The Indian automobile industry is the ninth largest industry in the world and is growing at a very fast pace. Many international players have entered India, both to cater to the domestic market and also to use India as a manufacturing hub to meet the demand in other countries. This article adopts a positive outlook and takes the view that the Indian automobile industry is headed for very bright days in the years ahead.

If there has ever been a manufac-turing industry in India whose time has come, that industry is definitely the automobile industry. The automobile manufacturing industry in India is not new, and some sort of automobile manufacturing has been going on in India since as far back as the 1940s.

Many of us can still remember the heydays of the Ambassador car whose ancestor was the British Morris Oxford; and the Premier Padmini, whose predecessor was the Italian Fiat. These beautiful, outdated but sturdy limousines trundled along India's narrow, dusty, potholed cattle tracks which passed for roads, transporting the glitterati who could actually afford to buy a car. Those who have even longer memories will recall the Standard Herald which in its heydays was a very sporty looking car which traced its bloodline to the British Triumph. The Standard Herald even had some interestingly unconventional features such as a bonnet, which opened the other way, and front seats which folded forward to let rear passengers into the back seat, since it was a two door model.

Fifty years of socialism ensured that the Indian automobile industry was effectively strangled at birth, and looking back, it seems surprising that it actually succeeded in maintaining its tenuous hold on life. From these humble beginnings, the Indian automobile industry has traveled a long way to reach the place where we see it now. It has the potential to become a world beater, with many observers actually expecting the Indian automobile industry to ultimately become the largest in the world. This means that there are those who expect the Indian automobile industry to even beat the automobile industry of China. This is a pretty tall order one would tend to think at this point of time, but there are many convincing reasons why such an outlook may not be unreasonable.

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