Restoration of vintage cars salvaging history from Scrap metal

CHANDIGARH: He is a second-generation vintage car expert in the family, but 77-year-old Mohammed Alam, a mechanic hailing from West Bengal, has never owned a vehicle in his life. Alam has been living in Gurgaon for over a decade, supervising a vintage car garage, working on over 200 classic beauties like Chryslers, Buicks, Rolce Royces and Stutzs, among others.
"We dismantle the vehicle completely and restore it with the original design in mind. Each part is worked on with much attention to the details, because even the slightest modification can spoil the original look," said Alam.
Owned by Madan Mohan, a hotelier and vintage car collector, the garage restores old cars that are nothing more than a heap of iron, and non functional engine.
The cars are sourced directly from owners, mostly royalty, and the sale is carried out within ‘closed' elite social circles comprising the owners and collectors.
"The price of cars depends on their age, but even though they're in bad shape at the time of purchase, the prices are as high as Rs 5-25 lakh," said Mohan.
"There are only 2,500 vintage cars in India, and the owners realise that," he added.
The garage has different teams of mechanics working on different parts of the vehicle. "Apart from the engine mechanics, and body crafters, there are electricians, carpenters, painters, and upholstery designers, working on a particular car. The challenge lies in ensuring that even the wire work inside the engine panel is as close to the original as possible," explained Parvez Mistry, electrician from UP.
Mistry uses a special cloth dipped in oil to bind the cables in the car, a technique unknown to modern mechanics. "We think in 1920s and try to use things that were available only then," said Mistry.
The spare parts are mostly imported from manufacturing units in the US, but there is a growing online market for original vintage car parts on portals like eBay.
"There are regular deals on used car parts like headlights, speedometer, wiper, etc, which are functional yet old," said H W Bhatnagar, a retired mechanical engineer and veteran car collector, who himself works on his cars in his basement garage in Sushant Lok 1.
Bhatnagar makes it a point to paint his cars with his own hands, rather than using spray painters. "It shouldn't look factory made," is what he believes in.
However, the shrinking number of young mechanics, ready to learn the tricks of vintage car restoration, is an alarming situation for the future of car collection in the country.
"Young boys don't want to restrict themselves because there are more opportunities if you can work on modern cars, so the number of vintage car mechanics is surely going down," confessed Mohammed Fahim, while crafting the door of a 1938 Desota Bus.
Being the business capital of British India, Bengal had one of the oldest cars in the country, brought in by the East India Company. Almost 95% vintage car mechanics are from Bengal, and have inherited the profession from their ancestors.