When we think of cars, we think German, Japanese, American, Italian and so on. Likewise, "Indian cars" is also becoming quite established in the automotive circles.
Indeed, since many automotive brands existing in India are exporting "Indian made" models to other countries too. For many brands, India is becoming a export hub.
What do you want Indian cars to be known as?
It will be addressed as "Indian Cars" only or maybe "Made-In-India" cars.
For me, it means a car which is designed, engineered and built in India by an Indian company with an Indian brand.
To build a car solely in India and to manufacture the parts solely in India it would take still more time. Even
an old brand like Maruti could not roll out a product till date that is solely built from scratch by only them and not in JV with Suzuki. Their cars till date have MS mentioned on them.
Most people associate "Indian cars" with these:
I think there is no harm in associating to the legends of Indian legends like Ambassador. It still exists in many foreign countries though in India the production has closed. As of Premier Padmini, it was more of an Italian car. However, after the inception of Premier Automobiles, this one took shape as an Indian product. Even 118 NE was a good one and so was the Contessa. The actual "Indian-Muscle Car"
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Talking of Maruti Suzuki, In the 80's Suzuki SS80 was imported to India. After the joint venture of Suzuki and Maruti Udyog, their products became Indian. Today, MSIL has begun to export many of their recent models to foreign countries. So, In a way, the image of Indian cars is becoming more visible in global market.
In my books, Indian Cars are these:
TATA and Mahindra ventured in to the passenger car segment much later. In 90's and earlier than that they were primarily dealing in commercial vehicles only. The cars which they are making today,
the technology is outsourced at large. Right from conceptualization to the rolling out of the finished product, the technology involved is out-sourced.
Apart from the Indian Brand Name, their products cannot be called as 100% Indian. With the advancing of technology, our brands are importing the latest technology to make their products at-par with the existing requirements and needs and till that is serving the purpose and the end customer is happy with it, it does not matter whether the product is 100% Indian or partly Indian.
Whenever a person from outside India think about Indian cars, he should think the above, not the old junks or any tincans as Indian cars.
The term "Tin-Cans" was coined mainly for Maruti Suzuki vehicles. Rather it was referred as "Match-Box" or "Soap Box". On the other hand, you still can see cars like Indica existing in many other countries. So people do know and relate to it.
Regards
Akash
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