[Retrogrease]

I never thought that my first post on Team-BHP will be filled with anxiety and a slight panic.

There is a line between the Vintages that run our streets and the yesteryear cars, namely the Hindustan Motors Ambassadors and the Premier Padmini Sedans which are the most commonly owned by us Indians. We find our childhoods and good old sweet memories in them than the ever so prestigious 1929 Phantom - II, which is a true classic. We grew up watching our fathers and brothers driving and maintaining them and I am very sure that many of us here already own a couple of them. I am one of those people who finds joy in searching for parts that are not in production anymore, procuring them and installing them in the said cars.

Now there has come a time, I look at them with uncertainty and anxiety about their future. None of them fall into the elite Vintage category. One being a 1986 and the other a mere 1998. I am afraid that they might be taken away from me to meet their eternal death at a scrapyard where they join broken sinks and rusty barrels. Their non metallic parts ending up in a landfill and the ones that can be salvaged become a part of a brand new Skoda.

The reason for my anxiety is panic selling of the owners who held on to these cars as part of family. Now that the scrappage policy plan on top gear, they view these old cars like tumors and are eager to get rid of them. Well, I don't want to get rid of my years long devotion and attention that I have put into my cars and I'd want to continue to doing so.

The media reports says that there has been no definite categories as of such and all cars above 15 years are likely to be scrapped and no mention of the once most commonly used brands. Since there are no hard facts at the moment to be worried of, it certainly has started brewing a small fire within me. I have attached their pictures, them I proudly own.

[GTO]

Valid concerns. Couple of thoughts:

- Not every State will follow Delhi-NCR's strictness with banning 10 / 15 year old cars. Remember that India has an extremely low car penetration rate of merely 30 - 40 cars per 1000 citizens (in developed countries, the number is like 800 per 1000 citizens). In India, even 20+ year old cars find utility & a happy 4th owner. Just visit B-towns and rural areas; we see so many 25 year old cars being happily used.

- You might want to consider registering your car at a smaller town's RTO which will be less strict. If & when Mumbai bans 10 - 15 year old cars, my Jeep is safe because it is registered to a home we own in a B-town in the same state. Similarly, I know many people who have registered their cars to their Pawna, Alibagh etc homes. These small villages will NEVER ban old cars. In fact, so many times when I go to Pawna, I see cars running without registration plates!!

- Worst case scenario, park it in your private property and enjoy the piece of art. Heck, a Delhi BHPian had posted of how he loved his Ikon so much that he's kept it parked in his compound and refuses to part with it. I know of some classic car owners who keep their beauties parked at their holiday homes.

[ash22]

Thanks for the post Retrogrease. This was running in my mind for past 2 days after hearing the latest news of scrappage policy.
There should be some level of categorization before initiating this scrappage policy.
If a vehicle is certified fit in PUC test, then whats wrong in having it road legal ?
My humble Alto is 14 years old and still runs like a charm and i know many Bhpians Innovas,Scropios,Altos are maintained in excellent condition.

[terra85]

In that case spending money on petrol /diesel cars becomes moot as it will be valueless in 10 years.

[starke]

Not sure about the authenticity, but somewhere I heard that the road tax and retest fee for 15+ years will be increased drastically so only the most needed one can retain their loved ones at the cost of huge payments once the scrappage policy is live.

Mostly like what GTO said, we can retain the same in our private garage, but the question is tax!
Correct me if I'm wrong on this - If the road tax is due, there are legal proceedings towards the owner of the car from the RTO side. If we don't use the car, we have to surrender a piece of the chassis number portion, cut as per the guidelines from RTO to avoid charges.

[ramnaresh_2000]

First of all your Ambassador looks fantastic. Kudos for maintaining it so well. Coming to the scrappage policy, I don't think it is a mandatory one. Yes, the government might want to stop renewing your vehicle, you can still keep it in your private place. Secondly, you can get it re-registered at different location or a state. Not all states will follow this policy.

As far as I know, this scrappage policy might be voluntary like in other countries. They give good incentives when you scrap your old car and buy a new one from participating companies. This helped a lot of companies to not file bankruptcy in many countries. I can understand your situation, I myself have a 18+ year old first generation Pulsar 150cc machine. I never intend to use it anymore nor sell it. It is just parked in my garage and takes me down to the nostalgia trip every time I see it.

