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The Maharajas and their magnificent motor cars

Book review by Michael E. Ware: This is a coffee table sized book containing over 500 photographs both historic and modern of cars that were once owned by the maharajas. The author, a well-known Indian classic car journalist Gautam Sen looks at these cars as they are today. In many cases they have moved on to other owners and collectors, a few have escaped from India. Besides the photographs most of which are of high quality, there is a great deal of written information, not only about the cars but about the maharajas and their families and their lives during the times of the Raj. Of course there are many Rolls-Royce in the book, but...

Pubblicato:
sabato giugno 4th, 2011
Sconosciuto
24 Giugno 2011, 12:26
A couple of years ago I acquired a Chevy 1946 4 door tourer specially built for His Highness Maharaja Karni Singhji Bahadur of the former State of Bikaner(now in Rajasthan)India.The original registration No. was BIKANER 12
The most interesting part of this car is the facility to individually lower down the divided wind screen Brass Frame to enable the Maharaja to shoot the animals even while sitting in the car.And then of course there are a couple of in built tables to serve drinks and snacks besides there being a bar for the bottles and a separate chest for wine glasses.
While restoring this car i have taken every care to maintain the originality of these unique features and i love then the most.
Some photos are being sent.
Ravi Kapur
Jaipur(India)
09314505337
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Sconosciuto
07 Giugno 2011, 07:18
This is indeed an enthralling book, and I am proud that my Lancia based racer is pictured on page 28. The book also covers some collections in India. Many cars and collectors are left out, leaving room for a second volume. The book also contains lots of newly seen old photographs.
Strange as it may seem, there has been quite a lot of feedback from past owners and/ or their descendants adding new material, sometimes with photos, and sometimes there are corrections. Indeed there are some errors, and one can say that the book caused new informations to surface.
About some cars mentioned above, the Mors did have a monocle glass mounted on the steering column which was stolen. And the Swan car was smuggled, illegally exported from India for which I believe some dealers did jail time. India has a total number of four known Standard Avons and these two, which were present at the recent Cartier event in Delhi are no 3 and 4.

Cheers Harit Trivedi
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