Bhubaneswar: This black beauty is sure to roll on the roads of Bhubaneswar as and when the city hosts a vintage car rally, said the proud owner of 1936 Alvis Speed 25, Nitin Dossa, who is also the executive chairman of Western India Automobile Association.
This particular Sports Tourer with Vamnden Plas coachwork was originally bought in London by then Maharaja of Mayurbhanj Pratap Chandra Bhanj Deo and is the only one in the country today. It was ordered from the Alvis dealer and delivered to the royalty in January 1936, he said.
“It should once make the round of Baripada where the Maharaja used to drive it with immense pride. I am also eager to visit the Belgadia Palace there,” said Dossa, who bought the car almost 30 years back.
The Maharaja used to drive the car in his sprawling estate in the northern Odisha district. Besides him, only a specially-appointed chauffeur was allowed to drive it. Though he owned a large fleet of Rolls Royce and 11 private aircraft, the Alvis and a Bentley were among his most favourite cars.
His love for vehicles was not confined to driving; he would get his hands dirty to tune the engines. Alvis was his ever-reliable car and in 1961 he had a radiator shipped from Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd in Coventry, England, as “the honeycomb was not functioning satisfactorily” after an overhauling at the works.
A coffee table book by Dossa mentions an incident when the Maharaja was travelling from Baripada to Rupsa in the Alvis. As the car touched top speed (almost 95 miles per hour), the driver spotted a panther at a distance and pressed the brake hard. The car then had to be sent to England. When the all-new vehicle was shipped back, it remained in erstwhile Calcutta. The Maharaja would travel in it for his board meetings. At times, the vehicle was used for dropping his granddaughters at school.
The Maharaja passed away in 1968 and the Alvis changed hands a few years later.
When asked how much this British luxury touring car cost him and also about its fuel efficiency, Dossa said, “Peanuts, you can say and a vintage car owner never checks the capacity of an engine.”
He had a number plate ‘Mayurbhanj-25’ specially-made for this car, which was among the few 3.5-litre Alvis Speed 25s produced, to honour its roots in India and the Maharaja.
This rare car won the ‘Pre-War Classic – European’ class trophy the 6th edition of the Cartier Concours d’Elegance at Rambagh Palace in Jaipur in 2019 and the first runner-up award in the Maharaja class at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance held in California.
“It is a beautiful and rare car. It has been driven for over 22000 miles and flows like water,” said Dosa, who owns 70 vintage cars including the Bentley 1947 convertible that was made for the Maharaja of Mysore.
Scion of the erstwhile Mayurbhanj royal family Akshita M Bhanj Deo also threw light on this once prized possession of the Maharaja. “The royal family of Mayurbhanj have always been interested in emerging technologies and transport and infrastructure, from commissioning railway lines, runways and aircraft. He bought it while being called to London for some diplomatic work, and had it customized to suit his personal taste. It was used in and between Calcutta, Mayurbhanj and Shillong palaces to entertain foreign dignitaries, especially those who would come to Mayurbhanj for business. The idea of collecting the state-of-the-art cars and transport vehicles especially was to build infrastructure around the erstwhile princely state equal to that of any major world city,” she told Odisha Bytes.
The cars were driven by the Maharaja and a trained state chauffeur; the princesses and Maharanis usually had their own customized cars as well, she said.
“All of these pieces of information are being digitized for the Belgadia Palace museum, which will have pictures and anecdotes of the erstwhile princely state for tourists from other states and especially Odias providing an insight into the time and age of the royalty,” she added.
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