Remembering Upali Wijewardene:

A pioneer in vehicle assembly in SL

One of the cars used by Upali Wijewardene

The motor industry started assembling vehicles in Sri Lanka in 1970. The late Upali Wijewardene was the pioneer of this project. Yesterday marked the 33rd year of the disappearance of Upali Wijewardene.The first vehicle assembled in the island was the UMC Mazda by Upali Wijewardene at his Homagama factory.

Upali Motor Company (UMC) assembled nearly 500 cars at the assembling plant. The first product of the factory was donated by Wijewardene to the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara. The first sale of the product was to the founder of Tudawe Brothers, the late Lawrence Tudawe.The initial consignment of these vehicles was sold at an introductory price of Rs. 29,000. These vehicles were repaired and serviced by Brown & Company. All the Mazda cars were white in colour with red upholstery. Two of the cars were used by Wijewardene. The registration numbers were 5 Sri 9115 and 6 Sri 9999.

One car was painted gold and had dark brown Japanese upholstery. This car was assembled with all Japanese original components and was kept at Upali Wijewardene's bungalow 'Sunnycroft' in Nuwara Eliya.

President J R Jayewardene, former Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera, Dr. G. M. Attygalle, U. N. Gunasekera, George Gomes, Mervin Perera and Dr Seevali Ratwatte are some of those who were the first owners of the UMC Mazda cars. The Mazda car owned by Dharmasena Atapattu was recently gifted to the Gangaramaya Temple.

In 1978 Wijewardene assembled Italian origin Fiat 128 cars at the Homagama plant. Today, the motor industry sadly misses Wijewardene's pioneering venture and vision to develop the vehicle assembling industry in Sri Lanka.