Remember that friend who collected everything from currencies to autographs? Hotelier Tarun Thakral gives that vibe, though his passion is singular — he is mad about cars. Thukral constructed India’s first Heritage Transport Museum (HTM), a two-hour drive from Delhi off NH-8 in Taoru, Haryana, ten years ago. A few months ago, the museum celebrated its 10th anniversary. To celebrate the feat, it has just welcomed its latest installation, ‘Namaste’ — two red Maruti Alto cars (2004 models) fused into a symbolic installation at the entrance. Co-created by Thakral and artist Shubhra Chaturvedi, it is a nostalgic ode to every car’s journey from the factory to the scrapyard.
“It will take people who have ever owned a Maruti car down memory lane,” says the executive director of Le Meridien, Delhi. “It’s a tribute to all the memories, trips, jamming, and the rides you have enjoyed with friends and family,” Thakral adds. As we walk through the museum doors, a Ganesha sculpture, made from over 800 kg of automotive spare parts such as brakes, fenders, chains, and gears and donated by the Ford Foundation grab our attention. It still doesn’t prepare us for what is coming! Four floors of a car museum with a built-up area of 100,000 sq ft, housing more than 3,000 cars and car paraphernalia!
Getting started
Thakral’s car-obsession was sparked in 1994 during a Rajasthan trip after he revived a dilapidated vehicle found abandoned on the street. “It felt like giving birth to something,” he says. He began to acquire cars from auctions and to store and repair them in a shed in Gurugram. That this has turned into an obsession seems a natural turn of events as he was already a car aficionado. Before embarking on the museum, he had a collection of around 60 cars.
Thakral’s selection of cars for the museum has, as he puts it, a “humorous touch”. The ticket counter is a dissected car, toilet mirrors are truck-wing mirrors, and bike handles serve as door handles. A suspended car installation by artist Hetal Shukla, however, is the show-stopper. Covered in dome mirrors, the 1962 Chevrolet hangs majestically in the atrium.
HTM is constructed around a central atrium. While exploring one section, you can see the installations at the others, giving visitors an understanding of vehicles ever put on the road. The museum was completed in three years at a cost of `13.5 crore, with six crore given as grant by the Union ministry of culture and the rest coming from donations and Thakral’s savings, excluding the expenditure on land and the collection.
Rare pieces
The museum boasts a diverse collection of approximately 3,500 objects. From ancient howdahs, bullock carts, and palanquins to iconic motorised vehicles such as a 1924 Ford, a 1932 Chevrolet (Thakral’s first purchase), the Rolls Royce and Ambassadors, the HTM showcases a rich history of automobiles. Vintage scooters, rural Indian contraptions like the chakra and the phatphatiya, and a heavy-vehicles area resembling a bustling bus depot add to the charm. It includes a homage to the ‘truck art’ of artist Daljeet Singh, celebrating the vibrant tradition found across the Indian subcontinent. Another piece by artist Hanif Kureshi features slogans commonly seen on trucks, such as ‘Hum Do Hamare Do’ and ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’, painted on a metal shutter. Visitors can also marvel at a 1946 Piper aircraft, a coin car, a collection of transport toys from the 1920s to the 1970s, and a 1953-built Arnold Jung locomotive engine, which is 31 foot long, 12.5 foot high, and which weighs around 47 tonnes. After restoring this 64-year-old engine in 2017, HTM became the first institution in India to have a fully functional steam locomotive. Here, you can also enjoy the charm of old-world Kolkata by hopping onto a wooden tram from the ’40s. Tram no. 204 is one of the last few surviving trams that can be seen outside Kolkata.
The museum also showcases the vivid tale of the Indian transport revolution through immersive experience: historical art, installations, videos and soundscapes. “Multiple forms of art break the monotony for visitors,” says Thakral. Inspired by structures in London and Los Angeles, the museum partners with schools for educational programmes, immersing children in the rich history of Indian transport. Why is the museum in Manesar? Thakral explains: “It’s a hub of automobile companies. We’ve even teamed up with HERO Motorcycles for employee inductions.”
Favourite piece
Though the museum is stationed on the outskirts of Gurugram, it has clocked over one million visitors. In 2018, the Limca Book of Records judged it as India’s first-of-its-kind transport museum. The museum has been featured in the record book thrice. When asked to pick his most prized piece, Thukral says they are all special, “but the biggest thing for me in this museum is the Indian flag that has gone to the moon and back”. During a virtual auction in 2012, he had bought the flag, which went to the moon aboard Apollo 15 in the spacecraft Endeavour, which remained in the command module during the lunar orbit phase of the flight – for a sum of $3,500 (more than Rs 2,90,000).
The Heritage Transport Museum, Bilaspur - Taoru Road, is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-7pm