When Mercedes-Benz almost designed trucks for Indian Army

The success story of the Tata-Mercedes-Benz almost never happened, and in case you wonder why the fact is that if Hindustan Motors and/or some of its people at the helm then had fulfilled their promises made to Daimler-Benz AG in early 1950, it would have been Hindustan-Mercedes-Benz in trucks, and also in cars!

However let's start at the beginning of this saga, and it has all to do within just days of the adoption of the Constitution. A young production engineer working with Hindustan Motor Company Ltd paid a visit to the export division of Dailmer-Benz AG in Stuttgart. His visit was to primarily sound out the German firm whether they would be interested in a proposal his company wanted to explore.

For a company emerging out of the rubble and ruin of World War II, any business coming its way had to be explored and committed to. So while the discussions were on, the HM representative then put forth the sweetener that got Daimler-Benz hooked. He told them that his company had made contact with Hans Hugo Keil who had been the works director at the Unterturkheim plant at the end of the 1930s, and that he had agreed to come and help HM set up an automobile plant in India.

This was terrific news in more ways than one because Keil and Wilhelm Haspel, the CEO of Dailmer-Benz AG, had been childhood friends and it was most comforting for Haspel to know this. Also, the manner in which India had gained Independence from the British wasn't lost on the Germans, especially the role played by Mahatma Gandhi.

Another fact of life shining through was that GD Birla, chairman of Hindustan Motors was a trusted friend of Gandhi and this couldn't be a bad thing as well.

The word from the Birlas was that the Indian Army were interested to procure trucks given the fact that the defence forces had next to no transport corps with the capability for rapid movement, should another so-called state-sponsored tribal excursion happen in Kashmir.

An initial order was placed with Daimler-Benz AG and a first consignment of diesel trucks was sent in the knocked down form to India and assembled. Also with the set of trucks were four demonstration cars with four-wheel drive that were also sent, but no one seemed to know or care what happened to them.

In late December 1951 came the stunning bolt from the blue: it became known that the Indian Army didn't want a diesel engine truck at all!

(Courtesy of Mail Today and reprinted with the publisher's permission.)