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India, always a country of contrasts and contradictions. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:13 | |
CARS HONK | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
Nowhere more so than in its relationship with the car. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:20 | |
And one car in particular. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:24 | |
In the first 50 years of the 20th century, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
more than 800 Rolls-Royce cars were exported from England to India. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:50 | |
In a sustained period of motoring madness, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
the Rolls-Royce name became an obsession for a group of Indian maharajas. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
Money was not a consideration, as the princes | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
tried to outdo each other with the sheer extravagance of their cars. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
How did one manufacturer capture the imagination of the exotic subcontinent? | 0:01:11 | 0:01:16 | |
This is the story of Rolls-Royce in India. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
India's largest collection of vintage cars. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
The country's automotive history is represented here, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
from 1950s American models, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
to cars driven by the British officials who governed the country before independence. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
Some of India's surviving Rolls-Royces are here, too. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
Advertised at the time as the best car in the world, | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
these luxurious machines were not driven by British civil servants and officers. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:12 | |
They were hand built in England for some of Rolls-Royce's most prized customers, | 0:02:12 | 0:02:18 | |
India's princes and maharajas. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
Maharaja is a Hindi word meaning 'great ruler'. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:41 | |
It's used in a general sense to describe the whole range of princes, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
nawabs, maharanas and nizams who ruled India | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
in the centuries leading up to independence. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
I think, to the British in India, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
and indeed many writers and travellers since, | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
the princely courts are really a kind of spectacle | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
of Oriental pageantry and ancient ritual. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
But, of course, we can't forget that the maharajas | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
had a very important job to do, as well. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
They ruled over hundreds of thousands, | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
in some cases literally millions, of subjects, | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
and controlled vast tracts of land across the Indian subcontinent. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
In the 19th century the British ruled India. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
But the 600-odd princely states, | 0:03:40 | 0:03:42 | |
marked in yellow, were governed by the maharajas. | 0:03:42 | 0:03:46 | |
Udaipur in Rajasthan was one of the oldest of the princely states. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:55 | |
It was ruled by one line of princes for almost 1,300 years, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
the longest unbroken dynasty in the world. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
Today, Udaipur is perhaps most famous for its pristine Lake Palace. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:11 | |
But a few hundred yards away, the royal garage still houses | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
a collection of Rolls-Royce motorcars from the 1920s and 1930s. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
Among them is this pristine 1924 Tourer, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
which was bought new by the grandfather | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
of the current maharana, Arvind Singh. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
These cars need to be used otherwise they deteriorate very fast. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:37 | |
And every morning, like horses, they are being worked. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
They have a schedule and they are taken out | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
so that the batteries and all are in good shape, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
the whole engine and everything is in good shape. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
I insist on that. I think it's important, if you have a collection, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
the cars must be running. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
These Rolls-Royces are not just a car, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
but a thing of great joy and beauty. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
And even though this is not a modern Rolls-Royce, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
it gives me more pleasure than a modern Rolls-Royce does | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
and I can sit and look at it all day, all night. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
It's a passion, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:22 | |
and there are various ways of fulfilling one's passion, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:28 | |
and, for me, this works. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
This princely passion for motorcars is a recurring theme | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
and it started 100 years ago when they were first introduced. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:46 | |
When the car first came to England and Europe, | 0:05:47 | 0:05:51 | |
I think the wealthy in India were longing to possess one. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:56 | |
They had so much wealth | 0:05:56 | 0:05:57 | |
and they were constantly going after new toys, new gadgets, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
new mechanical marvels, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:02 | |
and what better than the mechanical elephant that had come to India? | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
In the years before the First World War | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
there was no finer mechanical elephant than a Rolls-Royce. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:19 | |
The company was founded in 1906 by amateur racing driver Charles Rolls, | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
the engineering genius Henry Royce, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
and Claude Johnson, the man known as the hyphen in Rolls-Royce. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:39 | |
Their first factory was in Manchester, | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
but the company moved to Derby in 1908. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
