Kumar Taxis: Catering To Royalty

Kerala Tourism aptly selected Kumar Taxis for the special award for tourist carrier. The reason is well explained in the ensuing article. K K Mohandas, chief executive of Kumar Taxis, has been a freedom fighter, entrepreneur and businessman, but he is better known for his taxies.

One of the first VIPs to use his cars was none other than Mahatma Gandhi, who travelled in a Kumar Taxi during his visit to Cochin (Kochi). Gandhiji crossed over to Mattanchery by boat and travelled up to Quilon by car, the journey taking three days.

It was in 1928, when there were no petrol pumps in the country and fuel was sold in five-gallon that m/s Pierce Leslie and Company, Cochin, sold an Overland Vippet car to a firm named Kumar. With this purchase the firm ventured into the taxi business.

Today, Kumar's has fleet of foreign cars like the Mercedes Benz in which Prince Philip travelled in Cochin. Some of the dignitaries who travelled in Kumar Taxies include, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Morarjee Desai, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Zakir Hussain, F A Ahmed, V V Giri, Sanjeeva Reddy, and Zail Singh, Venkataraman, S D Sharma and K R Narayanan.

J R D Tata and his wife travelled in Kumar car during their visit here when the Kanan Devan Estates were purchased. Another passenger who was admired is Vajpayee. Nowhere in the world, feels Mohandas have presidents and prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors, diplomats and industrialists travelled so exclusively in cars belonging to a private concern.

Kumar's trip from the 1928 Vippet to Mercedes Benz and more, has been a long and eventful one, a 75 year long saga.