From the looks of the vehicle, it looks to be a 5th or 6th generation isuzu elf box truck. Most you need to operate one is a regular drivers license. But i guess for the jeets, its too powerful compared to a shitty old mahindra jeep or a hindustan ambassador (which shared its platform and drivetrain with the Morris Oxford a vehicle that was built from the 1950s by Morris and also hindustan to 2014) every vehicle in India is just old shitboxes unless your rich (which most jeets arent)
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Last storytime for now so I don't jeetify this own thread myself. I have an interesting storytime about reverse-jeetification going on with at least two Indian companies I know very well: Hero and Royal Enfield.
I want to give you a story that gives you hope, that all is not lost in humanity.
Indian technology when it comes to cars is total AIDS. Whole world knows that. And Tuk tuks are half-dying obsolete motorcyle engines repackaged in a steel box. The only thing that's really there natively is Tata Motor and it's just an IP theft operation posing as a car company. Always was. Vietnam has done far more in a far shorter amount of time, and that country doesn't even particularly like cars that much. 80 year olds still ride the same motorbikes 18 year olds do.
Motorcycles are a different story. The Big 3 in India are Bajaj, Hero, and Royal Enfield. All 3 companies were launches of Indian suppliers or subsidiaries. Bajaj first started out making Piaggio's famous Vespa scooter, Hero was once Hero Honda which was Honda's concentration of entry-power motorcycles for developing countries, and Royal Enfield was once the oldest motorcycle maker in the world, a British company, the current Royal Enfield is the original company's Indian division which has rebooted itself as a new global company.
India is the 2nd biggest motorcycle maker in the world, after Japan. In order to reach this achievement, being a shit ran-down Chinesium crap-engineered copy is just not good enough for global sales, regardless if the market has high-trust society or not. If you sell death on two wheels, self-preservation kicks in quick. And small changes to a motorbike's basic design and materials can easily turn it into a death trap.
Now, I want to turn your attention to India's retarded little brother, Pakistan. This is a motorcycle being constructed from scratch (skip around if you're not into machining ASMR):
This may seem neat... oh wow they can build bikes. You even see the fresh low-displacement underbone bike at the end:
Here's the thing... they're making that bike RIGHT NOW, several hundred are being made right this minute in Pakistan, and they are all copies of this bike:
This is the Honda CD70, introduced in 1970. Honda specifically opened a factory in Karachi to assemble these. The paki bikes are so close to the original 1970 Honda motorcycle that even the dashboard has not changed. There's not even a USB charger for your phone. You can go add that part yourself, which is quite easy to do because THIS BIKE IS THE PRIMARY MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IN ALL OF PAKISTAN.
Honda pulled out in 1991 and every day since then, they've been churning out the same bike, day after day. They don't know how to even remotely approach redesigning a new bike. And Pakis being Pakis, it's not a great look to bring over an Indian-made bike over the border, and the only other neighbors Pakistan has is Iran and Afghanistan which are shitshows and both just import bikes.
So, Pakistan is left with the tiny displacement of the CD70 and whatever imports it brings in. Chinesium motors above a scooter are suicide death traps, so Pakistan is pretty much up shit creek on two wheels.
This is where culture shifts are important. Bajaj could only make so much money buying small motorcycle engines and throwing them into rickshaws, Honda pulled Hero out just as it had pulled out of Pakistan, and Royal Enfield only made one motorcycle: the Bullet, which was similar to what was going on with the CD70. A motorcycle of national importance (every Indian military parade features thousands of them), they're now the oldest motorcycle in continuous production, but the stagnation is obvious.
Enter this man: Siddhartha Lal, the son of Vikram Lal, an Indian monopolist. Siddhar sold off 16 companies to raise the money to take over Royal Enfield. He's always been a motorcycle nut, passionate about bikes and his love of bikes and his unique access to capital linked up and he threw himself into the company.
In a way, his motorcycle autism made him make direct choices about Royal Enfield that blased through the Indian preference of embracing mediocrity and killing off ambition, content to accept phony-at-worst, unverifiable-at-best, performance results.