From the earliest days, it was clear that Rolls-Royce | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
was looking for special customers. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
The aim was simple, to produce what came to be known as the best car in the world. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:03 | |
Silent, reliable and luxurious. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
And had you been a potential customer at the time, | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
Rolls-Royce might well have shown you | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
this 1910 40/50 horsepower model which was used as a demonstrator. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
To prove the car's smoothness and lack of vibration, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
customers were shown a penny balanced on the radiator | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
while the engine was running. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
Also on show was a comprehensive tool kit. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
Rolls-Royce maintained that its cars would not break down, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
but very occasionally they might fail to proceed. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:44 | |
The final detail was the famous Spirit Of Ecstasy mascot, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
sometimes called The Flying Lady. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
Suitably adorned, Rolls-Royce motorcars were ready for anything. | 0:07:55 | 0:08:00 | |
And so to India, where Rolls-Royce's first ever maharaja customer | 0:08:10 | 0:08:14 | |
had to make do with a second-hand car. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
It was shipped out in 1908 | 0:08:23 | 0:08:25 | |
by a Lancastrian businessman called Frank Norbury. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
Like this car, it was a Silver Ghost model, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
named for its almost supernatural quietness. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
Norbury entered his car in a reliability trial | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
on the rough country roads outside Bombay. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
With no tools on board, | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
and the bonnet kept locked shut for the entire 620-mile course, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
Norbury left the competition behind, comfortably winning the event. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:56 | |
We're talking about 100 years ago now. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
For any car to perform a journey of 620 miles was almost unheard of, | 0:08:59 | 0:09:05 | |
but for it to cover 620 miles without breaking down | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
was something nobody could possibly believe. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
Combine that with typical Rolls-Royce standards of comfort | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
and you've got something which was a complete revelation, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
even in Europe in those days, | 0:09:19 | 0:09:20 | |
and, you can imagine, in India where the motorcar was very much a novelty. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
After the success, it's no surprise that Frank Norbury | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
found a royal buyer for the car, His Highness The Maharaja Of Gwalior. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:36 | |
It was soon nicknamed the pearl of the East | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
and was painted in off-white, with apple-green stripes edged with gold. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
There's a rumour that the paint had a special ingredient. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
The maharaja had a special fondness for pearls. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
Even in the largest of his palaces, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
real pearls were ground with the paint | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
to give that lustre and finish to the paint on the walls, | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
so he could have possibly done that to his car to make it look unusual. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:09 | |
The pearl of the East disappeared in the 1920s and has never been found. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
Today, this 1913 Silver Ghost | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
is one of the oldest Rolls-Royce motorcars in India. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
It's been in Tariq Ibrahim's family for five generations. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:28 | |
My car was lying in a garage for about 40 years, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:33 | |
and in 2000 I started restoring it. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
It took me five years to restore the car. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:38 | |
Tariq's car has the wooden artillery-style wheels | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
favoured for India's rough country roads, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
and a boa-constrictor-type horn. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
HONK! | 0:10:48 | 0:10:49 | |
HONK! HONK! HONK! | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
These are the original lights. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
They are original Lucas lights. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
This is the crank handle. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
This was used in those days to start the car | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
and you just had to push it three times | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
and then the car used to start. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
The car is powered by the famous 7.5 litre 40/50 horsepower engine | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
that was fitted to more than 7,000 Silver Ghosts | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
that were built up until 1926. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:19 | |
It's a low-revving, silky-smooth, six-cylinder motor, but thirsty, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
with only about 12 miles to the gallon. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
Well, this particular car is known as Double Limousine | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
because in those days the driver was supposed to sit in the open | 0:11:34 | 0:11:39 | |
and this model particularly had the driver covered also. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
So, this is known as Double Limousine. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
You can see from here that the driver's covered | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
and both the compartments are covered. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
Waterloo Mansions in central Bombay, the place where Rolls-Royce | 0:12:01 | 0:12:06 | |
established its first Indian showroom in 1911. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
The company had already sold a few cars to maharajas, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
but how could it expand its Indian business? | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
The answer lay in the marketing opportunity of the century. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
