Resurrecting nostalgia by preserving classic cars and automobilia

My passion started as a kid. My grandfather used to be an automobile dealer for some of the biggest brands of American and European vehicles for both cars and trucks right from the 1920s. When I was born in 1953 and right through the later period, these cars fascinated me. We used to rotate vehicles every five years so I used to see them coming and going into the house all the time thanks to my grandfather’s passion and many of them had become classics by then. Later nostalgia kicked in – years later we would see a car on the road and reminiscence how we used a particular model to go to school and many such memories. We had a lot of cars lying at home – my grandfather’s car, my father’s and uncles’ cars and that really added fuel to my passion. Funnily enough, vintages did not interest me much; it was always the classics.

My family cars were lying in a neglected state and I had gone to college in the US and returned. I was interested in modern cars especially sports cars (I still am) and was collecting them. In the early 2000s, my friend Guhan called me and invited me to see some of his classics. I went over and there were maybe 10 cars standing, and one particular Mercedes-Benz caught my eye. It was a W111 230S fintail, and I remembered this car used to belong to Greenways shipping and Mr. Om Prakash used to be the owner.So I told Guhan that I wanted to buy this car if he was not using it and this is how in 2002-3, my hobby took off. When I was in college, I used to have a Volkswagen Beetle LHD, which we had bought in 1972 from STC and had just 18,000 kilometres on it, in fact it used to belong to the German consulate. I used to love the car but when I came back after completing my college from the US, my father had sold the car and I was disappointed by that. I looked around and found a 1979 Brazilian model in immaculate condition, but it needed some work to be brought to our levels – I picked up the car and just stored it. When the passion reignited in 2003, I set about bringing it to a concours level.

Once I started collecting cars since 2003, there was no looking back. All my friends had learnt of my hobby so they would refer cars to me from all over India. I had to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of what was collectible and what was not and by 2013 or so had built up a sizeable number. On the sidelines, my passion for modern sports cars also continued and I built up a collection there as well of unique vehicles.

A collection is simply not just accumulation. You have to look after the cars and ensure they meet your standards, and I am for one a perfectionist. Everything must be immaculate on my vehicles and all work should be completed in a timely manner. That I was finding difficult if I sent my cars to third party restorers, so I decided to set up my own garage. Fortunately, I had the space at home to do but finding competent people who can work on and repair the older cars has become a problem, it’s a fast-vanishing skillset. However, this way I can monitor the progress on each of my vehicles that need attention. Sourcing parts has also become a difficult part and I have a guy dedicated to finding spares around the world while sitting on the computer. For my Peugeot 504, we managed to source several NOS (new old spares) from as far flung spaces as Africa. Sometimes we cannot source some spares, so we make them in-house as we have excellent lathe and CNC machines.

I had realised that cars were very important for Ranjit many years back but the turning point came when we attended one of the Jaipur rallies and saw some of the Jaipur maharajah cars. They were exquisite works of art and really raised my interest. I started to admire classics as rolling masterpieces of sculpture and art and decided to accompany Ranjit everywhere, just because of this. My passion grew a lot with this, and today I am also a great admirer of classic cars – not in terms of mechanical or technical features, but purely as art. Design was a major factor from that era and the body lines that distinguish each car from its competition, give it a distinct identity of its own.

When Rajan Syal talked about this event, we were both very excited and decided to participate in our Peugeot 504, 1977 model. What we were however totally unprepared for was that this was a total rally style event and most of the stretches had no tarmac roads – they had been washed away by the rains. Undeterred, we drove on through steep roads like a near vertical climb at Jalori pass to treacherous regions in the mountains covered with slush – and the icing on the cake was that I lost my brake booster just after Mussoorie and since repairs were impossible with no spares, we completed the rally only on 20% brakes! We drove really well and Uma by then had become a deft navigator and was very good at reading the rally tulip, so in spite of our handicaps we were one of the first ones to finish! It is notable that our car along with one another were the only finishers in our category.