Rare gleaming vintage cars sparkle in a museum tucked away in Dharmasthala, a pilgrim centre on the banks of the Netravathy river, 75 km from Mangaluru. The collection is no ordinary one; cars here have a close connect with the royal and the famous.
At Manjusha Vintage Car Museum, a Padma Vibhushan awardee has a unique collection of 80 vintage cars, each in “showroom condition” and ready to be driven. What makes this museum special is that the cars are collected, conserved and restored from scratch in the old-fashioned way by an in-house team.
“A passion for automobiles was the biggest gift passed on to me by my parents Ratnamma and Ratnaverma Heggade,” says Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade, the 21st Dharmadhikari dedicated to managing and developing Dharmasthala Kshetra.
Cars used by kings line the collection. There is a 1935 Sunbeam, which was built for the maharaja of Kolhapur for hunting. According to legend, the king stopped using the car after he had a close shave with a tiger that jumped into the vehicle. There is a Buick Special (1937) built for the maharaja of Purnea. A Dodge Kingsway (1954) carried many guests like the second chief minister of Karnataka Kengal Hanumanthaiya, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Nikolai Bulganin, then premier of the Soviet union.
As a student in Bengaluru, Heggade met Alwyn Marakada, a mechanic who used to repair his Standard Herald. It is a part of the collection after being gifted to Heggade by a devotee in 1993 during the silver jubilee year of his accession to the peetha. Realising Heggade’s passion for vintage cars, Marakada offered him a German Daimler-Benz (1951) which he had restored in his garage. “I was so attracted to the vintage beauty that I immediately paid Rs 500,” says Heggade. “Daimler was the first car in the museum.”
From then on, the collection kept expanding. Vintages like Morris Oxford (used as taxi to ferry devotees to Dharmasthala in the 40s) and a 1937 Skoda Popular Roadster were complete wrecks when handed over to the museum.
Another car Heggade loves is the Royal Daimler Double 6, rated the best car in the museum by vintage buffs. Though fabricated for the royal tour of Australia in 1949, it was used during Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Australia as its reigning monarch in 1954. Every part in the vintage reflects the highest standard. In 1976, Heggade had bought it from Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, the maharaja of Mysore.
In June 2012, when Heggade was in London to receive the Ashden Award, he met Prince Charles. “How did she come to you?” he asked Heggade when he saw a picture of the Royal Daimler, an iconic reminder of the 1954 tour. Heggade still rides to the nearest town in the Daimler.
Some of the other vintage cars are a 1947 Frazer, used by Charukeerthi Bhattaraka Swamy Shravanabelagola; a 1947 Studybaker Champion used by C V Raman, and a 1946 Packard that Abhinava Vidya Teertha swamiji of Shringeri mutt used. The Packard was donated to the museum after its last buyer faced a string of misfortunes.
The oldest vintage in the collection, a 1903 Renault, has kerosene lamps as lights. An original US Army 1943 Ford Jeep used in World War II has a four-wheel drive and comes with a shovel, axe and camouflaged headlights.
The museum also displays a 1938 12-cylinder Lincoln Zephyr, a Nash (there are just five Nashs in India), a 1929 Vauxhall, a 1950 Volkswagen Beetle and a 1929 Studebacker used by Mahatma Gandhi for his Karnataka tour.
When most collectors like Mumbai-based Pranlal Bhogilal remain anonymous, Heggade’s unique collection of vintages is open to the public. “For me, a museum is an appreciation of evolution,” he says. Demonstrating the working of a mechanical fuel gauge with child-like delight, he adds, “In this electronic era where there are no surprises, enthusiasts must witness how genius minds dedicated their lives to produce something mechanical to the nearest perfection.”
Sourcing spare parts and preventing deterioration of the vintage cars due to moisture and dampness (Dharmasthala receives over 200 inches of rainfall) are the biggest challenges. “We have stocked huge quantities of spare parts from all over India. Restoration of vintages has been possible due to people who make near replicas and supply them to us,” he says.
At the workshop behind the museum, five vintage cars are being restored and another 30-40 are awaiting restoration. As the men work on modifying fenders, welding engine mounts onto the frame, it does not take long to realise that fabricating things from scratch and detailing, without the aid of technology, to create a part of the past is no small feat. Caretaker Diwaker Prabhu says that it took a year to complete the patchwork of a 1947 Hudson.
On why all his vintages are kept road-worthy, Heggade quotes his parents, “Vehicles we own should be like a working horse, able to take you anywhere.”