SD1 "Made in India"

Mister Jitendra Kulkarni with his Standard 2000 - the SD1 built in India.

In the late 1980s Rover sold the panel pressings for the SD1 to a company called Standard Motor Products of India. They called the car Standard 2000.
Quoting Karen Pender's book she states the Standard 2000 had a Indian - developed 2-liter engine that was based on the Standard-Vanguard wet-liner ohv unit.
It also used a Standard-Triumph shield badge on the front bonnet (must be interesting to see one).
A total of 3408 were built.
The car did meet the stringent Indian fuel efficiency requirements but claims were made that the car broke the requirements. There was an investigation which lasted many months and cost the company huge sums of money. The car was retested and found to be fuel efficient. By this time the damage had been done and the company failed.
Several wealthy individuals tried to restart the project, none succeeded.
The Standard 2000 holds an honour of sorts though. It was the first "new" car introduced in India after the Morrises and the Fiats of the 1950s.
In its heydays - not a very long period - it was much sought after by film personalities, politicians in power, and others sorely deprived of glamorous transportation!
The duties imposed on importing cars to India were, and still are, prohibitive - to the tune of 360% of the landed cost of a car with an engine capacity of more than 1000 cc.
Politicians could therefore hardly afford to be seen indulging in such ostentatious consumption. They would also run the risk of being immediately dubbed as "anti-national" by their political opponents if they were seen gadding about in imported cars, since the high import duties on imported cars were meant to protect the interests of indigenous industry. A Standard 2000 would not only attract these barbs but could also be paraded around as an achievement of Indian industry.

This text, thanks to:
Sarojesh Mukerjee and Mark Ascherl with additional help from Shyam Krishnamachary

The Indian SD1 - built by Standard Motor Products of India.

It is SD1 with 4 cyl petrol engine (2000cc). But now I have converted it to diesel. The diesel engine fitted is a Nissan SD25, along with Nissan car's 5 speed manual transmission.
In India, diesel costs about half that of petrol, and the petrolversion gives 4 to 5 km/litre where as diesel gives about 11 km/litre. Hence most of the Standard 2000 cars in India are now converted to diesel by their owners.

This car seems to have lost the front bumper. Probably due to the mean Indian traffic.© Picture by Karl Bhote in Puney.

These pictures were taken a few years ago and shows two Standard 2000 in daily use in Puney in India.
The pictures were taken buy Karl Bhote and was sent to us by Shyam Krishnamachary himself living in India. He says that he has not seen any Standard 2000 in use the last few years. That may be natural as only 3408 cars were ever built.