Old beauties to grace Pune roads

PUNE, MARCH 20: There was a time when, driving down the roads of the country, one could smell the Banyan and mango trees instead of petro...

PUNE, MARCH 20: There was a time when, driving down the roads of the country, one could smell the Banyan and mango trees instead of petrol fumes. When what struck the senses was the crisp, cool weather. When the pavements were lined with flowers and evergreen shrubbery instead of discarded tins. When weaving fantasy tales of pixies and giants, of brave maidens and warrior knights was not laughed upon. There was a time when cars were made of wooden bodies.

An unimaginable occurrence today, the wooden-bodied 1931 Dodge Brothers Minibus belonging to the Pune’s Rahul Sable, will be among the 104 cars and motorcycles that will be flagged off by the Maharaja of Kolhapur for The Indian Express-VCCCI vintage car rally at Hotel Blue Diamond tomorrow morning.

The oldest car in the rally, a 1919 Fiat owned by Mumbai’s Peter Travasso, will be the first car to leave the hotel at 8.30 a.m., with the rest of the automobiles leaving with a gap of a minute each.

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To enhance the touch of nostalgia, which is whatthe rally is all about, the flag-off will be preceded by a period costume event, in which the owners will don typical garbs of the car’s era.

In a change from last year’s format, the vintage cars will be followed by vintage motorcycles and then by classic cars, classic motorcycles and the Recent Classic cars in that order.

Favourite for the Concours d’Elegance, the most prestigious vintage rally trophy, is pegged as Ramesh Thakkar’s 1925 Rolls Royce in the vintage section while RN Jeejeebhoy’s 1950 Bentley MK VI leads the competition for the classics.