Weekend Drive by Hormazd Sorabjee: Revving up the past
The Mercedes-Benz Classic Car Rally brought together physical reminders of a past long forgotten as 77 vintage cars rolled up in their shiny best
Mercedes-Benz invented the car 137 years ago and ever since, the world’s oldest car maker has constantly re-invented itself as it drives into an electrified future. It’s likely that when the German luxury brand celebrates its 150th birthday, its model range will only be EVs. It’s a future that founder and inventer Carl Benz (who took the streets with his three-wheeled ‘Patent Wagen’ in 1886) could never have imagined. Frankly, an all-electric future is something not many imagined even 20 years ago.
No wonder the excitement over vintage and classic car events is growing. It’s a collective desire to rekindle the romance of the past.
No other brand is as popular in vintage and classic car circles as Mercedes. That association was gloriously displayed at the landmark 10th edition of the Mercedes-Benz Classic Car Rally (MBCCR) in Mumbai last week. Collectors from all over the country converged on the lawns of the Taj Lands End. The participant list featured a record 81 Mercedes cars spread across 77 model variants, with about half making their debuts at the show. These belonged not just to well-regarded collectors such as publisher Viveck Goenka, industrialist Yohan Poonawalla and those from aristocratic families such as Pratapsinh Gaekwad and Himanshu Gondal but also to a new generation of classic car enthusiasts, some of who drove from as far away as Kerala.
It’s not difficult to see why classic cars exert such pull, despite how much it costs to acquire and maintain them. As with vintage watches or vinyl records, they provide an intimate, warm experience and are built to last.
The line-up at the MBCCR 2023 included a 230SL Pagoda, nicknamed because the removable coupe roof reminded people of temples in the Far East. There was an R129 SL, which, by virtue of its appearance in the 2001 hit film Dil Chahta Hai, launched a thousand Mumbai-Goa road trips. There were the even rarer showstoppers. Poonawalla’s 190SL originally belonged to Maharani Gayatri Devi. The Maharaja of Gondal’s iconic 300SL is now owned by his son Himanshu and is the only one of its kind in the country. Other highlights included Hormusji Cama’s 500K, which set the benchmark for grand tourers back in the 1930s and Yashvardhan Ruia’s Nurburg, widely believed to be among the best surviving examples of its kind in the world.
Counted among the premier automotive events of its kind globally, the MBCCR can take credit for encouraging and nurturing not just a passion in vintage and classic cars but for creating a robust ecosystem of collectors and restorers. The demand for restoration of old Mercs has gone through the roof, as have the prices. In an increasingly digital world in which cars are bombarded with touch screens, owning a classic car in which the only screen is a windscreen gives a much needed digital detox.
