About Us
A little after the turn of the millennium, we - a handful of Indian petrolheads - felt that a common ground was essential for us to do what we were best at – talk cars! There was just one fly in the ointment; that kind of platform didn’t exist yet. We wanted to discuss Indian cars, analyse industry happenings, exchange ownership reviews, share tips & technical information, all of it shoehorned into one definitive knowledge base. GTO took the initiative of creating a tiny forum on MSN Communities called "Formula India". This message board offered little more than a free storage of posts on the MSN website. There were only 10 - 12 active members at the time. Even though the team was small and the features of that proto-community limited, our passion was fathomless. And the spirit strong. Within no time, our group became a valuable repository of car reviews, advice on tuning and owning cars, manufacturer idiosyncrasies, lists of problematic models and more.
At some point, our group realized that the information on cars available from traditional media outlets was terribly misleading. This came as no surprise given the financial power of the auto industry’s advertising departments. We firmly believed that the camaraderie of Indian petrolheads deserved better. Driven by the zeal of the inconspicuous MSN community, we decided to build an independent Indian automotive website. We aspired to become a feature-rich community where car enthusiasts could get together and have free access to unbiased & accurate information. It was at this time that the founding team developed an unyielding stance to refuse any and all car advertisements; financial independence from the auto industry was critical to our objectives.
On the 10th of February 2004 (also GTO's birthday), the Team-BHP.com domain was registered. On the 14th of February, only 4 days later, Team-BHP went live. Our name was coined to emphasize that we are more than just another interest group or forum – we are a team bonded by an indomitable spirit...driven by our love for cars. Along with BHP, the name stands for collective power. Due to the paucity of available resources in the fledgling days, Team-BHP was hosted on a shared server and only used free software. Within a few months, by sheer dint of hard work, we grew to 1,000 automobile enthusiasts and 50,000 articles. Eventually, we decided to host Team-BHP.com on fast dedicated servers & solid state drives, utilizing the most premium software solutions available.
From the original 12 stalwarts, Team-BHP has grown phenomenally to be happily ensconced as the largest Indian automotive community. Today, we are home to a colossal database of 3 million posts, tens of thousands of members and 15+ million annual visitors from all across the globe. It's been an exciting odyssey...but the best is yet to come.