Wheels of time

From the splendour of the maharajas to the sophistication of the mindful motorist, Pablo Chaterji reflects on how India's love affair with luxury cars and bikes has evolved.

- Pablo Chaterji

In the early 1900s, the maharaja of Patiala ordered a fleet of custom Rolls-Royces, reportedly finished in ivory and gold with silver fittings.

Legend has it that when a London dealer insulted him, he retaliated by buying several cars and using them as garbage-collection lorries back home. Rolls-Royce was said to be horrified. The maharaja, presumably, was delighted. Now, this anecdote is almost certainly apocryphal, because multiple versions of it exist, with different maharajas being the slighted parties — and there’s not a shred of evidence that any of the versions is true.

What this does illustrate is that in princely India, cars (and motorcycles) were not merely forms of transport. They were more like props in a highly elaborate play of power and pomp-theatre on wheels, if you will. The maharajas had their fleets of luxury cars customised to the nth degree for everything, from royal parades to hunting expeditions, and in each case, the idea was to evoke a sense of awe from their subjects.

You could say that the earliest decades of India’s motoring history were a kind of mechanical courtship. Imported Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Packards, and Hispano-Suizas were diplomatic emissaries of the West's industrial confidence. Indian royalty matched that energy with its own flourishes, such as mounting tiger heads as mascots, commissioning Louis Vuitton trunks for the boot, and hiring chauffeurs in liveried finery.