Automobile Products of India

Automobile Products of India (API)

Automobile Products of India Logo on Indian Lambretta
Type	defunct
Industry	Automotive
Founded	1949, Bombay
Defunct	2002
Key people	Rootes Founders and M. A. Chidambaram
Products	Lambretta, Lamby. API - Brakes and Clutches
Number of employees	n/a

Automobile Products of India (API) was founded in 1949 at Bombay (now Mumbai), by the British company Rootes Group, and later bought over by M. A. Chidambaram of the MAC Group from Madras (now Chennai). The company manufactured Lambretta scooters, API Three Wheelers under licence from Innocenti of Italy and Automobile ancillaries, notably Clutch and Braking systems. API's registered offices were earlier in Mumbai, later shifted to Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. The manufacturing facilities were located in Mumbai and Aurangabad in Maharashtra and in Ambattur, Chennai. The company has not been operational since 2002.

The main plant and old office for Scooters were located in Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, Bhandup, Mumbai.Hind Auto Industries Ltd, manufacturing automobile Tie-Rod ends with German collobporation was amalgamated in 1968 and its products were included to API product portfolios. The Aurangabad unit was engaged in manufactured various Automobile compopnents like Clutch and Braking systems for Maruti Udyog, Hindustan Motors, Bajaj Tempo, and Premier Automobiles as original equipment.

In 1987 as part of expansion plan, the Chennai unit was started in Ambattur for production of Clutch and Braking systems.

API was the first Indian scooter manufacturer. Scooters were initially assembled from Innocenti kits and sold under the Lambretta name. The early models were the Lambretta 48, a 48 cc moped and the D and LD - Series of scooters. In the early 1960s API acquired the rights to produce the Li-150 series 2 model. This was restyled with a smaller mudguard, smaller legshields, dual seats and press-on side panels.