TVS' Story

TVS, named after its founder T.V. Sundaram is the third largest two wheeler manufacturer in India with annual sales of about 2.5 million units and valued at six billion dollars in 2015, TVS is indeed a flagship company that is influencing in the Indian market in more ways than we know. But how did it all start?

The Origin
It started with a man named T.V. Sundaram Iyengar, born in 1877 in Thirukkurungudi in the Tirunelveli district of Madras Presidency in British India. Starting his initial career as a lawyer to appease his father he then moved to work for the Indian Railways and later in the banking industry. In 1911 Sundaram Iyengar started the first bus service in the city of Madurai. He established the ‘T.V. SundramIyengar and Sons Limited’ in 1911, which by his death in 1955, operated a number of buses and lorries under the title of Southern Roadways Limited. Apart from this he also established the TVS Gas Plant during the Second World War to meet the high demand of petrol as Madras Presidency was hit with petrol scarcity. He also started the ‘Madras Auto Service Ltd.’ and the ‘Sundaram Motors’, a division of T V Sundram Iyengar & Sons Ltd.. Sundaram Motors was the largest distributer of General Motors in the 1950s. After his death in 1955, he was succeeded by his 4 sons.
In 1962 TVS joined with Clayton Dewandre Holdings of England to form ‘Sundaram Clayton Ltd.’ which manufactured various automotive parts. In 1978 the company set up a plant at Hosur to manufacture mopeds as part of their new division and in 1980 India’s first two seat moped TVS 50 rolled out of the factory. Mopeds were pioneered in India by Kinetic with its single seat Luna. Despite being late to the party with the Kinetic Luna being launched 8 years earlier, the TVS 50 became the poster child of the moped industry. The success of this product is attributable to two things : price and utility. At a low price one could have something better than a cycle and also which was simple to handle and was hassle-free. The brand became a favorite for small traders. With an advertisement tag ‘We Make it Better for Two’ the TVS 50 was the most popular moped of its era despite facing stiff competition from Hero Honda. The spiritual successor to the TVS 50 was the TVS XL of which more than 10 million units have been sold as of now.

The TVS-Suzuki Era
Looking to expand into motorcycles, Sundaram Clayton entered a technical knowhow and assistance agreement with Suzuki Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan in 1984. The first product of the newly formed coalition was the Ind-Suzuki AX100R which was built in Japan and imported to India. The AX100R was essentially a rebadged version of the AX100 that Suzuki was selling in South East Asia at the time. At around the same time another Indian company “Escorts Group” had partnered up with Yamaha to form Escorts-Yamaha and launched the ‘Rajdoot 350’ in 1983. Rajdoot 350 was an utter flop despite the bike being a rebadged version of the RD350 which received universal acclaim and sales elsewhere in the world; this gave TVS-Suzuki an easy market penetration with their AX100R, which was everything that the Rajdoot 350 was not. It was frugal, easier to maintain and didn’t come with a premium price tag unlike the Rajdoot 350. The AX100R seemingly had a monopoly on the market until Yamaha launched the legendary RX100 in 1985. To make things worse for TVS it was at this time that Bajaj partnered with Kawasaki Motorcycles and launched the KB100.
Rx100 ruled the Indian motorcycle scene for nearly a decade. Though TVS-Suzuki launched products like “Supra” and “Supra Power-up” to challenge the market leader, these didn’t really eat into RX100’s sales. Even though the Supra Power-up was faster than the RX100 it only met with lukewarm response from the masses. In 1993 TVS came out with the “Shogun” which sported a bikini fairing; arguably one the best looking bike of the era. It had a 108cc 2stroke engine which was tuned close to its limits making 14 PS of power and 11 Nm of torque. All of this made the Shogun faster and wilder than its rivals and just like its tag line, the Shogun was “The Boss” in comparison.
While Shogun was built for the performance crowd, TVS had another motorcycle in its lineup built for the mass market - Samurai. Samurai carried the AX100R lineup forward, focusing on affordable, frugal motorcycles. The Samurai was particularly popular with young crowd, especially the college going students.
The Early 2000s saw the launch of RX135, to which TVS-Suzuki responded with “Shaolin”. With the Shaolin the intent was not to have a faster motorcycle than the existing Shogun but to have a motorcycle that bridged the gap between the Samurai and the “Shadow” which was basically successor to the Shogun. The Shadow supposedly had a retuned version of the Shaolin engine making roughly 16ps of power which would’ve made it the most powerful 2stroke motorcycle of the time save for the RD 350. But the tightening emission requirements made the 2 strokes to fall out of favor with the market, causing TVS-Suzuki to scrape the whole bike before it was even launched.
TVS-Suzuki focused on 4 stroke motorcycles and in the year 2000 launched its latest offering, Suzuki Fiero, in the Kerala market followed by Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately the Fiero wasn’t a huge success like their previous 2 stroke offerings. The Fiero faced stiff competition from Hero Honda’s Cbz 150 and Bajaj’s Pulsar 150. The Fiero lacked both the visual appeal and equipment in comparison to its rival despite being the most refined bike of the lot. It was with the launch of the indigenously developed Victor in 2001 that TVS Suzuki got a winning product. TVS sold more than 400,000 units of the Victor within 18 months of its launch.
Later on that year TVS and Suzuki parted ways bringing about the end to a 15 year old venture with TVS buying out the 25.97% stake of Suzuki for Rs 9 crore. TVS-Suzuki was renamed to TVS Motors.

In the Current Times
Currently, TVS makes mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and also has one three wheeler autorickshaw. TVS Motor Company exports to over 60 countries and is the 2nd largest exporter in India. TVS has made its presence felt in the Indian 2 wheeler industry so much so that no one thinks of any other brand other than TVS when the word moped comes. Its scooters are one of the consumer favorites and its Apache motorcycle lineup comes with racing character. TVS Motor Company has had its tough times with stiff competition always present but the will to make a difference in the Indian automotive industry has kept them going.