[anjan_c2007]

A really valid matter of concern. Those politicians and bureaucrats classify anything older than 50 years old as vintage, as per the newly proposed amendment to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 (CMVR). By definition, that is inclusive of all private automobiles registered (mind you "registered" not manufactured according to their draft policy) till January 1971 as on date. By the time this amended set of rules become law, nearly all 1971 models will qualify. But the scrappage policy if made compulsory, will throttle the feeder grade from where the vehicles get accredited into the vintage category. For instance, if scrapping is made compulsory come 2022, there would be not a single qualifier from the de-registered 1972 models to fit into the vintage category.

Next comes the hype being created over the scrappage policy by the ill-informed media. Reporters get news from their sources and are creating a hype that all automobiles older than 15 years are to be de-registered and their registrations cancelled. I believe no sane government (until they become insane) will make scrapping of old private motor vehicles compulsory. As I have said in many threads, the Chinese government has a compulsory vehicle scrapping policy but are they sane by world standards? A very few other countries like Japan starts levying higher taxes on cars and some categories of automobiles above 5 years age. The owner gets nauseated and parts company with his or her automobile. But not all these are scrapped. These are exported to New Zealand, some African and Middle Eastern countries.

Many democracies in Europe are registering automobiles older than 30 years as "historic" or as a "new classic". France, U.K. and Germany are leading. The nomenclature is different in different countries though. An automobile surviving 30 years is no joke and giving recognition and credence to it as a survivor is very apt. In the United Kingdom, the population of historic vehicles more than 30 years old is 1.2 million, valued at £17.8 Billion or Rs 167,000 Crores. Many other western democracies are getting their 30 plus year old vehicles valued in monetary terms. This is a part of the national wealth of a nation.

Now would any civilised country like to annihilate a part of it's industrial and mechanical history? The privately owned vehicles aged 15-49 years are sole remnants of the times when India started becoming self- reliant, built it's own automobiles and branded them with indigenous names and company logos.

And as such, in any parking lot or any traffic scene in a metro/city, hardly 5 to 10 fifteen year plus old automobiles are sighted in the motley mix of 100 of them. Has the scrapping of 10 year diesels and 10 year old private vehicles really solved New Delhi and NCR's smog and pollution problems ? In fact the winters of 2019-20 and 2020-21 in the NCR were the worst ever in history.

[Sanidhya mukund]

Originally Posted by GTO

Valid concerns. Couple of thoughts:

- Worst case scenario, park it in your private property and enjoy the piece of art. Heck, a Delhi BHPian had posted of how he loved his Ikon so much that he's kept it parked in his compound and refuses to part with it. I know of some classic car owners who keep their beauties parked at their holiday homes.

That BHPian would be me.

I fail to understand the logic behind such regulations. Countries the world over have 20-49 year old cars running, and their contribution to pollution doesn’t seem to bother them- because they are NOT the primary cause of environmental pollution! An average enthusiast maintaining an old car doesn’t use it on a daily basis, and even if he/she does, it isn’t exactly going to be a black smoke belching monster that the authorities consider it to be. Also makes me think if the number of such cars is large enough to justify an entire regulation.
I sometimes feel that rather than being an environmental cause, it is more to do with the slowdown that the automobile industry had recently witnessed, and the subsequent lobbying by car makers.

https://www.autocarpro.in/news-natio...ar-56227?amp=1


In the UK, all cars undergo regular MOT tests to certify their road worthiness; why can’t we have a similar system that allows cars that are in good condition to run on the roads?
Now that this rule has been implemented in Delhi-NCR, I am pretty sure that in the distant future, it will engulf the other metros, and will trickle down to tier II and tier III towns as well, but of course, implementation is not likely to be as strict as it is here in Delhi.

It’s been really sad to see people having no option but to scrap their beloved cars. If I talk about my circles, I have already seen 3 cars that had a lot of life left, but had to be scrapped just because of this rule, one of which was a 2009 BMW 730LD, single owner and only 40k on the odo!
Thanks to this judgement, the automotive history of Delhi-NCR had effectively been killed.
But don’t worry; as long as you park your cars on private property and don’t take them out on public roads, NOBODY can take them away.

Concluding with a click of my beloved Ikon. Can’t drive it on public roads, but have driven 70Km in the past one month, just by taking rounds around my colony.

[mayuresh]

It's not yet declared officially I guess, but if they apply it across the board it's foolhardy to say the least. Wasn't PUC designed to put a check on polluting vehicles? They can enforce that rigorously instead of forcibly scrapping vehicles based on age. Age of my vehicle is none of their business if the pollution levels are under check.

[fast&curious]

I have a cousin who has been driving a 31 year old Gypsy whose registration expired years ago. Although he drives it mostly in and around his farms in a village in Himachal Pradesh because of course there's no police to check over there so he's free to use it as much as he wants and mind you it is his primary vehicle still.

