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Originally Posted by V-16 Therefore, the car was originally UP registered.UPC-XXXX before finding its way to Andhra Pradesh and getting re assigned a local registration number viz; AIA_XXXX First the owner was not located and i was told the car may have its books missing, so i decided to pass, then the owner who had gone abroad returned after a span of more than two months, everything fell into place. It was confirmed that the books were there but he wanted his pound of flesh as within two months there were stories of similar cars going for almost triple the price we had earlier agreed to. It was simple, he wanted to re-negotiate the price. We decided to make an offer which was fair, and presto the deal was struck. Not wanting to fall in his price trap again we moved the car immediately from his custody after payment. The car was whisked to Shyam's place where he made sure the precious rims were given their red oxide treatment and replacing the original wheels with another set from a newer lineage, the car rested in his house, getting little mechanical snags sorted out. The engine is complete, with the original air cleaner et all. Shyam also got it running
A friend of mine go the car collected and informed that the car is loaded and sent to Bombay. After a span of a week or so, i got a call from the transporter that the car had arrived. When i went to receive the car , i was shocked at the way they had bought the car down to Bombay. I have never seen a car being transported in this way in my life. It was actually loaded atop a filled cargo truck and was bought, just like that.
Who in his right sense of mind would carry a car like this. To top it all, 80% of the money was paid to him in Advance.
Of course this type of carriage has its casualties and it did do considerable damage to the car. Also some things went missing from the boot The precious parking lights were broken as was one headlight and the other one cracked. My heart was broken but the consolation was that the headlight was a local fit. That means i have to now look for a pair of headlights ($$$$) and a pair of parking lights. Thankfully the tail lamps were saved, i guess by the protective grille around them. |
Wow Gogi (sir)ji, glad to see the much-awaitd thread on good ol' "AIA" at long last!!
It was my pleasure to help you out on this, and I must thank you all the same, as but for your passion and perseverence, which alone made you pick up this car even without papers (yet, as of then) and at a rather high price from a scrapwala, it wouldnt have lived to see the light of the day today!
A few points I might add- we had actually got the car from a local scrapwala I know, exactly 2 years ago (in March 2008)
It all started with my mech. calling me up one day and telling me the guy informed him about a "centrelight" dukkar he had picked up and was bringing the next day.
On going there, it turned out that it was actually a millecento, and thats when the first pics. were taken.
So when I'd first posted the pics. here in the hope of saving the car, a couple of team bhpians, including gogi, were interested in buying the car. But the guy then informed us that the papers were missing, and gave us the address of the ex-owner, saying he might have them at home.
When we met the "owner", it turned out that the car belonged to his brother, who was in the US then, and was said to have the papers in
his own house! He'd assured us that his bro. was coming back for good in 2 months' time and we would get the RC then. On this assurance, gogi was the only one who decided to brave buying the car from the scrapguy, following which it was initially housed in our society, in our bldg. parking lot itself.
I later faced problems from the society authorities for having parked too many (read 2!) cars in parking spaces other than ours, with rumours of me running a garage for old cars floating around! So had to relocate them to other places, the fiat being moved (as seen in gogi's pic.) to a garage at Secunderabad I get my work done.
During which time, I suggested to gogi on getting the car sorted out a little. So we first got the engine started up- attached is a video I took of the process!
Also got the doors set and locks etc. working plus some work on the brakes- the original drums (see pics.) were found to be in need of repair, so my mech. temporarily replaced them with TVS drums and different pipelines. The original were stored away in the boot of the car. I also smeared some red-oxide by brush on areas where the paint was gone and rust was setting in on the body.
The original rims, though having come with the car, were given to us separately, as the scrapguy claimed he'd promised the tyres to someone else, so had to take them off the rims for it. So he gave the car with a set of padmini rims, and the original rims sans tyres later, after I literally fought with him for them, as I suspected we had a chance of losing them to him!
They turned out to have quite a lot of rust on the inside, mainly caused by strips of rubber tube being stuck on! Hence the red-oxide coating.
Now to cut a long story short, the "2 months" wait for the ex-owner turned out to be more than 6 months until he returned home! And despite me (and even more my mech.) contacting him and following-up with him so many a time for the papers, the guy kept dodging us with some excuse or the other!
Meanwhile, it was proving difficult to hold the car at the garage this long, so once it was up and running, gogi arranged- through his other friend- for another mechanic from the "old city" to pick up the car and later send it over by transport. After much deliberation, I got a letter prepared on bond paper at the local court declaring from the scrapguy we bought the car from, that the car was bought (by Gogi) as scrap minus papers and was bought for parts only. He was actually shocked to see the paper we'd prepared in his name!!
I gave my word to Gogi that I'd send the papers as and when I got them.
Finally, a while after the car was sent, my mech. nailed the owner, who then revealed that he'd actually given the papers to an RTO agent to get the car transferred in his name, but before it materialised, he left for the US on a job offer!! So the papers "should" still be with the RTO guy!! The latter was also contacted, and he thankfully still had the documents, but indicated that he wanted his pound of flesh for having "kept safe" the papers for so long (I suspect the owner too had a hand in this, as I was told he was cribbing about his car being sold for even less than what we bought it for and that he got a loss blah blah blah!)
So finally after this too was settled, I got the papers in hand; the original RC book (BTW gogi, I also remember a Bhopal address mentioned after the allahabad one, so the car must've been there too for a while) with the original UPC regn. and the later (80s) AIA one, plus all the signed TO forms, all verified and posted to gogi.
I then got a call from Gogi around May last year, with the good news that the car had reached him! The only unsettling part here being that the original drums and also a set of select rims that were carefully stored inside the boot, were ALL found to be MISSING from inside the car, as gogi mentioned! as were the original brake/clutch pedals etc.!
I really wished then that I'd sent the parts separately rather than pack them in the car! Even now, I feel real bad about this! Good thing I decided to put the car's original rims on atleast!
Also sad that the RH Headlight was broken and so was the LH sidelight! I presume these got broken in the transporation?
The right sidelight I remember was broken when the car parked at our place itself. But on the bright side, these aren't the original ones for the car anyway.
And yes, it indeed is a ridiculously uncanny way of transporting the car like that!! Even I was astounded to see the pics.!
Also gogi, from your pic. showing the left side, I can see that the side-patti on the LH front door, which had been intact when I'd last seen the car, had been plucked off too! Was this kept inside the car or missing too?
Attachment 297677
But all in all, I feel at the end of the day it was indeed worth it! And I'm sure this car will be restored to the gem it once was!
Do keep us updated on the current state of the car, gogs!