It has been 116 years since someone started driving a car in Madras.
A.J. Yorke, a director of Parry and Co., brought the car from England in 1901 and used it regularly in the Madras Presidency. “He used to drive it from Ben’s Garden on Chamiers Road to present-day Parry’s Corner. In 1908, he drove from Ootacamund to Madras after attending a meeting. This was one of the first instances of long-distance drives in Madras,” said V. Sriram, historian, who was telling the story of the cars of Madras to a gathering of car enthusiasts on Sunday at a Madras Day event.
Another Englishman, H. A. Newell, travelled around the country between 1905 and 1921 in a Sunbeam. He wrote detailed accounts of his travels and among those was one in which he drove from Madras to Mamallapuram.“Cars were only imported and Addison and Co. were the pioneers. After Independence, though car manufacturing had not begun in the country, it was Anantharamakrishna Iyer, who started his automobile component manufacturing company in 1949 — India Pistons,” Mr. Sriram explained.
Historian S. Muthiah spoke about how T.T. Krishnamachari had a Standard Herald and his son T.T. Vasu too had a Herald and when the father’s car was passed on to the son, the son’s (Mr. Vasu’s) car came to him.
Several companies, he said, had licences to assemble cars. Ford started assembling trucks in 1926 in Bombay. He underlined the contribution of two firms — Amalgamations and Ashok Leyland — in Madras developing into an automobile hub.
Rayala Corporation managing director and heritage car enthusiast Ranjit Pratap urged the State government to help in organising a heritage car rally on a regular basis.
TTDC Managing Director Har Sahay Meena said the government was open to the idea of such a rally.
Earlier, as part of the event organised by Heritage Motoring Club and Turyaa Hotels Chennai, an exhibition of heritage cars was also held.
