Welcome the season of vintage car and bike rallies

The winter is on the wane, and it’s that time of the year again when the covers come off and the beauties hit the road. Yes, I’m talking of the vintage and classic automobile rallies. Most of these rallies take place in these few months, and anyone with even the slightest inclination towards classics looks forward to these events. The Statesman Vintage and Classic Car Rally in Delhi, in February every year, is one of the oldest rallies in India and attracts a whole lot of beauties. It’s a feast for the eyes. Over the years, the cars have only gotten better. More people now have more money to spend on their cars. I know of people who’ve had classic cars lying in their garage for years – unrestored, but safely kept. The owners didn’t have the financial power required to restore them, and many of them didn’t want to do a half-baked job. They waited until they were comfortable, and then they carried out a fantastic restoration. You can see some extraordinary Rolls’, Bentley’s, Cadillac’s, Buick’s, Impala’s, Corvette’s, Jaguar’s, Dodge’s, Desoto’s, Ford’s, Austin’s, MG’s, and what have you. Cars like these are the legends of automotive history, and restoring them is anything but cheap or easy by any stretch of the imagination. But these rallies are not about these high-end cars only. It’s about all classic & vintage cars and motorcycles. The sight of an impeccably restored small Morris 8 or an Austin 7 is just as exhilarating as the sight of a Jaguar XK 120 (just that the Jaguar takes up a bit more memory in the brain). Most people actually identify more with the smaller cars. The evergreen Ford or Willys Jeep, Beetle, the popular Morris 10, Minor, Ford Prefect, Anglia, Austin 10, etc., have ferried Indian car owners since the days of yore. And so it’s pure nostalgia that draws people by the hordes to these rallies. It’s fun too. You see a majestic Rolls-Royce silently glide past, and a moment later there comes a tiny Austin 7 making all kind of strange noises and misfiring every 50 meters. You can see a car with brass headlamps lit by acetylene gas, and with wooden artillery wheels, followed by a huge American V8 with equally huge GE headlamps and wing-like tail lamps. You can see a huge, bright red Indian Chief being ridden by a leather clad equally huge guy, and then a slightly more chic rider on a Vespa LD pulls up alongside – and they ride together, chatting merrily. And following them is a guy who pumps vigorously on a handle, as he tries to keep the oil flowing into the cylinder of his ancient Triumph that has a total loss lubricant system. If you want to see the cars of the royalty, head to Rajasthan. Each one is better than the other – a glut of Rolls-Royce’s, Bentley’s, Jaguar’s, Cadillac’s, and others. And they’ve all been restored down to the last detail. The 21 Gun Salute Rally attracts some wonderful, rare and historic cars, like the 100-year-old Rolls-Royce that belonged to the Nizam of Hyderabad. No one ever discloses how much they spent of restoring their cars, but who cares (the motorcycle owners don’t have any such hang-ups though). It’s the quirky cars and motorcycles that one comes to see. And they all go back with a smile on their lips.