The occasion was the coronation ceremony, or durbar, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
for the new King Emperor, George V. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
300,000 people, including all of India's maharajas and princes, | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
came to pay their respects in Delhi. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
I think it's hard to underestimate the importance | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
of the Delhi Durbar of 1911. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
It, in many ways really, represents the kind of zenith of imperial rule in India. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:59 | |
On one hand you actually have the Imperial sovereign, | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
the King and Emperor George V, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:06 | |
actually coming to India for the first time. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
On the other hand, you have this event attracting princes and noblemen | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
and men of wealth and status from all across the Indian subcontinent. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:19 | |
The Rolls-Royce company had generously put eight Silver Ghosts | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
at the disposal of the King Emperor and his senior officials. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:28 | |
It was a brilliant piece of product placement | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
in front of a glittering audience, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
many of whom would, in time, become customers. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
Rolls-Royce had arrived in India. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
Hyderabad, the City Of Domes, is 800 miles from Delhi. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:58 | |
It was here, in the year after the durbar, that the Rolls-Royce company | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
sold an extraordinary car to the world's richest man, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:07 | |
Osman Ali Khan, the nizam of Hyderabad. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
The nizam's long reign was marked by his progression from playboy prince | 0:14:17 | 0:14:22 | |
to progressive ruler and, finally, to notorious miser. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
He ruled over 80,000 square miles of south central India, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
and he held court in the Durbar Hall of the Chowmahalla Palace. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:40 | |
An immensely powerful figure on a low yellow throne. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
His vast collections of pearls, rubies and especially diamonds | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
were valued in the billions of rupees, | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
and his subjects could not turn their backs on him | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
as they left his exalted presence. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
Today, only a few of the Nizam's cars are left in Hyderabad, | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
but he once had more than 200, looked after by an army of servants. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:20 | |
Not only was there a team for each car, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
there was a supervisor for so many cars, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
and then there was a superintendent for so many cars. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
It was almost as hierarchical as the army! | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
If you wanted a screwdriver, you had to get a requisition slip | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
signed by the person you were reporting to | 0:15:41 | 0:15:44 | |
and then take it to the stores, who would verifiy that you were | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
taking from him the exact size of screwdriver that was required! | 0:15:47 | 0:15:53 | |
The Nizam's bureaucracy has long gone, | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
but the jewel of his collection can still be found in a quiet corner of the Chowmahalla Palace. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:04 | |
It's one of the most distinctive Rolls-Royce cars ever commissioned. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
The so called Throne Car is a Silver Ghost, ordered by the Nizam | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
to reflect his status as India's most important hereditary ruler. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
His crown is a recurring theme | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
and there are silver-plated fittings all over the car | 0:16:39 | 0:16:42 | |
and silk brocade upholstery around the throne itself. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
The original Rolls-Royce worksheet from the factory in Derby | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
shows that this unusually ornate car cost £1,500 - | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
enough to buy a sizable London house at the time. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:06 | |
With just 356 miles on the clock, the car was only ever brought out | 0:17:08 | 0:17:14 | |
for ceremonial purposes, and it's been lying unused since the 1930s. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:20 | |
I don't think there is another automobile | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
anywhere in the world which has been produced like that. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
I mean, just to call it a Throne Car itself is a very big thing. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:30 | |
That it was made for the King. It's a moving throne. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
His presence was there when he was sitting in the car | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
as His Royal Highness, The Nizam of Hyderabad. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
I mean, the car signifies that presence everywhere, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
whether it's parked without the Nizam sitting in it! | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
It still says it's a Throne Car. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
Time hasn't been kind to this car, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
but it endures as a tattered memorial | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
to the richest man in the world. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
By 1912, Rolls-Royces were gradually becoming the maharajas' car of choice. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
In some states, the sight of a Rolls-Royce | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
let the people know that their ruler was doing his rounds. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
Before the advent of the car | 0:18:27 | 0:18:29 | |
they would tour their estates on horseback, or in large processions, | 0:18:29 | 0:18:35 | |
and set up tented camps whenever they went to the villages. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
The car speeded up things, | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
but it was very useful in touring the states, meeting the people. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
And people would ride on the car and talk to the maharaja | 0:18:45 | 0:18:49 | |
