| Senior - BHPian
Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Mumbai
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| Cartier Event:
Since I have now signed up and introduced myself, I must do the next step. As helpfully suggested by Spitfire, I have used notepad for composing and have put up my first post. These posts shall be only text, picture posts will follow later. So here goes:
I always thought that I should give some comments on the Cartier Event from a participants point of view and probably being the only BHPian who was invited to take part.
There are three aspects from which one could look at the event. Firstly, a Cartier Event to promote themselves and host a really grand party, and then divide this into two events, a page three do and a car show. All three were hugely sucessfull. As a Cartier event, a whole lot of publicity was generated well in advance, and the press lapped it up. Cartier will know whether they achieved their goal, they should have as nobody could really be unhappy.
The Cartier party was very stylish with great ambience created. They had the old style picnic tents, period brass fans, best food one could ever think of for all sorts of palates, a bar to match the most well stocked in the world and unlimited generosity, we could invite friends and I did have BHPians present amongs them, these invited friends also had access to the food and drinks. There was a large page three crowd,but there were also a lot of car
enthusiasts too, many came down as judges and some came down just to visit the show.
On the 1st November there was a sit down dinner at the Taj, again very generous with good food and drinks. They distributed the foreign invitees amongs these tables and with a little bit of pull I managed to get seated at the same table as Nick Mason, I am a Pink Floyd fan.
Unfortunately the Mumbai press covered the event mainly as a page three event, if they showed a car it was the Delahaye (deservedly the best car) but some only focused on page 3 folks. The "vernacular" press in Gujrat and Andhra had much better coverage of the cars.
As a car event, this was fantastic. There are a lot many perspectives which can be commented on and I had spoken to a lot of people to get different views before putting anything in writing. I have issues with the prizes, but now I think a bit differently though I still have these issues.
Firstly, Cartier selected Manvendra Singh which was very wise. He knows most of the cars in India and has an approach to so many car owners. Where he did not, he networked. The cars assembled were a fine selection, some important cars did not come because their owners had their own issues. Too bad for them.
There were several groups created, some perhaps for the first and possibly the last time.
The groups:
3 surviving out of 6 identical Pierce-Arrows imported into India were brought together.
The two supercharged early Mercedes Benz Cars were brought together.
The two cars with direct connections to English Royalty were brought together, Daimler V12 and Buick
A lot of XK Jaguars were brought together, 5 in all.
A lot of Mysore cars were there, there were to be more but one dropped out at the last moment due to mechanical failure. Even the Mysore Maharaja personally was to come, he dropped out at the last moment as he was ill.
At the beginning of the show, I told all my friends that the star of the show was the Delahaye and it won, there should not be any dissent on this.
Some ancedotes on this car. The owners son is a close buddy of my buddy. When my buddy visited him in Jodhpur, he saw the car and called me. He said that he is standing in front of a fantastic big red vintage car and could not pronounce the name properly. I told him that he is in Jodhpur in front of the Delahaye, and then asked him to ask about the carbs. The car has had its carbs replaced by three Ford Prefect carbs because fuel economy was a topic even in the early 1960's. And they were wondering how such info is
known. There is a plan to put back original carbs. For this car the owner had a manual and original bill of sale which were shown to the judges. I am glad that I saw this car in flesh.
Selection of cars was a topic for some to discuss. Firstly, for all outstation cars Cartier gave transport money and two nights stay at the Taj. For almost all outstation cars the selection was very fine, on the whole, a lovely selection. Definitely there must have been some constraints for the numbers. Personally I would not have selected some of the local cars, but that is a matter of choice, the same way I do not have a Buick Super 8 or Mustang
in my collection.
Judging was and will always be another topic of discussion. By and large, the judging was fair, though I did have a problem with the Lancia and resurrection prize. Initially I was very sure in my mind (subsequently came to conclusion that I was wrong and changed my opinion)that there was some bias in the judging. But after discussing with others I realised that probably the owners were to be blamed themselves for getting/not getting a particular
prize.
The judges were also in a way overwhelmed, they never expected such a collection of fine cars. They actually had to do some work. These judges being from outside did not have the opportunity to get prior information So they were dependant on what they saw and what was told to them. Here, one had to sell his car to the judges, show material like pictures, manuals, restoration work done etc. If the car owner told a fancy story, there was no way to verify. But the judges should not have been fooled by the story of the Lancia wheels being a special desert accessory. This did not reflect well on the judges. All know that the wheels are not original. I even got a call from a person associated with the car in the past. He was so shocked that he called me after 8 years!
