If you want any spare part or accessory for your vehicle, from headlights to horns, bumpers to car seats, then General Patters Road, which is just off Mount Road, is the place to go. We take a look at how this place came to be.

More than half a century ago, major names in the automotive sector in the South, had their showrooms and offices on Mount Road (now Anna Salai). By design or by sheer coincidence Simpsons, Addisons, Royal Enfield, South India Automotive Company, George Oakes (part of Amalgamation Group), Standard Motor Products of India and TVS were centred in and around Mount Road. At around the same time local repair shops were mushrooming just off Mount Road in a place called ‘Border Thottam’ (Thottam in Tamil means Garden). This trend of naming areas as the name followed by ‘Thottam’ was very popular back then. As the years passed, the areas became known in their English equivalent ‘Garden’. So we have quite a few areas in Chennai today like Kilpauk Garden, KM Garden, which have derived their names in this manner. Originally, these small repair shops came up in Border Thottam. However now, they have spread over to neighbouring areas like Chintadripet. The reasons for these repair shops mushrooming in these areas was that the real estate prices in these areas at that time was very cheap, inspite of the area's proximity to the heart of the city and to Mount Road - the principal road in Chennai at that time.

What happened was that, the big companies were not interested in retailing and because of this the traders came in as a link between the companies and the small shops. These spare parts retailers found General Patters Road to be an ideal place, as it is located close to both, the big companies and the small workshops. Again one of the primary reasons to attract the traders to set shop over here was the cheap land value. Soon a lot of shops spread over to State Bank Street and Whites Road.

Pramod Kumar, who owns one of the shops here on General Patters Road recounts, "At that time, you could find all automobile related activities in that one square mile. Over a period of time, as the vehicle population grew, the shops got bifurcated into two kinds. Shops on State Bank Street started specialising only in wholesale trade, while shops on General Patters Road dealt mainly with retail". Upto the mid-70’s, Madras as Chennai was known then, used to supply spares to the entire State of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. But the late 80’s and 90’s saw a lot of competition from the Delhi and Mumbai traders, which resulted in Chennai losing its position as a major supplier to other States.

At present, only the distributors of recognised brands are catering to the outstation market. During this period one also saw workshops branching out to areas like T.Nagar and Aminjikarai, to cater to the growing vehicle population. So, it was natural that spare parts shops followed these workshops to cater to their requirements. The motorcycle boom started in the late 80’s. By that time there were spare parts shops sprouting in every nook and corner of the city, so much so that it would not be an exaggeration to say that there is a spare parts shop in each street of the city. Shops, which originally started in areas like Pondy Bazaar as two-wheeler shops, started catering to cars. These and other shops that are found in residential areas draw their supply from General Patters Road. "Today we find clearly delineated areas as far as spare parts go. Shops located in Tambaram, Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Pallavaram, Poonamallee and Red Hills cater to truck spares, while Chintadripet caters to the autorickshaw and tractor spares", says Pramod Kumar.