Instead of never being able to trace a VIN back to all the people who touched that bike and faceless "QC" stamps mindlessly chocked on to bike parts with no real inspection going on--leading to suspect bikes leaving the factory, the VIN number is created before the steel welding for the frame is complete, and everyone who touched that bike is accounted for. Siddartha probably has too much pride to admit it: but he knows Indian tendency well, and how to thwart it. Quality of the existing lines improved.
He then ditched the 500cc series bikes and funded a complete redesign, with power improvements, to a new 350cc "J-series" engine. This is one of the most fuel efficient motorcycle engines in the entire motorcycle market in this displacement class, and the stock engine performs well enough to obsolete out the bigger-bore 500cc it replaced. If your bike has a J350 engine you can get gas mileage over 85mpg, some can reach up to 95mpg. Only Honda has really ever consistently put out bikes that get that high but they have to do it with their original Super Cub engine variants. So if you want a real motorcycles and you want mpg at 100 or better but still have decent power, your only real option is to buy a Honda Grom in most countries, or settle for a Bajaj 100cc-250cc. But with Royal Enfield 350cc bikes, you get the best possible balance.
Then a few years ago Royal Enfield jumped back into the medium-displacement market, which is dominated by Honda, Susuki and Kawasaki, and put out a brand new 650cc engine, reworking designs from the original British company it replaced, and made a whole new line of bikes for this launch, starting with the bike Royal Enfield is now more known for making than the original government-issue Bullet motorcycle of the past, the Continental GT:
This rider put cans on, but this is just pure motorcycle bliss (sound on). Every bike nut oozes with endorphines at hearing the perfect BRRRRAAAP:
Now, the changes at the company's HQ didn't start with the HQ in Chennai and deleting the Indian culture deficiency. In order to make better motorcycles, the standards not only have to go way the fuck up, but you need the right mix of people, too. So Royal Enfield started buying up engineers Triumph was laying off. They snapped up a fuel designer from Suzuki, a major coup... all new Royal Enfields now have a custom configured best-in-class fuel injector setup instead of a rusty carbeurator, and properly sized and tuned air handling box.
Then after launching one dual sport bike and calling it a scrambler (the Scram 411), they decided eh let's try this again for real, and they actually made a real scrambler with an FTR-inspired 2-over-1 stream-over-stream exhaust, increasing engine power up to 8% in the midrange, now making it Royal Enfield's most powerful stock engine setup:
They are now manufacturing and assembling in more countries than just India, and as of last year they are now the fastest growing motorcycle company in the world.
The pattern that Royal Enfield has entered into with it thinking about itself and its riders and motorcycles and less about Indian nationalism and bullshit desi priorities nobody gives two shits about has spread over to Hero (formerly Hero Honda India), where Hero has been modding their Honda Super Cub engine designs they started out with and are now about to win the "smiles-per-gallon" prize and actually beat Honda at their own game in the very-low-displacement engine category, which they've owned since 1964.
Hero still makes dual kick+electric start, which is still needed in parts of the world where auto and motorcycle part stores are far out of reach, so starting with a can't start it battery voltage is needed. And they're still designing comfort ergos into these frame designs, and even the quality of the Indian tire companies (at least where it comes to tire models that these 3 Indian companies selects in their launches) has improved.
In almost every way, the India motorcycle industry is showing what is POSSIBLE and certainly achievable. It requires tough love, and telling hard-headed desis who won't adopt the new model of thinking about work, and of the company and of colleagues, and that quality+honesty are just as important as finishing X units on a line, to go home. India is a big place and it takes sifting through a lot of desis but it's not that hard to find people who show potential to shed their desi selves, or at least do a good job of shelving it.
And as much as the Brahmin street shitters hate me, I can spot an Indian gem from any caste (it is almost always NEVER a Brahmin, btw). And Royal Enfield is putting out damn good bikes. And you can afford them. A fresh current-year Conti GT well set you back
$6,500). That's a fuckin' STEAL. You will love that bike and love to ride it and get the same grin and love of customizing that bike vs. blowing $12K on a Triumph. India did good here, and they deserve props for it.