Speed. It is addictive, exhilirating, can be fatal and utterly intoxicating. The Baroda-Ahmedabad Expressway lets you experience all that in its short 80kms stretch. But speed does necessarily need to be experienced in a moving car, a parked one can tell you many a tale about the places it has been, the sights it has seen and the scenery it has blurred past. Of course, as with everything else in life, time adds perspective to these stories…and the oldest cars make for some of the richest stories.

Entering the musuem, that’s Madan and Shanker on the bottm-right - helpful chaps.

Ajmat over on the Team-BHP forums has done a wonderful review of the place with tons of detail on each car - you can find it here. The Vintage Village Autoworld houses the prolific collection of vintage beauties owned by Mr Pranlal Bhogilal. These are rare gems, including India’s first Maybach (1937 from Kota)! These are parked in Mumbai where he resides and in Ahmedabad at the Vintage Village. The cars are all complete and decent to look at, but not really in the best of condition. The vintage musuem in Udaipur has better maintained cars, especially in terms of the paintjob; but to even compare this with any other musuem would be ridiculous, this place houses a huuuge fleet of cars. The open air setting could be another reason for the dull look of many of them.

The palatial home!

The other issue with the place is the lack of a guide or proper information about each of these cars. All we got was a board with 4 lines mentioning the year, the name (mostly correct), bodystyle and the country where it originated from. A lot of these cars were donated by their owners to Mr. Bhogilal, and in totality they present a magnificient look into an era gone by. The museum is situated on his 1000+ acre farm outside Naroda in Kathwada about 45 min from the airport.

Since there was no guide or even info, and since we do not even have enough time to post all the details of the cars, let me start off with a detailed snippet of the MG Magna F-type. For more details like this, please use the internet. The 1931 MG F-Type Magna Sports. Based on a Wolseley Hornet, this fiery red roadster is a super lightweight built-for-speed machine. Believe it or not, the 1930s Wolsely Hornet is the predecessor of the Mini! The two-door beauty produces 47bhp (10bhp more than the the 1929 version)! The car is a rear-wheel drive and can actually propel you to speeds of more than 100kmph - for those times, it’s a lot!

Now, let us begin the photo-tour! The tour starts off with some classic American machines.

1931 Ford A-roadster

1947 Buick Super-Eight

A blue 1954 Plymouth, green 1929 Chevy, a grey 1926 Ford A, and a propah red 1927 Ford A are next in line.

Black-n-white movies from the 1940s did no justice to dazzling beauties like this 1948 pink Chrysler Convertible!

1938 Packard Limousine was an opulent and hyper-expensive car in the times of the Great Depression.

Of course, there were some Bentleys. The blue one is from Jamnagar

And now we pause for a quick image of our journalists on the spot!

There is a whole line of Rolls Royce Phantoms here. Including the Indian tri-colored “Azad” Phantom!

The end of the line of the RRs takes us to this piece written by Mr. Pranlal Bhogilal when he was all of 10 years old, on the day of the Indian Independence!

Next stop is at the European car section; they even had a Lancia Dilambda! Apart from the usual Citroen and Mercedes (to the right)

A 1964 Wolseley 6/110 MkII; reminds me of the Aussie Yellow in the Cedia Sports! :D

A 1935 Austin Ruby (Tourer), England and a Sunbeam Talbot. I still can’t imagine the kind of photographs the bright Ruby would have made for on a road-trip!

In the Grand Classics section, a 1927 Hispand Suiza limousine from France took centrestage with another Lancia

Tourers (open body style to feel the wind on your face!) from the early 1900s just hung out looking all stylish. A 1906 Mors Tourer from France, a 1906 Minerva Tourer from Belgium, and a 1910 Ford T Tourer from the US.

There were some different kinds of transport too - a 1941 Indian and a 1928 AJS!

So that’s the finish line then. In the end, I wish I could collate all the info about these beauties and tell you all about ‘em. Each of these beauties has a story behind it - tales that transport you in time across different roads, driving lifestyles, the little incidents, and personal memories. Spending only 1 hour in such a place and trying to show every photo does not do justice to anyone of them. Our suggestion? Go to Ahmedabad early, and spend a whole day there. The only thing this post can help you with (apart from drooling at these beauties), is to find info about every single beauty parked in this musuem.

Next stop - the Rann of Kutch!
Joe

PS: High-resolution photos available at this link.

Wake up folks, its Monday! As we head off to Rajasthan, here are some shots of where we were yesterday!

The Rann near the village of Junjuwada

Lots more to follow folks! Just wanted to get you guys upto speed with us.

Cheers!
Joe & Namrata

Our drive yesterday was planned from Surat to Vadodara to Ahmedabad, hoping to catch lunch at Baroda and moving on to A’bad via the Expressway. Well, none of that really materialized but most of it did. Or something like that. We got stuck in a 3-hour long traffic jam on Makarpura Road, 69kms from Vadodara. Yep, 3 hours! A short story about that will follow from Namrata - we got to do a lot of idiotic things sitting around!

Thankfully, the expressway (NE-1) made us forget all that. From 9kms in 3hrs to 88kms in 37 minutes! Of course, a special about the Cedia on the NE-1 with a video n other goodies will follow shortly!

Exiting the NE-1, we got on the road to Vintage Village. A true collector’s paradise. A lot to narrate to y’all on this place, for now all we have is teaser photo of the 1931 MG Magna - a true sports tourer!

The true SURPRISE for Ahmedabad came when Mr. Roopak - the regional manager for Mitsubishi for Gujarat and MP - called us asking us to meet him at the Mitsu dealership. We found the showroom after a lot of hunting around, but boy was it worth it! We were welcomed in a manner fit for celebrities! 5 videographers, 2 photographers, media people, the entire service team standing lined up! Wow! Blackhawk was given a thorough check and cleanup while we had some snacks with the Mitsu team. Thanks guys!

Dinner was at Little Italy with a friend, batchmate and follower!

And of course, being in Ahmedabad gave us the chance to catch some truly quirky sights. And some great gujju dressing. All that is a story for later.