[ajay99]

Originally Posted by sandeepmdas

The Arvind is made in Trivandrum, Kerala in 1967.

Originally Posted by sandeepmdas

The Illustrated Weekly of India ran a story of this at that time. A couple of guys involved with project were friends of my father, who is no more.

ALL these cars, incl the Arvind are looking contemporary with their times. The Arvind imitates huge american cars with lots of chrome at that time. The HAL is just cute, so italian!

BTW, the Sipani 3-wheeler is named as Badal.

It must be remembered that the Babudom and the crap socialism preached by Mrs Gandhi et al managed to kill all these ideas - till an old man from Andhra became the PM.

I thought Aravind was made in the seventies .the name ARAVIND came from ARAVIND AUTOMOBILES the name of the garage in Trivandrum.He has also made 2-3 other custom cars.
Also sandeep,it would be nice if you could avoid making fun of ideologies in this forum,as there would be many others who are sympathisers of those.

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by ajay99

[b][i]
I thought Aravind was made in the seventies .the name ARAVIND came from ARAVIND AUTOMOBILES the name of the garage in Trivandrum.He has also made 2-3 other custom cars.

Same one at Perunthanni ? I remember seeing the pics at his garage and per him they made this out of an old Fiat 1100 or a millicento for the travancore royal family. We used to have our car serviced for about 20 years till dad was alive.

Do you have any more details of this car ?

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by Gansan

If I remember correctly the Standard 2000 was originally the Rover 2000....What about the HM Contessa?

Yes, the Standard 2000 had the same body shell as the Rover 2000.

And the Contessa used the dies of the phased-out Vauxhall Victor.

[designersf]

Originally Posted by Gansan

If I remember correctly the Standard 2000 was originally the Rover 2000. And the Sipani Dolphin (I have owned one!) was the Reliant Kitten. Both were from the U.K.

What about the HM Contessa?

Standard 2000 was the Rover SD1 (SD = Special Division and 1 signifies that it was the division's first car) It came with several engines up to a V8.
It was far ahead of its time (futuristic styling among other new features). However, the vehicle was longer on one side as it was not made properly.

[ajay99]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

Same one at Perunthanni ? I remember seeing the pics at his garage and per him they made this out of an old Fiat 1100 or a millicento for the travancore royal family. We used to have our car serviced for about 20 years till dad was alive.

Do you have any more details of this car ?

yes, near perunthanni,no info abt that cars wherabouts now!!

[hangover]

The HM contessa was once sold in Spain as the Vauxhall Nova.

Unfortunately Nova in Spanish means - it no go.

Auto history in India is much older. M. Vishweshwariah who was the Divan of Mysore state had tied up with ford and Chrysler way back in the 1930's. He had retired in 1910.

Finance was to be provided by Bombay businesses. These people unfortunately backed out at the last moment.

So Vishweshwariah and Walchand Hirachand collaborated and established HAL.

The plans for automobiles was shelved a few years. Finally the Bombay guys saw light and put in money. That became Premier Automobiles.

These details above are from M. Vishweshwariah' book - memoirs of my working life.

For some reason V's name isn't mentioned in HAL's history.

IMHO the reason was his inherent shyness for publicity. He says that when people took group photos after each of his public works like dams, barrages etc, he would stand behind the tallest person.

Most photos we have of him are what's called candid moments. He was truly an amazing gentleman.