HINDUSTAN MOTORS CONTESSA – The Indian Muscle Car
In today's time the Indian automobile world has reached (sort of) the pinnacle of excellence, offering high tech cool cars with sophisticated electronic systems, comfortable driving mechanisms, and to top it all now we have AI inside the car whose whole purpose is to roll down windows for you if you are that lazy to push a button. But what if we take a ride down the memory lane to experience cars made then, when cars were compared in a way they were supposed to be compared and rather which gives a bigger entertainment screen or which car gives a better DRL animation. Memory lane brings a happy memory of the famous Hindustan Motors Contessa, one of the most loved and admired cars in Indian automotive history. For our young readers who are charging their EV's while watching Netflix and thinking what am I talking about, you watch any 80s or 90s movie and see a badass villain driving a car, it's the Contessa. After the tremendous success of the Ambassador, Hindustan Motors needed another car that could be a worthy successor, a car that could somehow increase the status symbol of the owner, and so HM came up with the Contessa in the year 1984. Loosely based on the British Vauxhall Victor VX 2300 as HM bought the rights after VX 2300 finished its run. Commonly known as the "Desi Muscle car", the Contessa was the most premium car on sale at its time, the competition was with the Standard 2000 which to be honest looked more like a fridge magnet. The India Manufactured luxury muscle car had a roaring start in 1984, but after having years of success it was put to an end in 2002. So what exactly happened? Why was the Contessa so loved and yet HM decided to put an end to it? Let us all dig deep and find out.
Engine and Engineering
In the early tenure, HM introduced the Contessa with only 1 petrol engine which was the same engine offered in the Ambassador. The 1.5L BMC-B series engine with 4 speed gearbox producing 50km/h and a top speed of 125km/h which was not a good engine, it lacked very much in performance. HM then tied-up with ISUZU for a petrol and a diesel engine, both 1.8L petrol and 2L diesel engine were offered with a 5 speed gearbox and the result was a whopping 165 km/h making the India's own muscle car the fastest car of that era which was later succeeded by the Maruti Suzuki 1000. As far as the competition goes, the Standard 2000 was very disappointing and greatly underpowered. The HM Contessa with 1.5L engine was introduced at ₹83,500 ex-showroom Mumbai in 1984, but in later years with the ISUZU engine the price reached ₹4.84lakhs for the diesel and ₹5.42lakhs for the petrol variant, now this seems a big jump but considering the jump in performance numbers, this was totally worth it.
Design and Features
The very own Desi muscle car ruled in the hearts of many for its elegant design and overall rich appearance. 4 door sedan with strong shoulder lines and very distinctive horizontal tail lights. The Contessa got a floor stick shift which was a great deal back then as cars used to come with a steering mounted complicated gear shift. Speaking of a great deal, the Contessa got Bucket Seats, Power Steering, Power Windows and an Air Conditioning system which was huge, if we talk in today's terms consider Power Steering in the 80s and 90s as getting a Panoramic Sunroof in your car today. The cool sedan had 15-inch steel wheels which were good enough for Indian roads, great headroom and knee room for comfortable interior space. Car with the ISUZU engine got "Contessa Classic" badging for the diesel variant and "Contessa Classic 1.8L" for the petrol one. Overall the design, look and feel of the car was very intimidating, when you see one stop you know some bossy person or a savage villain is stepping out.
Legacy
So, if HM was enjoying the success of the Contessa, what happened then? Well for starters, the 90s opened the gates for foreign brands like Suzuki which could offer a practical car for the Indian middle class population at much lower price. The second hit was rising petrol prices in India and the low mileage Contessa couldn't handle it. Slowly bit by bit the HM Contessa started to fade away from the picture, it was gone but not forgotten by car collectors, even today the HM Contessa enjoys a huge fan following. Couple of years back there was news in the air that HM is working on the EV Ambassador which brought the topic of an EV Contessa as well. Hindustan Motors earlier got the rights to make an EV Contessa, but later on sold the rights to SG Corporate Mobility. Till now there is no confirmed date as to if and when Contessa would be back. Yes, we definitely need a new Contessa in the market as the roads are now bored of SUVs and Compact SUVs with very high center of gravity which makes these steel cans to roll over on turns, but should the new Contessa be an electric version? That is a separate debate altogether for another day..