Hyderabad
The first made in Hyderabad car, Pingle, developed by a city-based engineer in the 1950s, was found dumped in a scrapyard. The middle-class-friendly ad low-cost car was first displayed 70 years ago in the Numaish exhibition held at the Nampally exhibition grounds. The Pingle family has located the car after 50 years and is now making all efforts to restore it. In the 1970s, one of the three models of the car was found in good condition at the Bengaluru campus of the Hindustan Aeronautical Limited.
The car was named after Pingle Madhusudan Reddy, who developed it. He was also the chief instructor of the Hyderabad State Aeroclub, the general manager of Deccan Airways Limited, and the Nizam State Railways (NSR) airways pilot. Madhusudan Reddy also took up the role of a mentor for NSR-road development.
According to reports in the media, P Anuradha Reddy, the daughter-in-law of Pingle Madhusudan Reddy, came to know that two Pingle cars are rotting in a scrapyard in very bad condition. They were half-buried in the ground with vegetative growth all around. She has shifted the cars from the scrapyard and hopes to take up restoration work soon.