CarBrandLogos archive · Force Motors · 1987

Force MotorsTraveller

India's default minibus, descended from a licensed German van and still working.

Photo: Anuragur · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Force Motors history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Force Motors Traveller, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The Traveller is one of those vehicles whose ubiquity in its home market is inversely proportional to its fame outside it. Force Motors — then Bajaj Tempo — began building it in 1987, drawing on a long-standing relationship with German commercial vehicle engineering, and the design descends from the Harburger Transporter it replaced. Early vans used the Mercedes-derived OM616 diesel, a robustly simple indirect-injection engine well suited to a market where fuel quality and maintenance standards vary.

Force Traveller, Leh-Manali Highway · Yann Forget · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

What it does is carry people. In minibus form it moves school children, hotel guests, factory shifts and rural passengers across India in configurations stretching to seventeen seats and beyond, and in panel form it works as a small truck and an ambulance. Later versions use Force's own common-rail 2.6-litre diesel and have been updated to meet successive Indian emissions standards.