Past Perfect

BACK in the first half of the 20th century, India was a major draw for luxury car makers. It had maharajas by the dozen, each more fond of t...

BACK in the first half of the 20th century, India was a major draw for luxury car makers. It had maharajas by the dozen, each more fond of the good life than the other.

And right up there in the prestige stakes with opulent palaces and diamond-studded crowns were grand cars from Bentley, Mercedes-Benz and other humungous American marques.

That royal heyday is, of course, long gone, but the cars still remain. At least some of them, tracked down, bought and restored with loving care by their new owners.

For Diljeet Titus, 38, a Delhi-based law firm owner, it is like an addiction. Titus bought his first car, an Austin, in 1996. Restoring the car ignited his interest so much that today he has a collection of 21 American beauties. Most of which belong to the former princely families of Jodhpur and Tehri-Garhwal.

Titus soon plans to convert his collection into a museum at his farmhouse outside Delhi, with each car carrying a piece of history on its number plate.

Like this 1938 Dodge seven-seater limo which earlier belonged to the Darbhanga royals who8217;d picked it up during a mafia property auction by the New York state police. Or his 1937 Buick which entered cine history when it was used in the film Zubeida as Karisma Kapoor8217;s car.

8220;My most prized possession, however, is the Belgian-make 1927 Minerva Type AL,8221; says Titus. Meant only for royalty, just 33 units were manufactured and a mere eight of its kind exist today8212;three with the King of Belgium, one with the King of Sweden, three in the US and the last one with Titus himself.

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If an Austin got Titus hooked to vintage cars, 39-year old Tarun Thakral, general manager of Le Meridien, Delhi, was bitten by the bug due to a 1940

Morris he bought for Rs 15,000 in 1994. Since then, he8217;s picked up various cars from Rajasthan and Gujarat spotted either in junkyards or garages in states of gross disrepair.

His latest acquisition to an 18-car-strong fleet8212;which comprises a 1946 Nash, and a 1947 Chevrolet, among others8212;is a 1930 metre gauge salon of the Bombay-Baroda Central Railway, once used by the Jodhpur royals.

The salon is now ready to become Thakral8217;s weekend retreat. 8220;It8217;s got a living room, guest bedroom, a bathroom and kitchenette. Not very big, but enough for me,8221; chuckles Thakral.

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Another classic car buff, especially American, is 27-year-old Aniruddh Kasliwal, who handles the export division of S Kumars. 8220;I inherited this fondness for vintage cars from my father. While he never acquired any, I was game to collect them,8221; says Kasliwal, whose cavernous garage in central Mumbai houses over eight cars, including the likes of a 1922 Ansaldo tourer, a 1968 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and a 1956 Cadillac convertible, which he8217;s picked up from various parts of Mumbai and Gujarat.

Kasliwal not only loves restoring his own cars, but also does it for other people. 8220;It8217;s more of a hobby with me, it8217;s a painstaking process, but there8217;s nothing better than the sight of a marque restored to its former glory,8221; says Kasliwal, who brought his first car in 1993.

Chandigarh8217;s Surjit Singh Bhurjee, a 60-year-old electronics engineer and owner of a machine tool manufacturing firm, says his 14-year stint at Ford Motor Co is the reason for his insatiable appetite for cars.

Bhurjee owns 13 cars, including a 1927 Overland Whippet, a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster, a 1950 Humber Hawk, and a 1973 Mercury Broughn. 8220;Collecting them wasn8217;t that tough. Parking them is,8217;8217; laughs Bhurjee, whose fleet is scattered across his industrial area workshops and his home.

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While the royalty associated luxury cars with prestige, what drives these collectors is their passion for old sets of wheels and restoration. Their leisure hours are spent working on their cars, sourcing parts and meeting like-minded people. According to Thakral, he is no car whiz, but an evening spent among his cars de-stresses him. It8217;s the same with Kasliwal who spends every available Sunday in his garage. While Titus is just glad that he is salvaging a piece of the past.

For some, like Kolkata-based collector Shomenath Raychawdhury, 45, who collects only British marques, it was his love of driving these amply-powered cars that saw him take to the hobby in 1994.

8220;I love driving and have restored all my cars so that I can drive them whenever I want,8221; says Raychawdhury.

Restoring, say these collectors, is not the easiest of jobs. Apart from princely sums involved in locating and sourcing spare parts, the cars also demand huge amounts of their owners8217; time.

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Many of the collectors can be spotted carrying a piece of worn out leather on their travels abroad so they can buy matching upholstery or carpet for their cars. Many a time, components have to be imported or fabricated through hand press. Each new acquisition costs anywhere between Rs 75,000 to Rs 2.3 lakh and restoration costs start from Rs 2.5 lakh. Says Bhurjee, 8220;Locating parts can be tiresome, which is why we constantly scour junkyards and kabadi bazaars for headlights.8221;

They might be courteous to a fault and willing to share everything they know about their cars, but ask them about even the approximate amount of money they8217;ve spent on their cars, and all you get is a smile. As if to say that passion is a difficult thing to put a value on.

With inputs from Amit Choudhry/Chandigarh