page_title: Premier (company)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Premier (company) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: This classic car was exhibited and took part during ‘The Statesman Vintage &amp; Classic Car Rally 2014’at the Eastern Command Sports Stadium of Fort William, Kolkata. The route was Strand road, Esplanade, Central avenue, Bhupen Bose avenue, Shaymbazaar five points crossing, APC Roy road, Moulali, CIT road, National Medical College, Park Circus seven points, Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Gariahat, Rashbehari Avenue, SP Mukherjee road, Hazra crossing, Ashutosh Mukherjee road, Exide crossing, AJC Bose road again Strand road and back to the ECS stadium. The rally was held at the morning on Sunday, 19 January 2013 at the ECS Stadium, where 175 entrants were registered with cars and bikes manufactured from 1906 to 1971. This one day festival usually takes place on the second Sunday of every January (but this time it is observed on third Sunday) in Kolkata since 1968 with full of period costume and cultural period pieces. This classic car is owned and driven by Sheikh Sikander Ali.
context_page_description: Premier Ltd. is a manufacturer of vehicles based in Mumbai, India. The company is owned by the Walchand Group. Walchand established Premier Ltd. with the encouragement and support of architect of modern India, Sir. M. Vishweswarayya. In October 1947 Premier Ltd. manufactured the first Indian made trucks and cars rolled out onto the streets of a free India.
context_section_description: The company was established in 1941 and negotiated with Chrysler Corporation for licenses to build a Plymouth car and a Dodge truck, sold under the Dodge, Plymouth, DeSoto, and Fargo names starting around 1949. In the early years, quality was considered good by both Chrysler and the Indian Department of Defense. In 1949, parts were being made in India, starting with simpler components and gradually building up to more complex pieces. Two companies made parts for these vehicles: Premier and Hindustan Motors of Calcutta. The early years of Premier and Hindustan were marked by very low sales, due to the size of the market; only about 20,000 vehicles per year were made in India, in 65 different models. To prevent foreign companies from dominating by mass-producing parts to be assembled into cars in India, the government set up steep import duties on imported parts in 1954, allowing Indian parts-makers to survive.
  Premier licensed and manufactured a version of the Fiat 1100 D (beginning in 1964 continuing almost unchanged into the late 1990s). The car was initially marketed as a Fiat ("1100 Delight") and subsequently as the Premier Padmini with a 40 hp (30 kW) 1100 cc engine and manufactured at the now defunct Kurla factory in suburban Mumbai. Later models included the Premier 118NE (named after its 1171 cc Nissan A12 engine and with a transmission from the Nissan Cherry), a version of the 1960s Fiat 124 built in a then-new (but now defunct) factory at Kalyan. The 118NE was considered a mid-size luxury car in India until the influx of modern cars in the 1990s.
caption: Fiat 1100 Elegant launched in 1955
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ViewNX 2.7 W", "Image DateTime": "2014:03:25 12:56:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "902", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "14592", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4993", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "53/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:01:19 09:43:45", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:01:19 09:43:45", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "24/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "66", "EXIF SubSecTime": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "30", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6016", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4000", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "99", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}