as the car went along at a slow speed, | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
so it was a wonderful way of meeting the people. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
A Rolls-Royce was a more convenient way to travel, | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
but India's roads were designed for bullock carts, not cars. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:04 | |
When the car first came to India, the condition of the roads was deplorable to say the least, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:11 | |
except I think the roads that were frequented by the British authorities. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:16 | |
But in the princely states, they were really quite bad because until then, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:23 | |
there were only using carriages, elephants and horses or camels. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:28 | |
Luxury cars were soon forgotten when the First World War broke out in Europe. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
The Rolls-Royce company immediately stopped making cars, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
turning instead to aero engines | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
and chassis for ambulances and armoured vehicles. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
Meanwhile, a million Indian troops | 0:20:10 | 0:20:12 | |
found themselves defending the British Empire | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
in the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
After the First World War, I think it's fair to say | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
that many Indians began to really question, I guess, | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
the level of sacrifice that had been given in the cause of that conflict. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:31 | |
And, indeed, it was after that that nationalist sentiment within India | 0:20:31 | 0:20:37 | |
really, really began to take off. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
With nationalism came anti-British feeling, | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
and sometimes violence. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
But this did nothing to stem a flood of Indian inquiries for new Rolls-Royce cars. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:56 | |
The company's pre-war efforts in India were now bearing fruit. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:12 | |
While Henry Royce worked on the designs for a new model, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
the car production lines were restarted. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
As the orders poured in, Rolls-Royce continued its formula | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
of supplying customers with a chassis and engine, but no bodywork. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:32 | |
Bear in mind that with a Rolls-Royce you only ordered your chassis, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
the mechanical part, from Rolls-Royce. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
You then had it delivered to your favoured coachbuilder, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
who would build whatever body you would like on it. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
And, therefore, the maharajas were able to order these cars | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
completely tailored to what they wanted | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
by their individual coachbuilders. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
There were 400 coachbuilders to choose from across Europe, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
but most customers used London-based firms | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
like Barker, Hooper or Windovers. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
The process of ordering, building and delivering a tailor-made car | 0:22:08 | 0:22:12 | |
took time, and some maharajas couldn't be bothered to wait. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
Rolls-Royce therefore took the unusual step | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
of actually commissioning the top coachbuilders of the period | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
to body a number of different cars that were then sent out to India | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
so that the maharaja could walk into the showroom, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
say, "I'll have a red one, a blue one and a green one," and leave with it right away. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
That maharajas didn't have to go far for this instant gratification. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:39 | |
By 1921, Rolls-Royce had opened showrooms in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:46 | |
Rolls Royce, of course, in all their showrooms in India | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
which were subsequently opened, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:50 | |
had trained people and because they didn't want their cars, | 0:22:50 | 0:22:56 | |
their lovely cars to be misused, if asked for, they would supply drivers | 0:22:56 | 0:23:01 | |
who would treat the cars the way they ought to have been treated. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
Drivers trained by Rolls-Royce were sent out from Britain, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
and in some cases they stayed on in the service of a maharaja for many years. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:17 | |
Quite apart from drivers, when it came to after-sales service | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
no other car manufacturer came close to Rolls-Royce. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
They had a full set of workshops and any maharaja anywhere in India | 0:23:27 | 0:23:31 | |
could just write them a letter and say "my car has developed such and such problems" | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
and they would send in the mechanics to come and fix the car. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
And that is one of the reasons the maharajas were very happy with Rolls-Royce. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:43 | |
This car is an example of the new model that Henry Royce had been working on since the end of the war. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
It was launched in 1922 and it was called the 20, | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
after its 20-horsepower, three-litre engine. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
20s were smaller and lighter than Rolls-Royce's only other model, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
the Silver Ghost. They were cheaper, too. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:09 | |
A little over half price, at £1,100 for the chassis. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
Add another £400 for the bodywork, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
and the total is around £60,000 in today's money. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
The introduction of the baby Rolls-Royce heralded a golden age for exports. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:30 | |
The Great Gatsby brought to life in India. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
During that golden period the Maharaja of Patiala, | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
the Maharaja of Bharatpur, the Maharaja of Mysore, | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
