Vintage Delight

A proud collector shares his passion as he displays his huge fleet of vintage cars in a rare museum called Auto World in Ahmedabad. India Today's Uday Mahurkar reports.

Ahmedabad has always lacked when it comes to boasting of a good museum if one leaves aside the internationally famous Textile Museum of the Sarabhai family. So, it was a welcome development last month when star vintage car collector Pranlal Bhogilal decided to turn his 105-strong collection of vintage cars at his palatial haveli complex at Kathwada village near Ahmedaad into a round-the-year museum titled Auto World.

For Ahmedabad, round-the-yearAuto World is a great development and literally matches the surge that the city is going through in this phase of economic boom and growth. Pranlal's is one of the finest vintage car collections across the world. All these years, he used to throw open his collection in a three-day exhibition every year or every second year. But now it will be open to public throughout the year on a Rs 50 ticket per head.

What gave Pranlal the idea of displaying his collection was his observation that a steady stream of inquisitive visitors had come to frequent the place after his Haveli called Dastan Farm came on the main Sardar Patel Ring Road around Ahmedabad. "I thought the moment had come for me to expose this gem of a collection to the new generation in a more pronounced way," says Pranlal. The museum will be maintained from the collection that it will get and the profits will be diverted to charity work.

Auto World showcases that time of history when an automobile was not a mere means of transport but a style statement, a symbol of wealth and power as in the mighty ceremonial limousines, the romantic convertibles and the snappy sports cars, cars specially coach-built like Railway saloons and cars built for the rich and the famous.

Pranlal has designed the museum aesthetically. It includes an auditorium, a souvenir shop, a station for fun drives in vintage cars with an attractive pathway besides a cafeteria. The souvenir shop, which is still being organised, will have vintage car-embossed mugs, caps, fountain pens, shorts posters, post-cards and even crockery.

Name the vintage cars and they are there in the specially designed pavilions in the haveli complex spread over acres and acres of verdant grounds: the Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Daimlers, Langodas, Maybach, Pakards, Cadillacs, Buicks, Auburns, Lancias, Chryslers and Lincolns.

Here you get to see the largest ever Daimler, a 1947 model 19 ft long and 7.3 inches wide, once owned by the Maharaja of Mysore and in which Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinbrough sat. Then there is the 1927 Rolls Royce painted in tricolour in 1997 at the behest of Pranlal who dedicated it to the nation to celebrate the 50th year of India's independence. There is the Jaguar which once belonged to Prince Dhairyasheelrao, son of the legendry Maharaja of Vadodra, Sayajirao Gaekwad. There is the unique French car in Hispano Suiza which is a throne car of a royal as well as a hunting car. It has a Salamanca hood style in which the hoods are so flexible that they can be opened closed and partially opened and partially closed.

Recently, there was an important visitor to the museum to take a look at a vintage Maybach --- Ylrich Schmidth Maybach, the great grand of the founder of Mayback. Clearly, Auto World is a new feather in Ahmedabad's cap, not just at the national level but at international level too.

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