terrain of training range.

[issigonis]

Sir Alec,

The Vikram has been used as a people carrier initially in Lucknow and Kanpur since the mid-eighties. The Vikram ( body manufactured by SIL - Scooters India Limited, Amausi, Lucknow) superseded the earlier Hanseat three wheel people carrier, which used to do duty again in Lucknow and Kanpur from the 1970s till the mid-eighties.

The Vikram uses the Greaves Lombardini diesel engine ( as you correctly pointed out) from Madras. Nowadays, I think the Vikrams in Lucknow and Kanpur use an LPG variant to go 'green'.

The Vikram is a sturdy but not too smooth or comfortable a people carrier, with 'proper' seating for eight - in a 2 ( plus driver) + 3+3 configuration, but additional passengers are always welcome to the driver.

These Vikrams gradually spread all over UP and have been used since as a city load carrier.

I would agree with GTO that today the Ace would be a safer, better engineered and more reliable option.

Scooters India Limited (SIL), started way back in 1975 by assembling Vijay scooters from an Innocenti design, slightly different from Lambretta ( slightly sleeker), but lost its way due to political interference and its public sector work culture, during the early eighties when LML came with better designed products and the 100 cc bikes were launched by TVS/Hero/Escorts/Bajaj alongwith their Japanese collaborators.

SIL also manufactured 'Ganesh' ceiling fans.

Bajaj was interested in taking over SIL around 15 odd years ago but the deal fell through due to political and other hurdles.

I guess SIL is still stumbling along, making huge losses and churning out paltry numbers of poorly engineered products.

A sad requiem to an engineering facility which was supposed to deepen India's two wheeler manufacturing capability when India had one major scooter maker - Bajaj and one which was coming to the end of its journey - API, makers of Lambretta.

Regards

[n.devdath]

Vikram, a name synonymous with commuters in most cities of U.P. like Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, Mirzapur etc. I remember the days when I was at college at Allahabad and used to take a Vikram to watch a movie or to go to the famous "Civil Lines" area in the evening so at to "arrive fresh".
Cycling would make us sweaty in the humid weather of the place.

These contraptions would be elaborately decorated with stainless steel furniture fittings like handles, knobs, latches and yes, local sound systems whose sound could hardly be heard over the din of the engine. Initially they where black and yellow and then the color scheme was changed to white and blue after the so called "water based filter" was introduced.

This Water Based filter was nothing but a box with water in it fitted between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust pipe. Since smoke needed to pass through water before it reached the atmosphere, it was supposed to be filtered of many "polluting particles".

Just my 25 naya paisa of memories.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by SirAlec

About the Creator
Yeah! Scooter India is the same company that gave us Lambretta and Vijay Scooters. Now they just makes three wheelers.

They gave us Vijay Super alright, but Lambretta (later Lamby 150) was made by API Ltd, Mumbai which belonged to the MAC group. They even had a 175 cc scooter named MAC 175!

Moreover the TATA ACE looks like a proper vehicle while this looks like a contraption. Plenty of them around here also serving as "share autos"!

[SirAlec]

Originally Posted by Gansan

They gave us Vijay Super alright, but Lambretta (later Lamby 150) was made by API Ltd, Mumbai which belonged to the MAC group. They even had a 175 cc scooter named MAC 175!

Moreover the TATA ACE looks like a proper vehicle while this looks like a contraption. Plenty of them around here also serving as "share autos"!

Little bit of correction here. API did acquired license, but it was for two models only, and for trademark reason it was sold under Lamby brand.

But scooters india in '72 bought the entire right from Innocenti.

[sammyboy]

The passenger version of this used to be the only mode of public transport along with the autos in Dehradun for quite a while (still is but accompanied by buses now) . Thank you SirAlec for your review. Ah.. old times

[samsag12]

These contraptions would be elaborately decorated with stainless steel furniture fittings like handles, knobs, latches and yes, local sound systems whose sound could hardly be heard over the din of the engine. Initially they where black and yellow and then the color scheme was changed to white and blue after the so called "water based filter" was introduced.

As n.devdath rightly said, they were black and yellow in color for decades and were initially in 2004-05 changed to white with blue stripes when they were added with water based filter. I thoroughly remember the caption written on each of them as Scrabber yukt produshun mukt.
After few changes in guidelines of RTO they were converted into CNG and again the color changed from white with blue stripes to full green. The model of CNG is stated as VIKRAM 1500CG. There are still black and yellow diesel ones (apparently new ones) which run from Lucknow to Barabanki and are badged as VIKRAM 750d.
As one of the member mentioned, The Scooters India Limited is on a verge of closure as they are in huge losses. The grant is not being provided by the govt to them for their sustainability and hence many of the SIL employees are not being paid wages and salaries. This happened a decade back to one more Govt. owned company named Uptron.manufacturers of capacitors,PC, mainframes,TV,Vcr, music systems etc.

[achopraa]

Boy oh Boy. This is what I like about TBHP. Such a rare mixture of reviews (747, a ship, a bus, a Vikram) keeps me thinking "What next?"