Standard Motors
Every Morning when I travel to my office there are only two landmarks I anxiously look for – one is the huge Ford hoarding and slight glimpses of Fiestas in hundreds parked near Ford factory. The other is a sad sight of once an impressive carmaker The Standard Motors dying.
As a kid I knew standard motors as the only carmaker in TN and was dreaming of seeing it inside someday. That was partially fulfilled when I saw the factory in ‘Aboorva Sagodarargal’ song.
The past six months would probably be one of the most painful sights to see for a car enthu like me. It was during this time I’ve been noticing the erstwhile standard motors factory being stripped brick by brick giving way to a glossy IT park. There isn’t much left now and it is just a matter of time before even those skeletal remains get destroyed. Every time I see those remains it reminds me of how I failed to enter my dream field and came to IT. And the parallels don’t end there. It was in my 3rd/4th standard my interest about cars grew when I got hold of a full fledged Auto magazine and started reading even though I couldn’t understand anything in it. It was a Foreign Auta Mag .. (Australian if I am right!).. I don’t think there was any Indian Auto Magazine circulating at that time. I went through that magazine so many times that I still remember the car models covered in that edition.. that book was a treasure for me. After looking at those beautiful cars I could find only one model on road closest to what I saw in that book – the Rover derived Standard 2000, and thus it became my first dream car. It was around that time Standard Motors got into trouble failing to make much headway with the Standard 2000. Little did I realize then that, just as my first dream car died.. my dreams would die as well.
Every Morning when I travel to my office there are only two landmarks I anxiously look for – one is the huge Ford hoarding and slight glimpses of Fiestas in hundreds parked near Ford factory. The other is a sad sight of once an impressive carmaker The Standard Motors dying.
As a kid I knew standard motors as the only carmaker in TN and was dreaming of seeing it inside someday. That was partially fulfilled when I saw the factory in ‘Aboorva Sagodarargal’ song.
The past six months would probably be one of the most painful sights to see for a car enthu like me. It was during this time I’ve been noticing the erstwhile standard motors factory being stripped brick by brick giving way to a glossy IT park. There isn’t much left now and it is just a matter of time before even those skeletal remains get destroyed. Every time I see those remains it reminds me of how I failed to enter my dream field and came to IT. And the parallels don’t end there. It was in my 3rd/4th standard my interest about cars grew when I got hold of a full fledged Auto magazine and started reading even though I couldn’t understand anything in it. It was a Foreign Auta Mag .. (Australian if I am right!).. I don’t think there was any Indian Auto Magazine circulating at that time. I went through that magazine so many times that I still remember the car models covered in that edition.. that book was a treasure for me. After looking at those beautiful cars I could find only one model on road closest to what I saw in that book – the Rover derived Standard 2000, and thus it became my first dream car. It was around that time Standard Motors got into trouble failing to make much headway with the Standard 2000. Little did I realize then that, just as my first dream car died.. my dreams would die as well.