many of the big estates in Rajasthan bought fleets and fleets of these cars. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:02 | |
But they were not just one or two sales, they were sales by the dozens in India. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
One of the most prolific Rolls-Royce buyers in India of the era | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
was the Maharaja of Patiala, not a man used to doing things by halves! | 0:25:11 | 0:25:15 | |
He had no fewer than 44 Rolls-Royces, | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
to go with the 300 ladies in his harem. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
The other character was the Maharaja of Mysore, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
who used to buy his Rolls-Royces by the half-dozen. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
In fact, it's said that at the factory in the period, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
"Doing a Mysore" was an expression they coined | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
for anybody who bought more than six cars at a time. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
With more and more cars arriving in India, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
each maharaja wanted individuality. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
Some demanded faster cars, a horrifying prospect for Rolls-Royce. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:59 | |
An internal company memo warned that, | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
"the serpent of speed and power has entered this company | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
"and is likely to poison its existence," | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
and also stated that anyone promoting faster cars would be sacked. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:12 | |
Apart from increased performance, there was an almost insatiable demand for precious materials, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:19 | |
sophisticated new equipment and every manner of in-car accessory. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:26 | |
Coachbuilders were kept busy with the clean, modern lines of the new Art Deco, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:31 | |
all the rage with India's fashion-conscious royalty. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
But fashion didn't always dictate the style of a new Rolls-Royce. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:46 | |
Sometimes tradition was more important. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
In the more conservative households, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
royal women lived in a state of purdah, | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
unseen by any men apart from their maharaja. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:59 | |
The purdah ladies had traditionally travelled in covered conveyances, or palanquins, | 0:27:01 | 0:27:06 | |
but a Rolls-Royce with thick curtains to hide behind was more comfortable. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:12 | |
Leaving the car was quite a performance. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
When a lady got down from the car, | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
there were a lot of intricate procedures. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
All the ladies would enter a kind of square curtain contraption | 0:27:23 | 0:27:29 | |
so that nobody could see them. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:31 | |
It was a very strange way of travelling, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
with curtains and these frames just to ensure their privacy. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:40 | |
Manvendra Singh looks after a collection of Rolls-Royces in Central India. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:49 | |
One of them is a purdah car that was made for a princess in the remote state of Darbhanga. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:54 | |
This is one of the great purdah cars, made for the Maharani of Darbhanga. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:01 | |
It's a Phantom 1, and known as the Bar Car. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
It's called the Bar Car because it has a bar! | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
The Maharani was not allowed to drink in the palace | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
and she would go out in the evening drive in this specially built car, | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
and she would have a drink. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:18 | |
And her lady-in-waiting who would would serve the drink would be sitting there. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:22 | |
Unfortunately for the Maharani, there was only one short stretch of paved roads in Darbhanga, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:27 | |
so she was driven up and down it repeatedly while she finished her gin. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:32 | |
Hunting, or shikaar, was another royal activity | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
that opened up a big market for Rolls-Royce. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
The cars were tough enough to cope with cross-country driving, | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
even at speed. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:56 | |
On one hunting trip, Lord Louis Mountbatten | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
described a maharaja's Rolls-Royce going "over wild, open country, | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
"smashing through holes and over boulders, heaving and rocking like a boat at sea." | 0:29:07 | 0:29:13 | |
This magnificent car was built to order for the Maharaja of Bharatpur. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:25 | |
It's a Phantom 1, which was the model Rolls-Royce introduced in 1925 | 0:29:27 | 0:29:32 | |
to replace the Silver Ghost, | 0:29:32 | 0:29:33 | |
which had been in production for almost 20 years. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
This one was specially designed | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
for long-range tiger-hunting expeditions. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
History doesn't relate how much it was used, | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
and Bharatpur was, in fact, much more famous for duck-hunting. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:52 | |
The windscreen has fold-up grilles, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:56 | |
supposedly to stop a tiger from smashing the glass. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
There's a sliding roof in the driver's compartment | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
that gives an elevated shooting platform. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:06 | |
The back section converts into a full-length bed for the maharaja's comfort. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:12 | |
And there are steel mesh grilles to keep the mosquitoes out, | 0:30:14 | 0:30:18 | |
but allowing air to circulate freely. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
In Udaipur, there are still herds of chital deer | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
that were once hunted by the maharanas. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:41 | |
To reach his hunting grounds, Maharana Bhupal Singh | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
used this stripped-down Rolls-Royce shooting brake. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
