Tuesday, October 20, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/INDIA: Countryside Strewn With Priceless Vintage Cars
Ranjit Devraj
- Partha Bose discovered the 1917 model Ford when he stopped by at a remote village in India’s eastern Bihar state to change a flat tyre.
A vintage car enthusiast, Bose saw a wooden car wheel rim lying inside a village shop. On making inquiries, the shopkeeper took him to the backyard, where he saw the ‘Model T’ Ford.
“The shopkeeper had removed the engine and was unwilling to part with it because he was using it to drive a water pump,” he recalls.
Bose finally persuaded the shopkeeper to trade the car for a new water pump, which cost him less than 200 dollars.
The restoration, though, was far more costly and time consuming, but Bose says it was well worth it. He now regularly enters the car for the prestigious annual Statesman Car Rally.
Bose also owns a rare 1927 Auburn, which he found encrusted in mud in the ackyard of an old mansion in the eastern Indian port city of Calcutta. Painstakingly restored with the help of local mechanics, the car earned him a prized membership in the Auburn Club.
The two are among the several vintage cars, which Bose has personally restored and enters in The Statesman Car Rally, run every spring in New Delhi and Calcutta, by the venerable Statesman daily newspaper.
Like Bose, Appasaheb Alur discovered his 1919 Citroen that he regularly enters in the Statesman rally, in a garage in Shillong – a former British colonial retreat in the hills of India’s north-east.
Vintage car enthusiasts in the country owe much to local skills in forging and casting, that have helped resurrect many a valuable piece, says Alur.
Close personal attention and rallies like the Statesman, are also important says Rakesh Jain, a regular entrant to vintage car events in New Delhi and Calcutta and in western Mumbai and southern Chennai cities.
Finds like those by Bose and Alur have sent serious vintage car collectors scouring junkyards and the Indian hinterland for restorable relics. The success of these efforts can be seen in the number of restored vehicles vying for special prizes reserved for the category in vintage car rallies in the country.
Finding the right spare part can be a problem. However, much can be found in the second-hand shops in the by-lanes behind Delhi’s mediaeval Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque), which have surprisingly well-stocked inventories built up with the help of scrap dealers.
Some enthusiasts try to get spare parts from the manufacturer. Delhi lawyer, R.K. Pancholi says he sources parts from the maker, for his 1931 Ford sport model, one of the two left in this country.
“When I first wrote to Ford, they offered me a large amount of money to buy the car back plus a brand new model, but it was no deal,” he says. “I bought it back from someone my father sold it to more than 45 years ago,” he says.
Rising costs of maintenance and spares have made vintage cars a hobby for wealthy and serious collectors.
Perhaps India’s best known collector is Mumbai-based millionaire Pranlal Bhogilal whose fleet of 145 period cars, all in pristine condition, has earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Vintage cars have also come to the rescue of rich tax evaders in the country. It is difficult for the tax man to place value on a piece of machinery which, according to tax rules, has undergone annual depreciation to the point of being worthless.
There are vintage cars that earn their keep by ‘acting’ in period films. A 1926 Bentley was hired out by its owner, K. Gidwaney, for films such as ‘Gandhi’ and the ‘Seawolves’.
Cars from Jain’s collection, featured in the television serial ‘Jewel in the Crown’ and other ‘Raj Nostalgia’ productions.
Some owners also try to sell their pieces in the international market, though export of vintage cars was banned by the government in the year 1972.
A few years ago, Indian customs officials intercepted a completely dismantled 1912 Rolls Royce headed for London in a crate marked “used machine parts”.
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