Many for the Road

CHANCING upon a silver Rolls Royce crawling with snakes, waltzing around the Italian countryside sandwiched between million-dollar automobil...

CHANCING upon a silver Rolls Royce crawling with snakes, waltzing around the Italian countryside sandwiched between million-dollar automobiles and designing winning racing cars8212;Mohinder 8216;Chubi8217; Lalwani has done it all.

The Big Daddy of Vijay Mallya8217;s vintage wheels, likes racing cars more8212;he can still smell the burning tyres on the Sholavaram racing circuit, when he raced alongside F1 steward Nazir Oosein.

In fact, Lalwani didn8217;t care that the Prince of Wales toured Canada in a Buick or the fact that a Darracq looked like a horse carriage until he met Mallya. This was in 1980, when Mallya prepared to race a 911 Porsche at Sholavaram, only to find that its oil cooler was acting up. 8216;8216;I told him that it meant instant death if we opened up the damn thing right there, so I worked on it later in Kolkata,8217;8217; recalls Lalwani. The deal was that Lalwani would fix the engine if Mallya would sponsor his car at the rallies, and the duo soon set up a team.

A few years later Mallya roped in Lalwani to restore the finest classic cruisers for his collection. A Fiat Corsa, which was added to Mallya8217;s fleet of 40 vintage cars, was one of his fascinating discoveries. It was spotted in a courtyard in Hyderabad and Lalwani admits it was love at first sight. 8216;8216;An entire wall had to be broken down to move the car and rebuilding the wall was part of the restoration expenses,8217;8217; he laughs. The snake-filled Rolls Royce Silver Ghost has its own story. Revealing that it was bought off a Russian settled in Mumbai back in the 8217;80s, he says, 8216;8216;We spent five lakh buying the car, another five on restoration and it costs at least Rs 50 lakh today!8217;8217;

Seated at the Herbertsons garage, tucked away in Colaba8217;s Pasta Lane, he narrates some more fascinating tales. Starting with the 1993 Great American Race, one of the world8217;s finest annual vintage car rallies, in which he drove with Mallya and when the bumper of their 1902 Grand Prix Mors kissed coast to coast. 8216;8216;This was one car where you8217;d feel unsafe at 50 kph,8217;8217; he chuckles. And he unabashedly confesses how they lasted just three out of 13 racing days. But the Mille Miglia, an Italian vintage car rally, in 1991 more than made up. 8216;8216;We drove 1,000 miles around the countryside alongside some of the most famous Grand Prix names who were in it for the fun of it,8217;8217; says Lalwani.

He admits Mallya is a wizard behind the wheel. 8216;8216;He8217;s a good driver and learns fast. He8217;s also got great coordination skills,8217;8217; he says. Remembering the time when a mechanic went into panic when Mallya hadn8217;t practised driving on a 1898 Mors he says, 8216;8216;You need four hands to drive that car, because it has more levers and hand brakes than anything I8217;ve seen.8217;8217; The nouveau driver in question mastered the machine 15 minutes before the annual London-Brighton run. Incidentally, the carriage-like car was considered a menace with a max speed of four mph!

While he8217;s pored over volumes of literature on vintage cars, racing has been Lalwani8217;s calling since the 8217;80s. 8216;8216;I still prefer modern racing cars,8217;8217; he says. His last Indian project was a convertible called San Storm. He8217;s also designed 12 racing cars for a racing school in Chennai. 8216;8216;It8217;s not frightening, but it8217;s quick,8217;8217; Lalwani says of the machine that8217;s fitted with a Maruti 800 engine.

More recently, he designed a single-seater Formula Maruti for a track at Coimbatore. There8217;s still a long road ahead before the 63-year-old takes a break.