A subcontinent of languages, faiths and arguments, none of which resolve neatly.
The Hindustan Ambassador is a saloon built in India from 1957 to 2014, based directly on the Morris Oxford Series III. It used a fully enclosed monocoque chassis and remained almost unchanged across its entire production run. It was not designed in India, nor did it evolve with changing global standards—but it endured as a functional, spatially generous, mechanically simple vehicle embedded in India’s administrative and transport systems.
The Mahindra Thar is a compact SUV launched in India on October 4, 2010. It replaces the MM540 and Major. It is named after the Thar Desert. Its design traces directly to the Jeep CJ series, which Mahindra had built under licence since the 1940s.
The Tata Indica (1998) is a B-segment five-door compact hatchback, India’s first diesel hatchback and Tata’s first passenger hatchback. Styled by I.DE.A Institute, it used an indigenous 1.4-L petrol/diesel inline-four engine. Early buyers reported discrepancies between promised and delivered horsepower and mileage. Production ran from 1998 to 2018.
The Giulia Sprint GT was revealed at Alfa Romeo's new Arese plant on 9 September 1963 and built until 1965, when the Sprint GT Veloce replaced it. Giorgetto Giugiaro drew its Bertone body, known as the step front for the raised edge of its bonnet. It paired an all-aluminium 1570 cc twin cam four with a five-speed gearbox and four disc brakes, and 21,902 were built.
The TZ2 was shown at the 1964 Turin Auto Show on the Zagato stand. It swapped the TZ's light alloy body for a more streamlined fibreglass one and dropped the weight to 620 kg. It was a racing version only, with an Autodelta-prepared 1,570 cc twin plug engine, and 12 were built. Development of the TZ cars stopped at the end of 1965.
The BMW 1500 was shown at the 1961 Frankfurt Motor Show and built from October 1962 to December 1964. It was a compact four-door executive saloon with the new M10 four-cylinder engine, MacPherson strut front suspension and independent rear suspension. It was the first car of the New Class, the line that arrived as BMW broke even in 1962 after years of losses.
The BMW 2002 went into production in January 1968 as the larger-engined derivative of the 1966 1600-2, itself a shortened New Class saloon. It used a two-litre version of the M10 engine, and the range grew to include the fuel-injected tii, the Touring hatchback, a Baur TopCabriolet and, in 1973, Europe's first turbocharged production car.