Bajaj to quit making scooters
I remember seeing the ad 'world's largest selling scooter' during my college days (bajaj chetak). One of my classmates was so crazy about the chetak and used to tell me that one can get a chetak only if they pay in US$ (could be true as it was heavily exported those days).
Though it was totally to my dislike, it seemed that owning a chetak was one of the ambitions of many men prior to the arrival of the 100CC bikes of whom the pioneer was the silent running 'IND-SUZUKI'.
Today I read this news (though late by 25 days, nobody has discussed so far in the hub) :
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...1053330200.htm
In a way I'm happy because I never liked scooters - especially the bajaj ones (Kinetic Honda was much better with a push button start and auto gear). The chetaks (and others by bajaj) were ugly, wide, with horrible gear-shift mechanism on hand which will make pal-koochcham on most old machines.
However, I'm not so happy to see the news that bajaj is #2 in the world in motorcycles. I used their KB100 for 10 years and if I exclude the first few months of ownership, it was a highly irritating experience in every possible way (though not too worse than the experiences of my pals who had their yamahas, hondas and suzukees made in India).
Unless they've improved from what they were during 1990-2000, their emergence as world leaders is just a sad story in the history of motorcycles!
Re: Bajaj to quit making scooters
Quote:
Originally Posted by app_engine
I remember seeing the ad 'world's largest selling scooter' during my college days (bajaj chetak). One of my classmates was so crazy about the chetak and used to tell me that one can get a chetak only if they pay in US$ (could be true as it was heavily exported those days).
Yes. it's true. Unless you were prepared to wait for as long as 7 years!! :roll: :)
This remained the case until as late as 1987!
I remember one of my parents' friends bought the very first chetak in 1977, with forex. Remember the ones that came with the "square" headlight:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/86/24...9dca52e769.jpg
BTW, in case you're wondering about the 'Vespa' name on the one in this pic., all Bajaj scoots were basically just renamed copies of older Vespa models! This very first Bajaj 150 that came out in the early 70s was but a photocopy of the Vespa 150 (first assembled by Bajaj.)
The chetak eventually gained favour over the older Lambretta & Vijai scooters mainly because of the greater fuel mileage factor and the fact that it was lighter than the latter.
Quote:
Though it was totally to my dislike, it seemed that owning a chetak was one of the ambitions of many men prior to the arrival of the 100CC bikes of whom the pioneer was the silent running 'IND-SUZUKI'.
In a way I'm happy because I never liked scooters - especially the bajaj ones (Kinetic Honda was much better with a push button start and auto gear). The chetaks (and others by bajaj) were ugly, wide, with horrible gear-shift mechanism on hand which will make pal-koochcham on most old machines.
Agreed, Bajaj scoots never were any of my favourite too (but in my case it's a different issue because I've liked Lambrettas! :))
The gearshift I would say was ok...except that in most cases, it would feel a little too "soft", something like jelly! :P
But it was atleast not too hard on the wrist unlike the ones on the Lambretta/Vijai, which was their only bugbear (IMHO)
It did seem that Bajaj were losing interest themselves in their erstwhile flagship scooter, as the later model (late 90s onwards) chetaks were simply going bad to worse in their build quality! I owned a 2001 model, and these were pure c**p as far as their bodywork was concerned, being potential rust-buckets for one thing! And less said about the quality of the electrical components, the better! :hammer: :x
