How the Kachalias made Navnit Motors the biggest luxury car dealer in India
Sharad Kachalia of Navnit Motors at their Ferrari showroom in BKC, Mumbai
Success, more often than not is all about timing—about being the right person at the right place at the right time.
Sharad Kachalia reckons that he and his six brothers were the right bunch of men at the right time to get the dealership of Germany luxury carmaker BMW in Mumbai in 1994. Reason: India had just embarked on the road to economic liberalisation and more and more industrialists in the financial capital were warming up to the idea of owning a luxury car. So when Navnit Motors, named after the eldest Kachalia brother, decided to jump onto the luxury bandwagon, it made ample sense. “You have to be present at the right time to make it big,” grins Sharad, whose father Liladhar Durlabhdas started an auto spare parts business in Mumbai in 1938. Over the next three decades, that activity was consolidated under Navnit Automobiles and, in 1982, the group got its first branded franchisee business, of Ford trucks.
(This story appears in the 26 October, 2018 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)