Chrysler in India including Premier Automobiles
In 1939, Seth Walchand Hirachand and Shri Advani went to the United States to talk about collaboration with each of the American Big Three. Walchand believed the Indian company should be completely independent, with Indian management, capital, and employees, paying royalties or a technology-transfer payment to the Western automaker. Ideally, the existing automaker would help to maintain quality standards and would train Indian technicians.
Although General Motors was able to do the work, they balked at helping to set up an independent Indian manufacturer, and insisted on part ownership. They then moved on to the second-largest automaker, Ford; Henry agreed, but delegated the project to Ford of Canada, which refused. Finally, they moved on to the third-largest automaker, Chrysler, and signed an agreement in Bombay in 1940.
By 1944, the Indian company was created under the name of Premier Automobiles, Ltd. Three years later, with the timetable stretching out due to the war, the first factory was built, in Kurla, Bombay. Two vehicles were built, albeit under several brand names: a Plymouth car and a Dodge truck, the car sold as Dodge, Plymouth, and DeSoto, and the truck as Dodge, Fargo, and DeSoto, with Fargo being the brand for trucks sold by Plymouth dealers. In the early years, at least, quality was considered good by both Chrysler and the Indian Department of Defense.
In 1949, parts were being made in India, starting with simpler components and gradually building up to more complex pieces. Two companies made parts: Premier and Hindustan Motors of Calcutta. The Hindustan 10 was based on the British Morris 10 as part of a collaboration with the UK’s Nuffield.
The early years of Premier and Hindustan were marked by very low sales, due to the size of the market rather than the intrinsic worth of the vehicles. Only about 20,000 vehicles per year were made in India, though in 65 different models. Because of the very limited production runs of any particular vehicle, most manufacturers operated as assemblers of imported components. Premier and Hindustan found competition with mass-produced parts makers to be difficult, to say the least, especially given their own need for capital to build factories and train workers. The government, via Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherji (Minister of Commerce and Industry), thus set up steep import duties on parts early on, shooting prices on "made there, assembled here" vehicles quite high, and allowing Premier and Hindustan some breathing space. The government started to study the issues of domestic automobiles in 1952, concluding in 1953 that having a domestic auto industry was essential for building the country technologically and economically. Thus, in 1954, the government added incentives for local parts production to its existing import duties.
By that time, Premier had started to collaborate with Fiat, whose smaller Fiat 1100 may have been better suited to local conditions (small roads and expensive fuel) than the relatively big Plymouth. Hindustan started selling British-designed cars in 1949 with the Morris 10, followed by the Morris 14 (Hindustan 14). Other British cars in these early years included the Austin A40 and A70, while the Fiat 500 and Millicento were also sold. Premier continued to produce Chrysler Corporation-based vehicles at the same time.
Replacing foreign-made parts with domestic production took considerable time, and in 1964 only 65% of domestic vehicles were made from Indian parts. In 1969, Indian vehicles were finally made of 90% local parts, an enviable state; few countries could boast of such a feat, even with government assistance.
Jeeps in India: Mahindra & Mahindra, Willys, and Chrsler
In addition, starting in 1949, the Willys Jeeps were made locally by Mahindra & Mahindra, as part of a collaboration with Willys Overland (which eventually made its way into Chrysler via AMC). In 1954, Kaiser Jeep Corporation and American Motors Corporation collaborated on building newer vehicles. In 1974, a new collaboration agreement was signed with Jeep, then part of AMC. Collaboration switched to Peugeot in 1979, with engines and the XDP range being French designs. A cooperative agreement with Nissan started in 1988, with a merger with Nissan's subsidiary in 1995. In 1997, they started producing European-style Ford Escorts and signed an agreement to produce Mitsuibshis. They started making Voyagers in 1998 - not Plymouths but either Nissan or Peugeot commercial vans.
Mahindra & Mahindra created a new automotive division in 1994 and still produces local Jeeps, and sells them through 275 dealers. The product line includes the Liberty-lookalike Scorpio, which M&M claims is entirely locally designed; what appears to be a Wrangler-based pickup, the Mahindra; and a number of other vehicles with more or less resemblance to the current Wrangler and past Jeeps. This resemblance is probably not the result of collaboration with Chrysler, but simply a carryover of the early Willys designs and looks. Engines appear to be Peugeot designs.
Current Indian automotive situation
Premier’s vehicles continued to be based on Chrysler’s through the 1950s; after that time, the trail is lost. In the early 1990s, Premier lost much of its sales when the market was opened to imports; the company had never designed their own vehicles, but had licensed Fiats and Asian automobiles for local manufacturing. In 1999, DCX announced that Chrysler would start making or selling vehicles in India, most likely starting with the Cherokee, Neon, and Voyager; but that seems to have disappeared when DCX imploded.
