Madras Day Celebrations- Vintage Car Rally
It is always a mesmerizing and pleasurable experience to see a vintage vehicle on the roads as they are classics which are such a rarity in modern times. What if 167 such beauties come together under one roof to leave the people awestruck?
Chennaites rather Madrasters recently witnessed the Heritage Car Rally organized by Madras Heritage Motoring Club to mark its 10th anniversary on 24th of this month. All proud owners of such vintage classics gathered at the Don Bosco School, Egmore to be a part of this extravaganza. It saw an extraordinary collection of 127 cars to go along with 40 bikes with the oldest entrant dating back to 1926. Such an event was bound to attract hoards of people from all over the city along with a fair amount of foreigners and a footfall of 20,000 proved just about that.
The rally was flagged off by Mr. Vinod Dasari, MD, Ashok Leyland with the guest of honor being Mr. R.Dinesh, joint MD, TVS and Sons. An event as glamorous as this could not have been complete without the presence of top notch industrialists of the city with their machines. Mr. A.V. Meiyappan’s 1938 Vauxhall 14 and Gemini Ganesan’s 1952 Ford Prefect Saloon graced the event. Other quaint entries were the Chevrolet Impala, Citroen Hot Rod, Dodge Kingsway Convertible to name a few. The bikes section was not short of action either with the likes of BSA Bantem, Honda C450 and Lambreta 150 Li grabbing eyeballs.
Interacting with the participants, one got to know of the difficulties faced in maintaining such vehicles. Mr. Hisamuddin Papa, a proud owner of 8 such cars fondly refers to each one of them as his “babies”. “It is very tough to maintain them as these are completely mechanical and there is no electrical gadgetry involved in them. We have our own set of 2–3 technicians who have been working on such vehicles for a very long time and who know them in and out. Spare parts are also a big issue that we have to take care of. We either import them from England or get them made here.” With an excited look on his face there is a story to tell pertaining to each one of his cars and how he managed to add them to his repertoire.
Mr. S.Srivardhan’s Mercedes Benz 1938 model won the Concurs D’Elegance from the cars up to 1940. Mr. Naresh Bangara’s 1959 Ambassador and Mr. Arjun Ananth’s MGB won the same award in the 1941–1960 and 1961–1975 category respectively. Mr.Sumanth Shaganti’s Royal Enfield from 1936 was labeled the “best maintained bike up till 1940”. Sumanth’s 1943 James and R. Srinivas’ 1959 Java bagged the same award in the 1941–1960 and 1961–1975 categories respectively.
These rallies are organized twice a year in Chennai by MHMC with the “Trip to Pondy” being the other rally held in December.
Written by
Arjun