Rolls Royce: India
A history
The Times of India Apr 05 2015
Shobita Dhar
A Rolls-Royce historian and restorer recounts the fascination Indian nobility had for this marquee brand
Fitted with guns and cannons, searchlights and safes, the 1925 Rolls-Royce New Phantom belonging to Umed Singh II, maharaja of Kota, was especially designed for royal hunts. Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala famously used his RR to collect municipal waste to get even with the snobbish staff at the brand's London showroom who mocked him for his `looks' John Fasal, Rolls-Royce his torian and re storer based in the UK, has many such stories about Indian royalty and its abiding fascination for Rolls-Royce. As a representative of the brand, Fasal had the opportunity to interact with its Indian clients -mostly aristocrats -for over three decades and observing their quirks from up close.
Talking to Sunday Times during a recent visit to Delhi to judge a vintage car exhibition organized by Cartier, 70-year-old Fasal recalls his first introduction to `maharajas' on an Air India flight. “On my first visit to India in 1967, the air hostesses introduced me to some of sthem. They used to be frequent fliers so the crew knew them,“ says Fasal who has so far visited India 25 times. Each time, he would bring the latest catalogues and spare parts for his elite clientele.
Digging into the past Fasal recalls: “In the 1930s, maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala had the largest RR fleet in India, a total of 44 cars.“ Although most people at the time believed that at the time believed that the Hyderabad Ni zam carried this distinction, he “posessed only one and it was driven for just 300 miles,“ says the historian. According to Murad Ali Baig's `Rolls Royce and the Indian Princes', more than 20,000 RRs were built before World War I and about 20% of them were for Indian buyers mostly royals. During his many visits to India, Fasal enjoyed the hospitality of former royals, like the Nizam and maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur.They also let him go through old albums, diaries and journals, which helped him document all RRs purchased in India from the time of Delhi Durbar (1911) to the time India gained independence. Fasal will be using many of these photographs in a two-volume encyclopaedia he is putting together on the RRs and Bentleys of princely India. The first book is expected to be out later this year.
Even though most families had a number of RRs, they used to prize each one of them.Princess Bhavnesh Kumari of Patiala, daughter of Bhupinder Singh, told Fasal that whenever their Rollers were sent for servicing, armed guards would go along. The speedometers, the oil gauge, the dashboard, were all decorated with precious stones and jewels. Some families even customized their Rolls to accomodate the `purdah' system. One of the kings of Jodhpur family ordered a special `purdah' car for his queen. It came accessorized with woodwork and ebony inlay , twin sunroofs, fly screens, darkened `purdah' glass and blinds.
