Dilip Chhabria Designs
There are certain people we look up to during different stages of our life. It generally begins with a superhero like Batman, Spidey or Captain America and it gradually moves to rock stars or film stars and then to mentors at work and so on and so forth.
However, for every car enthusiast from India, the superhero begins and ends with one person — Dilip Chhabria! Simply referred to as DC, he has changed the meaning of the term “vehicle modification” in the recent years. I can’t tell you how enthusiastic I am just writing this article. When the topic of Automotive Design is broached upon, Pininfarina is to Italy what DC is to India
DC, having studied Transportation Design from the renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, USA, started his career with General Motors USA in the year 1983 in their Design Centre department. A year later, he came back to India and set up his automotive accessories business, which is today the largest accessory manufacturing outfit in the country. Not satisfied with just providing the best accessories for a car, DC Design was founded in 1993 with the purpose of creating one-of-a-kind automobiles and offering design services to the automobile biggies.
It all began in the early 2000’s. The Indian Auto Industry was upcoming at a slow rate and it was still the time of the Zen and the Esteem. Tata was the other car maker which sold the popular Safari and the evergreen Sierra. Yes… The Tata Sierra… How many of you actually remember this car? Its unique design (for India at least) certainly did set it apart. But why are we discussing it in the same breath as we speak about DC Design? Well, it was the first car to be designed and produced in India… and… and… it also paved way for the Arya Concept Vehicle. The Sierra sparked off a long list of modified designs based on Indian cars which we would see from DC. Even the politicians then-popular commuter was not spared, as DC made a radical change to the ever reliable Ambassador. They made an even more radical and cooler version again, a few years ago called the Ambi-Rod.
Now, here’s a fact I’m sure you wouldn’t know. Remember the Aston Martin Vanquish from James Bond’s Die Another Day? Guess who made the first prototype of that? DC…! And another fact… there was a Bollywood movie — Tarzan: The Wonder Car released in 2004 featured a car which is a DC design. Ok, true the movie bombed… but then, it’s the car that made the 120 bucks worth the trip… DC has embarked upon its most important and significant car, which I’m sure you all would have heard of. The Avanti as it would be called, will be India’s first supercar and the talking point of this car is of course — the 30 lakh price tag. That’s nearly equal to a price of an Audi A4!!! About the car, well… the design is pretty slick and has the road presence that only few cars can manage. A Ford-tuned 2000cc EcoBoost engine is expected to power the car with a Honda V6 as a later addition. 0–100kmph will be dealt with in under 7 seconds thanks to a low light weight frame.
Modifying your car once and it will slowly become an addiction. It’s like how people nowadays get an exclusive skin or cover for their iPhone for the sole purpose of exclusivity. Yeah sure, there are about 200,000 Zens running about. But, a totally modified 2-Door version? DC didn’t stop at cars. They did vanity vans for film stars and busses too and boy did they do one hell of a job. I am sure Shah Rukh Khan and Sanjay Dutt will couch for that… The series was called the Lextran DC and these were basically Volvo B7R intercity busses with radical interiors and exteriors. You would have noticed how I’ve used the word ‘Radical’ so many times. That’s because that the only word I can come up to summarize DC. Cool and awesome sound amateurish. Radical on the other hand, is not! Kudos to DC for the first supercar and hope to see more zipping up and down the Indian roads.
[gallery columns=”2" ids=”3056,3070"]
Dilip Chhabria image courtesy — dpydc.com
