Shri Nathji's cars

 In 1948, on the instructions of Shri Nathji, Jagdish began searching for a car and finally found a Standard car at Sikand & Co. This company is located at 50, Janpath Connaught Place. Now it is a Maruti dealership. Shri Nathji, Mateshwari, Pran Nath and Priya Nath all went to the shop and instantly liked the new Standard 14 Model displayed there. It was a beautiful almond coloured British car made in 1947.

When Shri Nathji went to take delivery of the car he discovered that the almond coloured saloon car had been sold and that a black coloured Standard stood in its place. The car dealer apologised for having sold the almond coloured car, but said the black car looked more regal and was used by the royalty in England. Indeed, the black shine of the car and the glistening chromium grill at the front gave it the appearance of a Rolls Royce. There was even a small British flag embossed in steel on the bonnet of the car.

 The Standard Motor Company was founded in Coventry, England in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay (1871–1934). The Standard name was last used in Britain in 1963, and in India in 1987.

 The company was first registered on 2 March 1903 by R. W. Maudslay. He was a civil engineer by profession but realised the enormous potential of the horseless carriage, and with a gift of £3,000 from Sir John Wolfe-Barrie he became a motor manufacturer, establishing a small factory in a two-storey building in Much Park Street, Coventry. Having undertaken the examination of several proprietary engines to familiarise himself with internal combustion engine design he employed seven people to assemble the first car, powered by a single-cylinder engine with three-speed gearbox and shaft drive to the rear wheels. By the end of 1903 three cars had been built and the labour force had been increased to twenty five. The increased labour force produced a car every three weeks during 1904.

 In 1912 Friswell sold his interest in Standard to C. J. Band and Siegfried Bettmann, the founder of the Triumph Motor Cycle Company(which became the Triumph Motor Company). During the same year the first commercial vehicle was produced, and the 4-cylinder model "S" was introduced at £195, the first to be put into large-scale production. 1600 were produced before the outbreak of the First World War, 50 of them in the final week of car production. These cars were sold with a three-year guarantee. In 1914 Standard became a public company.

During the First World War the company produced more than 1000 aircraft, including the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12, Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8, Sopwith Pup and Bristol F.2-B in a new works at Canley that opened on 1 July 1916. Canley would subsequently become the main centre of operations.[1] Other war materials produced included shells, mobile workshops for the Royal Engineers, and trench mortars.

Civilian car production was restarted in 1919 with models based on pre-war designs. The company continued to produce its cars during the Second World War, but now mainly fitted with utility bodies ("Tillies"). However, the most famous war-time product was the de Havilland Mosquito aircraft, mainly the FB VI version, of which more than 1100 were made. 750 Airspeed Oxfords were also made as well as 20,000 Bristol Mercury VIII engines, and 3,000 Bristol Beaufighter fuselages.

Other wartime products included 4000 Beaverette light armoured cars and a lightweight "Jeep" type vehicle. With peace, the pre-war Eight and Twelve cars were quickly back in production using tools carefully stored since 1939.

The Standard 14 which Shri Nathji purchased, was one of the most popular post war models of the company. I have given a recent photo of a well maintained 1947 Standard 14 car as well as the same car which Shri Nathji owned.  

 In 1958 the Standard Atlas panel van and pick-up was first vended, a cab-over-engine design. Overseas assembly plants were opened in Australia, Canada, India and South Africa.

 The Standard brand was ended on August 17, 1970 when a sudden announcement said that henceforth the Company was to be known as the Triumph Motor Company.

The Standard name endured into the 1980s in India, where Standard Motor Products, Madras manufactured the Triumph Herald with the basic 948 cc engine as the Standard Herald during the 1960s, eventually with additional four-door and five-door estate models exclusively for the Indian market. BMW acquired the Standard and Triumph brands following its purchase of BL's successor Rover Group in 1994.

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On one of His trips to Dehra Dun Shri Nathji met his oladmirer, Rai Bahadur Ugra Sen, who mentioned a Ford car, which his brother Dr. A.C. Sen was trying to sell through the British Motor Car Company at Delhi. And so August 1950 saw Shri Nathji inDelhi, along with Sri Krishen Khanna, at the office of the British Motor Car Company at Connaught Circus, finalising the purchase of a second-hand American Ford V8 car, which had been manufactured in 1946. The purchase price of the car was Rs.7500.

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. In the past it has also produced heavy trucks, tractors and automotive components.

Henry Ford was 40 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company, which would go on to become one of the world's largest and most profitable companies, As one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world, the Ford Motor Company has been in continuous family control for over 100 years.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by 1914 these methods were known around the world as Fordism.

The Ford V8 model which was owned by Shri Nathji was an extremely successful model of Ford., which the company continued to sell for many years. I have given a photo of a well maintained 1947 Ford V8 Convertible as well as the same car which Shri Nathji owned.  V8 Ford and was the most popular model in the USA in the 1940’s and  because of its speed it was the official police car of that decade. A photo of a V8 car used by the ploce is shown in the picture.

With the 1980s, Ford introduced several highly successful vehicles around the world. In 1990 and 1994 respectively, Ford also acquired Jaguar Cars and Aston Martin.  During the mid- to late 1990s, Ford continued to sell large numbers of vehicles, in a booming American economy with a soaring stock market and low fuel prices.

Now Ford is the second-largest U.S.-based automaker. Ford is the eighth-ranked overall American-based company in the 2010 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2009 of $118.3 billion. In 2008, Ford produced 5.532 million automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants and facilities worldwide.