Similarly, while the Bentley was being judged the person who did a lot of work on her happened to be with the car just as the judges came and he could explain to them what work was done, how they even accurately used the correct fastners, what original parts were obtained and fitted. That would have helped the judges. But then saying that the car was like scrap was a huge and great exaggeration because the car was a working car, took part in a rally with a ladies team under the previous owner (I had posted a pic earlier) and when she was sold to Mumbai she was driven from Alibag to Mumbai. So not a scrap car! Mr. Asher who won a prize was thoroughly prepared, the judges spent a lot of time at his car and he demonstrated the
functionalities very impressively. I had made it a point to stay near my car for most of the time as I wanted to talk to people who came up to my car.
The Westland Healy was near my car, so I got the drift of what was going on. By the way, there was a rule that only one prize could be given per car, otherwise the Healy would have got 2 prizes, including the resurrection prize. That is a fact! Only the red plastic number plate disturbed me.
One who lost out was Doc Ravi Prakash. His Delage should have got the resurrection prize. That car was not only a wreck, its parts were scattered and lost. I know the history of that car so well because my 1941 Packard was lying with her in Bhopal with the famous Bhalerao. Someone told those fools that there is precious metal in the engine and they dismantled
the engine to search for that. Then they threw the parts around, the crankshaft got bent and became useless. These guys in Bangalore forged a new crankshaft. Distributor was also lost. Today the car can be driven, that was a remarkable resurrection. No one told the judges about this, Doc did not sell his car properly to them and so lost out.
To make myself absolutely clear, I did not expect a prize under any circumstances for my Lancia. My preparation was too weak. I did take the trouble to get the car painted, new leather upholstry put, imported 2 matching stepney tyres but as I was away for Diwali holidays just before the event I did not personally look at the detailing. If anyone looked below the bonnet he will know what I mean. The car was shabby within. I had done some research on the history of the car and found a lot, made a folder and that did impress.
During our dinner on the 1st November Mr. Mason told me that prizes are often dependant on detailing and it is difficult to detail a racing car. I did not expect and did not get a prize. No problems with that for me. But I am sure that we all learnt a lot. Cars should be detailed properly, wiring should run properly, car to be kept clean, engine compartment neat etc. Upholstry should be tucked in nicely and finished properly. Cartier even had an arrangement with Wuerth to clean cars, with their products, even tyres were
cleaned at Cartier expense.
For individuals cars a folder should be prepared, history noted where possible, old pictures presented, pictures from past events shown, if mentioned in the newspapers and magazines then have a copy of it in the folder, copies of articles if ever presented on the net, pictures of trophies won. Also pictures before and during restoration. In fact, for every car being collected and/or restored, such a folder should be prepared, even if it is a simple Standard or Premier car. In fact I plan to get a car ready for the next event if it happens after 2 years as indicated but not formally announced. Even if my car is not be selected at that time, I will still have a nice car up and about.
Now one last point is to compare this event and other local events. I hope that our local organisers have seen that you must also put in something to have a nice event. If we were to rate events on a scale of 0 to 100, then I would give the following ratings:
Cartier Event 500
Haig Event 2007 75
Haig Event 2008 (-) 50 (yes minus and willing to back up the arguement)
The Cartier event was much more than it need to have been for a car event and so gets excess marks. The Haig 2007 Event was a good car event, decent dinner, decent complimentaries, festive atmosphere probably because the Boss of the sponsors was present.
The dinner function was held at the Radio club and some band played music.
But the Haig 2008 event was baaad in ALL respects, the less said the better.
There were many selected cars which I have only seen as photos and which I really would have liked to take home.
Dekahaye, Delage, Packard (green tourer 193?), Daimler (Agha Khan), 500K, Jaipur Bentley, Mann Egerton Bentley, Boattail Rolls, Pink Cadillac, Green Cadillac, Gondal mPackard, 1941 Buick, only one Pierce Arrow as I do not want to have too many duplicates apart from my Ford A's. I do not want to be disrespectful to the other cars but I do not have the space to park them.
One more point to be noted was the presence of a huge number of erstwhile Royalty. They havea different body language altogether, very stylish, highly respectful, elegant, almost ceremonial. I knew a number of them having met many of them before, when they talk to us commoners they are very normal nice folks, when they talk among themselves they show a lot of respect. It was really noteworthy.
Lastly, I always talk of giving back. For my satisfaction, I did give back in a miniscule way, but I did. From my personal collection of old photographs I got prints made and mounted, these were hung in the judges tent. There were historic pictures among these. DKG has made a wonderful photographic record of the event, those who could not come could see and appreciate the cars. Very well done DKG!!
And this was an opportunity to meet so many people, I met so many that it was difficult to comprehend.
Last edited by ajmat : 28th November 2008 at 14:55.
Reason: broke into para's tto make more impactful reading
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10th November 2008, 17:15
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