He was a keen hunter, but he was also paralysed from the waist down, | 0:30:55 | 0:31:00 | |
so he ordered a special car from Rolls-Royce. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
This car was originally made for the Maharana | 0:31:04 | 0:31:09 | |
Bhupal Singh of Mewar, who was, I'm told, handicapped, | 0:31:09 | 0:31:13 | |
so it was specially made for him | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
so that he could drive the car with his hands alone. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
All the foot controls can be operated by hand - | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
clutch, brakes and accelerator. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
ENGINE REVS | 0:31:27 | 0:31:29 | |
This technology was way ahead of its time, | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
an example of Rolls-Royce's willingness to do whatever it took | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
to service their customers' every need. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:39 | |
Old photographs show the Maharana of Udaipur | 0:31:41 | 0:31:44 | |
as a passenger in his Rolls-Royces, but never behind the wheel. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:49 | |
I had never seen him drive it, somehow, | 0:31:49 | 0:31:53 | |
but at the same time Rolls-Royce was good enough to manufacture a car | 0:31:53 | 0:32:00 | |
for the challenged as far back as that, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
which in itself makes that car very unique. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
While this car was designed and engineered | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
at the Rolls-Royce factory back in Derby, | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
others were adapted for special purposes in India itself. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:20 | |
In 1923, a formal Thrupp & Maberly limousine | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
was shipped out from England to Udaipur. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
Today, it looks like a Jeep, | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
after a radical redesign by the current maharana's father. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:43 | |
The whole designing was done in our own garage. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
There was no such thing as going to a professional person | 0:32:47 | 0:32:51 | |
who was a coach, who was used to designing coaches. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:56 | |
This was something which was his passion | 0:32:56 | 0:33:00 | |
and he decided to do it. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:01 | |
It may look like a Jeep, but the car was designed for very particular purpose. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:08 | |
It's surely the world's only Rolls-Royce cricket car, | 0:33:21 | 0:33:25 | |
specially bodied to transport the Udaipur team to their fixtures. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:29 | |
From purdah to hunting and even cricket, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
there was a Rolls-Royce for all occasions. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
But what did these cars represent | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
in the British-ruled India of the 1920s? | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
Of course, for a prince to own a Rolls-Royce at the time | 0:33:55 | 0:33:59 | |
was a luxury accessory, part of his lifestyle. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
But it also served an important role as a status symbol, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
not only to remind the prince's own subjects who was in charge, | 0:34:05 | 0:34:10 | |
but also - and perhaps more importantly - | 0:34:10 | 0:34:12 | |
to remind the British that they weren't the only ones wielding power, | 0:34:12 | 0:34:17 | |
but above all wealth. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:19 | |
When you see old photographs of British rulers and officials | 0:34:20 | 0:34:23 | |
riding around in Rolls-Royces in India in the period, | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
you naturally assume that the British owned the cars, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
but the Rolls-Royces in India at the time | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
were so expensive the British couldn't actually afford them. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
Almost invariably, these are cars owned by maharajas | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
who have extended their use as a courtesy to their British visitors. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
So when you look at the number of cars sold to the British officials | 0:34:43 | 0:34:49 | |
as compared to what's sold to the maharajas, the number of cars | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
would be just 2% to the British and 98% to the maharajas. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:58 | |
Rolls-Royces became symbols in the complex status rivalry | 0:35:03 | 0:35:07 | |
played out between the maharajas and the British officials. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:11 | |
I think the relationship between the Indian princes | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
and the British royalty as well as the authorities who were in India | 0:35:18 | 0:35:23 | |
was a very strange one, because I think | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
they were constantly playing games with each other, | 0:35:26 | 0:35:29 | |
almost like a one-upmanship game. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
An imposing Rolls-Royce was part and parcel of these games, | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
where protocol was wielded as a subtle weapon. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
One revealing incident involved the Maharani of Baroda, | 0:35:41 | 0:35:45 | |
who took her granddaughter | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
to call on the Viceroy's wife, Lady Willingdon. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
The princesses arrived at exactly the appointed time, but | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
the notoriously rude Lady Willingdon kept them waiting...and waiting. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:02 | |
The granddaughter recounted the story to me. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
The grandmother kept telling her, "Don't get down. Keep sitting." | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
And she kept asking Lady Willingdon's ADC, "Where is Lady Willingdon? " | 0:36:13 | 0:36:18 | |
and she sat in her car till Lady Willingdon actually came out to receive them and only then | 0:36:18 | 0:36:24 | |
did she tell her granddaughter, "Now we can get down." | 0:36:24 | 0:36:29 | |
Their dignity intact, the ladies could at last leave | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
the safe haven of their car and follow their formidable hostess. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:37 | |
Protocol was not an issue in the princely state of Barakpur, | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
but the extravagance of the maharaja was out of control. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:50 | |
His passion for Rolls-Royce motorcars almost bankrupted the state. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
As a wide-eyed 12-year-old, Maharaja Kishan Singh had attended the Delhi Durbar. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:07 | |
When he was 19, his mother died and the previously well-behaved | 0:37:07 | 0:37:12 | |
