Summer heats up vintage beauties

BANGALORE: Vintage beauties literally felt the heat on Sunday. A few of the 57 cars participating in a rally sputtered to a halt midway due to the dry and hot weather as well as traffic snarls.
'' Summers are not a very pleasant time for our cars. Temperatures are really high and the vehicles' cooling technology is not too sophisticated, therefore the challenge.Also, with traffic signals and snarls every now and then, the cars grind to a halt as their engines get heated,'' said Vinay Kumar, whose 1950 model Vauxhall was a proud participant in the 20-km rally.
'' The idea is to keep my car running. I do take it out but only late in the night or early morning . The hot summer afternoons are a strict no-no for them,'' said Edward Rodricks, whose latest possession is a Ford Anglier (Ford V 8 1939 model).
Vintage cars come cheap. But their preservation is quite an expensive affair and time-consuming as well, said participants . The restoration price of a car starts anywhere from Rs 6 lakh and sky is the limit. '' Getting mechanics to repair such cars is tough task,'' said Ravi Prakash, secretary of Karnataka Vintage & Classic Car Club.
Subbaiah KP has spent a fortune to restore his 1932 Plymouth PB seven-passenger deluxe. But the car enthusiast doesn't mind at all as his vehicle is antique, going by the database of Plymouth Owners Club, US. Only 2,179 cars of this make have been manufactured.
Vintage Club
The Karnataka Vintage & Classic Car Club launched in 1979 to preserve and promote heritage vehicles has 270 members owning 600 vintage cars on its rolls. The membership profile includes the royalty, bureaucrats, industrialists, politicians, professionals and even mechanics.
The Rally
The Taj West End, which completed 125 years of operations in the city, partnered with the Prestige Group, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, to host the Karnataka Vintage Car Rally; 57 four-wheelers and 17 motorcycles participated in the rally.