Surprisingly (or not) it's still performing pretty well for him. All the repair work can also be done at workshops around the village so it never has to be brought to the city ever.

Would it live long enough to qualify as vintage, I'm not sure. That would be another 19 years. Also, not sure if a Gypsy will be deemed as vintage by the Government.

[utkarshshukla92]

Asking just out of curiosity. Is this policy limited to 4 wheelers or does it includes 2 wheelers as well? I have a few two strokes, which have been restored painstakingly and I am not willing to part with them.

[Retrogrease]

Thanks for the replies.

Today morning, the first thing I did was visit my RTO. His words were quite promising even though they were slightly on the grey area.

In fact he still maintains his father's old Ambassador. He said that the Govt of Kerala has strongly opposed this policy and the enforcement of this law will be subjective since it is simply not practical. He blames the automobile corporate lobby - pulling the strings so that people are forced to buy brand new vehicles. A 10 Lakh rupee car will cost 5-6 Lakh to manufacture and the rest is divided between the State and Central Government. Now this is not even close to practical considering our country's per capita.

He assured me that even if this policy comes active, they wouldn't enforce it like they are supposed to (impound cars and send them to scrapyards) instead they'll stop renewing the RCs. Now the question of smaller town RTOs renewing the registration comes into picture. If this is a central govt initiative, and all vehicle data integrated under Parivahan - I doubt that they will have any power/authority to renew 15+ year old RCs if they have no provision to do so.

If nothing works, as GTO said - park the cars in our premises - wash and start them once in a while. If you have a big enough premises, drive them like Jay Leno driving the Tata Nano.

Originally Posted by utkarshshukla92

Asking just out of curiosity. Is this policy limited to 4 wheelers or does it includes 2 wheelers as well? I have a few two strokes, which have been restored painstakingly and I am not willing to part with them.

Well, as far my knowledge goes, it applies only to 4 wheelers. If they extend it to 2 wheelers, there goes my 1978 Bajaj Priya. Adding to that, there are a major share of Indians who are not fortunate enough to own their first car and a 2 wheeler is their only means of ply. Considering that, I doubt if they will want to enforce scrapping of the thousands of Splendors, CD 100s and the ever loved RXs and make their lives more difficult.

[boniver]

Originally Posted by utkarshshukla92

Asking just out of curiosity. Is this policy limited to 4 wheelers or does it includes 2 wheelers as well?

Originally Posted by Retrogrease

Well, as far my knowledge goes, it applies only to 4 wheelers

The NGT's ruling in the NCR region applies to all vehicles and includes 2 wheelers as well.

[DicKy]

If at all there is forced scrappage or even heavy discouragement for using 15+ years old cars, this would be the textbook example of crony capitalism.
And the biggest waste of resources.

That there isn't a proper fitness test system shows the inefficiency of the authorities.
Like pointed out above, the NCR ban really didn't clean up the air did it? NGT my...

Originally Posted by Retrogrease

I never thought that my first post on Team-BHP will be filled with anxiety and a slight panic.
.

Same worry here.
Coming to terms with an impending EV and autonomous future (though the reason why the latter won't even come to India for decades is not to be proud of), the only hope that people like me, who have just started to realise their automotive dreams is the used car market. A relatively new classic or an youngtimer is what we could possibly yearn for.

We are not some utopian middle kingdom or city state.

As pointed out by @anjan_c2007 several times in the forum regarding vintage vehicles registrations and usage.
Not to mean offence to pre-1950 vintage car owners, but the rules kinda feel elitist in nature.
Starting from the time when pre-1950s vehicles could be imported under a new law to the present time when only vehicles older than 50 years are even recognised as classics. Ofcourse they are the ones able to lobby the government to pass the much needed stuff.
But there is history too in those 15-49 year old vehicles.

A rolling 25-30 years criteria should be considered. Not some flat 50 year old limits. Have some proper fitness tests for vehicles till that age (not some walkaround the car, test the brake lights and sign the papers kinda tests)

Originally Posted by GTO

- Worst case scenario, park it in your private property and enjoy the piece of art. Heck, a Delhi BHPian had posted of how he loved his Ikon so much that he's kept it parked in his compound and refuses to part with it. I know of some classic car owners who keep their beauties parked at their holiday homes.

Last resort indeed.

[Gansan]

My take is, the policy will be implemented in a very watered down form, despite the grand intentions. I feel they will allow two FC renewals from the date of original registration at least, before declaring it as scrap. My Alto is 11 years old now, and my bike 20. Let them seize and scrap them if they want, I am not going to buy a new one.