Force Motors

Force Motors Limited
Public
Industry Automobile
Founded 1958
Headquarters Pune , India
Key people
 Abhay N. Firodia (Chairman)[1]
Prasan A. Firodia (Managing Director)
Products Trax, Traveller, Trump, Force One, Balwan tractor
Revenue ₹1480 Crore (2011)
₹104 Crore (2011)[2]
₹58.6 Crore
Number of employees
 8000
Website www.forcemotors.com

Force Motors, formerly Bajaj Tempo, is an Indian manufacturer of three-wheelers, multi-utility and cross country vehicles, light commercial vehicles, tractors, buses and heavy commercial vehicles. It was originally named Firodia Tempo Ltd. and later after partial acquisition by Bajaj Auto as Bajaj Tempo Ltd.

History

Bajaj Tempo Minidor
Tempo Bajaj Matador (Hanomag / Mercedes-Benz License of Harburger Transporter)
Force Trax
Force One
Force Traveller as an Ambulance

The company was founded in 1958 by N.K.Firodia. Bajaj Auto bought a controlling stake in the company, renaming it "Bajaj Tempo". Germany's Daimler-Benz, a long-time collaborator with Firodia because of their ownership of the original Tempo works in Germany, owned 16% of Bajaj Tempo. They sold their stake back to the Firodia group in 2001, meaning they once again held a controlling interest. It was agreed that the company would gradually phase out the use of the "Tempo" brand name, as it still belonged to Mercedes-Benz.[3] The name of the company was changed to Force Motors in May 2005.[4]

Force Motors started production of the Hanseat three-wheeler in collaboration with German Vidal & Sohn Tempo Werke and went on to establish a presence in the light commercial vehicles field with the Matador, the proverbial LCV (light commercial vehicle) in India. Bajaj Tempo was associated with Mercedes-Benz since 1976 and in 1982 they began building the Mercedes-Benz OM616 diesel engine. Through the 1980s and 1990s, and especially in the last five years with a major product development effort, Force Motors has introduced new light commercial vehicles, a facelifted series of Tempo Trax utility vehicles, new tractors, and a new range of three-wheelers. The Matador, which defined the light commercial segment in India, saw sales collapsing in the late 1990s and Bajaj Tempo began a substantial program of developing modern vehicles to replace it.[5]

Bajaj Tempo also built the diesel engines used in the Mercedes-Benz W124, and later W210, as manufactured in India. This was a small-scale endeavour, but while it did not net BT much profit they benefitted from the connection, both in terms of reputation and technology.[5]

The company which mainly operates in niche commercial vehicle segment, entered into the "personal vehicle" segment in August 2011 with the launch of its first SUV, named Force-One.[6]

Tractors are built under the Balwan and Ox (formerly Tempo Ox) brands.[7] The tractor field was entered by (then) Bajaj Tempo in 1996-1997, and were developed indigenously, rather than depending on imported technology.[5]

In a move away from its long-established business, of being a Commercial Vehicle maker, Force Motors entered the Personal Vehicles arena with a Sports Utility Vehicle the FORCE ONE in 2011 and an Extreme Off-Roader Vehicle- the Gurkha in 2013.

Recently in the year 2015, the company also inaugurated its Chennai Plant which will produce and test engines and transmissions exclusively for all BMW cars and SUVs made in India. The IT system of the production facility is integrated in “Real Time” with the global production network of BMW. This enables all essential production process values to be integrated in BMW’s global data. The Force Motors plant at Chennai has been developed under supervision and guidance from the luxury car maker and is according to their exacting global standards.

Force Motors has manufacturing facilities at Akurdi and Ursé (Maharashtra), Pithampur (Madhya Pradesh) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu). A state of the art manufacturing facility at Chakan (Maharashtra) will be inaugurated soon.

Products

Force Motors manufactures a range of vehicles including Small Commercial Vehicles (SCV), Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV), Multi Utility Vehicles (MUV), Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV), Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV) and Agricultural Tractors.

Personal vehicles

Light Commercial vehicles

Small Commercial Vehicles

Multi Utility Vehciles

Agricultural vehicles

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Force Motors vehicles.
  1. ↑ Bloomberg TV India-Abhay Firodia
  2. ↑ "Force motors" (PDF).
  3. ↑ "Bajaj Tempo will now be Force Motors". The Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2005-02-24. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  4. ↑ "It's official: Bajaj Tempo is now Force Motors". The Economic Times. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2005-05-12. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  5. 1 2 3 B M (1998-10-31). "Lower Sales". Economic and Political Weekly. Mumbai, India: Sameeksha Trust. 33 (44): 2764–2765.
  6. ↑ http://profit.ndtv.com/news/show/force-one-suv-launched-at-rs-10-65-lakh-to-compete-with-innova-safari-173537?CH=HRKLHlkds
  7. ↑ http://forcemotors.com/html/products.aspx?id=19&pstring=19&root=19
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