While the Ambassador tends to wear the mantle of the iconic car of India, the car that put Indians on the road was the Suzuki Maruiti 800. Derived from the '79 Suzuki Alto, the 800 has been in production since 1983. To outsiders, it's just an anonymous econobox. To vast numbers of Indians, it was freedom. And now it's…

Designer and businessman Dilip Chhabria says he's planning to build a factory as soon as next year in order to put the into production this Avanti supercar, which is powered by a forced-induction four-cylinder engine (possibly an EcoBoost) and will have a price of somewhere around $50,000. Could this be India's first…

Mahindra doesn't sell any cars or trucks in the US. At all. So when they flew me out to India to show me what they do, I was naturally wondering if maybe they were planning on making another try for a spoonful of the vast US market. I asked everyone I could, and I either got very noncommittal replies or outright…

For the second time on my trip to India, I find myself entering a building and having a chain of flowers draped over my neck as a woman paints a mark on my forehead, and then showers me in flower petals. I never really know what to do in these situations, afraid that as soon as I open my mouth they'll realize the…

Here in the USA, you can almost always spot an Indian product. This is very different than Chinese products, which are so numerous and varied as to be anonymous. But Indian products you find in the America, they almost all have this artisan/handmade quality. Whether it's jewelry in bins at Anthropologie or manhole…

On the drive back from the desert to Delhi, I asked if my car-mates had seen the massive old Rolls (we think) that just passed on the street. You yourself can see the car I'm talking about in my post about driving in India. No one other than me saw it, but one of the other passengers, a friendly guy named Ashish…

Much of India's population is Hindu, a religion that boasts a vast array of interesting deities. It's said there are 330 million gods in the Hindu pantheon. That gives each god about three potential drivers to look out for. And from a driving perspective, that's a very good thing, as a monotheistic culture would soon…

One of the most striking things an American will notice on India's highways is how almost all their cargo seems to be transported by these lavishly decorated and slightly ramshackle large trucks. They're everywhere, often overloaded to twice their normal height, and barrelling down the road with a gleeful disregard…

I knew I wanted to drive a Thar long before I had any idea I'd ever get to India. I was interested because it's one of the best automotive examples of evolution to an environment. Think of it this way: both the Thar and the Jeep we Americans know and love started with the same source: the WWII-era Willys Jeep. This…

Generally, the American motoring press doesn't think much about India. Sure, when there's big news  like a $2500 new car or someone remembering that, holy crap, they still build the Ambassador, we'll write about it, but for the most part we've done a pretty good job ignoring the sixth largest car market in the world.…

Terrifying... Well, at least to an American who's not used to the barely-cointained chaos of Delhi traffic and the moped with a backpack that is one of these three-wheelers. Well, I'll amend that my initial assesment — it was terrfying, but fun. 

Last week, I wrote about my admiration for the small, ingenious little vans currently being built in India, and, like many of my posts about strange cars we never see in the US, I included a sad little plea for someone to help me find a way to drive one of these things.

I know that's a bold statement to make in that headline there, but I mean it. I should clarify though— "interesting" does not mean "best" in any sense of the word. It's not the fastest, most advanced, most comfortable, or really any superlative (other than maybe "cheapest"). But some of the cars that are currently…

A huge mob rampaged through Maruti Suzuki's Northern Indian factory on Wednesday leaving behind damaged equipment, injured workers, and a human resources manager burned to death in the melee.

The Toyota Etios Concept joins the Honda New Small Concept at the Delhi Auto Expo as yet another fun-sized car for emerging markets. Their trick to make it look bigger? Tiny dancing Indian models.