LEYLAND LEGACY
The 24-spoke Dharma Chakra – the ‘Wheel of Law’ – at the centre of India’s national flag symbolises continuing progress. Wheeled transport is thought to have first appeared in India 4,000 years ago. To India’s good fortune, in recent decades the Chakra has gathered accelerating momentum – and is relieving four-legged and human beasts of burden with a vengeance.
India’s progress is partly thanks to Ashok Leyland, whose production lines are currently delivering heavy, medium and light commercials at a rate of around 140,000 units a year. That’s getting on for double the UK’s equivalent output. (Indicative of the sheer size of the Indian market, Ashok Leyland has a one-third share of the medium/heavy truck segment).
India is not alone in being home to a marque with British heritage. As a brand, BMC – the former Austin-Morris British Motor Corporation combine that contributed ‘British’ to the British Leyland name – lives on as the biggest commercial vehicle manufacturer in Turkey.
Around the time of the disastrous BMC/ Leyland coming together, it could proudly boast of being the world’s biggest exporter of commercial vehicles. The success and entrepreneurialism of Ashok Leyland and Turkey’s BMC puts the ultimate failure of the British half of their ancestry into perspective.
Where did it all go wrong? You might well ask. But this not the forum for dwelling on the systemic