young prince started spending money like water. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:17 | |
His Highness the Maharaja of Barakpur, Kishan Singh, | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
was a great spendthrift, and on one of his notable occasions | 0:37:20 | 0:37:25 | |
in the 1920s, he went England, ordered five Rolls-Royces, | 0:37:25 | 0:37:32 | |
18 Purdey guns and a number of most exotic other personal possessions to take back with him. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:39 | |
Money was no object and he had this fascination with motorcars. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:44 | |
Peter Vacher now owns one of the Barakpur Rolls-Royces and keeps it at his home in Oxfordshire. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:57 | |
It's another 20, the hugely popular baby Rolls-Royce of the 1920s. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:02 | |
This particular car was built as a dowry car. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:07 | |
In other words, it was given as a wedding present. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
It was given as a wedding present for a wedding at Barakpur | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
to go with the bride to her new home, but it never left Barakpur, in fact. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:23 | |
Just as in grand Indian weddings today, the Barakpur dowry was huge, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
with piles of jewellery, fine fabrics and even an elephant. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:39 | |
But it seems that the Rolls-Royce was just one gift too many, and the bridal party left it behind, | 0:38:41 | 0:38:48 | |
despite the fact that the maharaja had loaded it with fancy extras. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:53 | |
His Highness ordered so many extras to be fitted to the car. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:59 | |
For example, he was very keen on warning devices, so he had the original Rolls-Royce klaxon horn... | 0:38:59 | 0:39:05 | |
KLAXON HORN BLARES | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
..a Bosch electric horn mounted in front of the radiator... | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
ELECTRIC HORN BLARES | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
..a traditional boa constrictor horn... | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
BOA CONSTRICTOR HORN RASPS | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
Those three warning devices were for clearing human riff-raff out of the way. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:25 | |
Should, however, a sacred cow block your way, it was considered much more respectful to use your bell. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:32 | |
BELL RINGS | 0:39:32 | 0:39:34 | |
On the front of the car there is a very large bumper, and I assume that | 0:39:36 | 0:39:41 | |
if the sacred cow did not move out of the way, it was given a gentle nudge. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:46 | |
All of Barakpur's flamboyant Rolls-Royces had treble bumpers | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
and horn racks mounted in front of the radiators. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
The maharaja's passion for these cars nearly ruined his state, | 0:40:05 | 0:40:09 | |
and the British would probably have deposed him if he hadn't died young in 1929. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:14 | |
I think it's fair to say that the Maharaja of Barakpur was one of just very few who actually gave | 0:40:17 | 0:40:23 | |
the princes a bad name in the late colonial period. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:27 | |
Gandhi himself had actually expressed admiration for many of | 0:40:27 | 0:40:32 | |
the princely administrations but his disciple and successor, Nehru, was a committed republican, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:40 | |
with the effect that an India with Nehru at the helm was an India that had no place for the princes. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:48 | |
The writing was on the wall, but the maharajas ignored it and the Rolls-Royces kept on coming. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:59 | |
This streamlined Phantom II Continental is a fine example of | 0:41:01 | 0:41:04 | |
the company's increasingly sophisticated 1930s cars. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:08 | |
With underslung rear suspension, Phantom IIs could carry lower, more rakish body styles. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:23 | |
This car was delivered to one of Rajasthan's most powerful maharajas as late as 1936. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:30 | |
The Rolls-Royce archive shows that it was built for the Maharaja of Jodhpur | 0:41:32 | 0:41:36 | |
in 1935, ordered in 1935, delivered in 1936. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
From what I hear, it was manufactured for the maharaja's mistress at the time, and by the time | 0:41:40 | 0:41:47 | |
that the car arrived, which was about a year after it was ordered, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
he had apparently fallen out with the mistress and so the car was just parked and never really used. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:57 | |
By now, as millions of their countrymen were dreaming of an independent India, | 0:41:57 | 0:42:02 | |
the reputation of the princely rulers had been tarnished. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:06 | |
There had been a succession of scandals. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:14 | |
There was a famous case in the 1920s in which a prostitute | 0:42:17 | 0:42:22 | |
blackmailed a mysterious Mr A, but it was | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
widely known that this was the heir to the Kashmir throne, Hari Singh. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:31 | |
Meanwhile, the ruler of Alwar was variously described by British officials as "a modern Caligula" | 0:42:38 | 0:42:44 | |
and "sinister beyond belief". | 0:42:44 | 0:42:49 | |
Another story about the Maharaja of Alwar, who incidentally is said to | 0:42:49 | 0:42:53 | |
have used old ladies as tiger bait, is that he was once poorly received in a Rolls-Royce showroom in London. | 0:42:53 | 0:43:00 | |
Later that day, he sent one of his lackeys back to the showroom | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
with instructions to buy all the cars. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
They were then shipped off to India, where they were promptly converted to dustbin trucks. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:11 | |
Is it true? Who knows? | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
But it's a good story to illustrate the kind of extravagant gestures | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
that the Indian maharajas were known for at the time. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
While the maharajas' reputations were under scrutiny, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
the Rolls-Royce company was facing a different threat. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:30 | |
By the time the sophisticated Phantom III model | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
was introduced in 1936, there was stiff competition from the American manufacturers. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:43 | |
Rolls-Royce, in all respects, was a heavy car | 0:43:43 | 0:43:48 | |
and at times the maharajas found that the bulkiness of the car, | 0:43:48 | 0:43:52 | |
