Back in the 70s and 80s it was the largest scooter manufacturer. Bajaj Auto's market share made it look like a monopoly despite the existence of competitors like API (Lambretta), Scooters India (Vijay Super), Gujarat Narmada Scooters (Prince), AP Scooters (PL170) and LML.
Such was the demand for the Bajaj scooter that after booking a Bajaj scooter, one had to wait for 3-4 years to get a delivery. If you needed a scooter immediately you'd have to pay an extra sum (in black). This was referred to as "ON" money.
Now if you were the Bajaj management during those days, what more could you ask for? People were waiting for years to buy your product. The seller was the king and sold his product at his terms. During the 70s and early 80s, the Chetak model was sold only to those customers who paid in foreign currency, and these were the times when foreign currency was a rare commodity. Today it's hard to imagine that such a concept existed.
Oh yes, if you were the Bajaj management, your major challenge would be to make sure that the quantity of scooters produced every year was within the limit prescribed by the government. How tough is that? But apparently they messed up once and the chief of Bajaj was almost arrested for producing a few extra scooters.
"O-Oh! 3 extra scooters? I'm afraid that's against the law. FREEZE. You are under arrest. You have the right to ... blah blah blah."
During the late 80s, the Japanese joint ventures arrived. Ind Suzuki was the first to launch the AX100. Soon Hero Honda and Escorts Yamaha also started making motorcycles. Bajaj tied up with Kawasaki for motorcycle expertise.
The motorcycle market grew steadily and consequently the scooter market shrank. Bajaj was the last to enter the motorcycle segment and was left far behind in the competition. Their same old scooter that once ruled the markets was not selling. After rolling out the same product for 20-30 years without any significant improvements, it was time to do something. It was the after all the matter of survival. Product development & innovation was the only way ahead.
New models were designed and brought to market. Attempts like Rave, Chetak 4 str, KB SX, NXT2, Eliminator failed miserably. Though RTZ and 4S could not be classified as great successes, they did manage to hang-in for quite some time occupying the #3 or #2 spot.
Then came the success in the form of Pulsar. This success was soon improved upon by the dual spark plug DTSi engine. Incidentally this is largely an indigenous effort unlike the Eliminator, Challenger which had "Kawasaki" label attached.
Moral of the story: The desperate need for survival forced product innovations. Had there been no competition, we would still be buying a scooter that had to be tilted before kicking that kick.
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