J Anand

Background

J. Anand is from Coimbatore. He is the son of noted Indian automobile and engine designer B. Jayachandran and grandson of S. Balasundaram, the founder of the Textool Company in Coimbatore. He is currently the Managing Director of Jayem Automotives Pvt Ltd.

Motor racing career

J. Anand's racing career started when he entered Sholavaram in the mid-1980s as a racing prodigy with his race-tuned Maruti 800. He later won several races in Formula Maruti class. Also at this time, he joined S. Karivardhan's Team Super Speeds. Later, he left for Team MRF where he quickly became its number one driver. He is best known for winning several Formula 3 races and championships on the Sholavaram and Irrugattukottai tracks for Team MRF. He also took part in the famous Karnataka 1000 Rally in the 80's with Team MRF's in-house designed Mayura C sedan car fitted again with its own 16-valve DOHC gasoline engines.

Career after motor racing

J. Anand is the head of tuning and operations of Team MRF for Indian National Rally Championships series from Coimbatore and is also the Managing Director for Jayem Automotives Pvt Ltd., an R&D company for Tata Motors Ltd. He is also a well-known race car constructor.

Track racing

During mid-80’s J. Anand designed and developed a prototype called Formual Mayura which was a 1600cc formula car based on Formula Lotus Vauxhall. Later during 2003, another prototype called Formula India Mayura with Tata-engine was developed. During the years 2005 to 2008, J. Anand partnered with Tom Walkinshaw's TWR and Solution-F of France on various motorsports activities. Both the project did not take off, until he teamed with Van Daime of UK and Team MRF to develop a new Formula 1600 that was used in the MRF International Challenge - a 3 round championship held in early 2010 at the MMRT (Madras Motor Race Track) near Chennai. The Formula 1600 uses Ford's 1.6 litre petrol engine, seen on the Ford Fiesta 1.6 petrol. The Formula 1600 is the fastest open wheel race car in the country till date, and produces a maximum of 127 bhp.

Motor rallying

Since 1989, J. Anand was involved in the development, tuning and running the rally team for MRF Tyres to compete in the Indian National Rally Championship series. Tough not much of a rally driver his teams cars has won several titles and continues to run the Team MRF rally team till date.

Automotive R&D

J. Anand is also the Managing Director of Jayem Automotives Pvt Ltd., which used to manufacture after-market diesel over-head engines during the 80’s for Ambassador, Premier Padmini and Maruti 800 in 1600cc, 1100cc and 800cc configurations. In 1999 the company entered into a joint venture agreement with Mahindra & Mahindra to develop various new vehicles, engines and suspension systems. Also the company worked with Hindustan Motors on various vehicle developments.

Later in 2005 the company severed ties with Mahindra & Mahindra and partnered with Tata Motors to continue test and develop various vehicle development programmes. In 2006 the Tata Indica Silhouette was designed and developed by J. Anand based on the Tata Indica platform, which was chosen as the concept car of year 2006. The company is since involved in Engine, gearbox, chassis and Suspension development.

Tata Motors announced 31 March 2017, the launch of JT Special Vehicles Pvt Ltd., a 50:50 joint venture with Jayem Automotives Pvt Ltd., for the development of special performance vehicles based on the latest series products. As part of the agreement, both Tata Motors and Jayem Automotives will work towards performance enhancement and appearance of series vehicles to offer an exciting and innovative range of niche aspirational products for the passenger car customers.