although it outperformed a lot of other cars in a similar category, was still a heavy car. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:57 | |
When the Americans came in with the lightweight tourers, the maharajas found that | 0:43:57 | 0:44:03 | |
these cars were easier to drive, were very reliable, too, and at the same time, | 0:44:03 | 0:44:09 | |
if you bought one Rolls-Royce, you could buy four of these cars. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:14 | |
That's how these cars became popular. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
The maharajas thought, "Why should I buy one Rolls-Royce? Let me buy four Fords." | 0:44:16 | 0:44:20 | |
But a Rolls-Royce was still a Rolls-Royce and still claimed to be the best car in the world. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:29 | |
# There's a somebody I'm longing to see | 0:44:29 | 0:44:36 | |
# I hope that he | 0:44:36 | 0:44:38 | |
# Turns out to be | 0:44:38 | 0:44:41 | |
# The one to watch over me... # | 0:44:41 | 0:44:47 | |
April 1957, and as Europe edged ever closer to war, Rolls-Royces were still being imported to India. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:54 | |
This magnificent tourer was built for an Indian prince, with its distinctive body style | 0:44:55 | 0:45:00 | |
from the fashionable Gurney Nutting coach works of Chelsea, SW3. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:05 | |
# Although he may not be the man... # | 0:45:05 | 0:45:08 | |
With spats covering the rear wheels and rich cream paintwork, it's a restrained English version of | 0:45:08 | 0:45:14 | |
Parisian and Hollywood styles of the time. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:17 | |
PEACOCK CRIES | 0:45:28 | 0:45:29 | |
PEACOCK CRIES | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
By now, the light of the British Raj was fading fast, and so was the power of the princes. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:41 | |
Too late, they realised that their world was about to change beyond all recognition. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
As five years of war raged across the world, | 0:45:51 | 0:45:55 | |
the British Government prepared to relinquish its hold on India. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:08 | |
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, | 0:46:08 | 0:46:14 | |
India will awake to life and freedom. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
CHEERING | 0:46:19 | 0:46:24 | |
As Nehru's words rang out on August 15th, 1947, independent India was born and | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
the final chapters in Rolls-Royce's Indian story began. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:39 | |
Almost overnight, the rule of the maharajas was replaced by a democratic government | 0:46:42 | 0:46:48 | |
and any desire for luxury cars evaporated. | 0:46:48 | 0:46:50 | |
Rolls-Royce closed its Indian showrooms in the early 1950s | 0:46:56 | 0:47:01 | |
and sales in the sub-continent all but disappeared. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:04 | |
India's largest vintage car collection in Gujarat is | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
a microcosm of the country's rich automotive history. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
The collection's owner, Pranlal Bhogilal, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
bought many of them from maharajas who started to sell them off in the 1950s after independence. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:29 | |
It was a time when | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
maharajas were feeling great pressure | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
because they had really no use because the court life had ended. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
They had really no use for these huge cars. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
They were difficult to maintain and the privileges had gone, | 0:47:42 | 0:47:46 | |
their incomes had diminished. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
I think they were also not in a frame of mind to use these cars. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
It was a depressing state at the time, | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
and that's how the collection started. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
Pranlal Bhogilal's collection is by far the largest in India, with more than 250 cars. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:11 | |
Among them are 20 of the 840 Rolls-Royces that were exported to India before independence. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:17 | |
Where are the rest? | 0:48:21 | 0:48:23 | |
Out of the 840 cars, I would say India has about 200 cars. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:36 | |
Most of the cars have been scrapped | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
and some part, I would say another 250 to 300 cars, were exported out of the country. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:45 | |
But I would say 300 plus cars got scrapped, | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
went to the junkyards. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
In an effort to protect its motoring heritage, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
the government of India banned the export of vintage cars in 1972. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:01 | |
But up until then it was a free-for-all. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
The princes at that stage were not interested. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:10 | |
Some of them were, if it had belonged to | 0:49:10 | 0:49:15 | |
his grandfather, he didn't want to sell it, and that sort of thing. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:19 | |
But otherwise, a lot of them got rid of them and | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
you could buy a Rolls-Royce for 2,000 rupees, and some went for even less. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:28 | |
You could find dozens and dozens of cars all over the place for nothing. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:35 | |
2,000 rupees is about £25 in today's money. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:41 | |
European car collectors in the '60s and early '70s couldn't get enough of these inexpensive Rolls-Royces | 0:49:41 | 0:49:47 | |
coming out of India still in completely unspoilt condition. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
But even after the ban in the early 1970s, a number of unscrupulous individuals still managed to smuggle | 0:49:51 | 0:49:57 | |
cars out of India, dismantled and labelled as machine parts. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:01 | |
This 1930 Phantom II wasn't smuggled to its present home in Wiltshire, | 0:50:12 | 0:50:18 | |
but it did have an unusual journey to get here. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:20 | |
The story begins with a honeymoon of the Honourable Patrick and Lady Annabel Lindsay | 0:50:38 | 0:50:45 | |
in Jaipur, Rajasthan in December 1955. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:48 | |
We had the most wonderful, wonderful time. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
While we were there, my husband admired all the cars - there were | 0:50:59 | 0:51:05 | |
lots of cars - and they were in garages and all over the place. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
Patrick's always been a car enthusiast, and the maharaja said to him, as he admired | 0:51:08 | 0:51:15 | |
this enormous great Rolls-Royce, "Well, you can have it, if you drive it back to England." | 0:51:15 | 0:51:19 | |
So, years later, he turned up on the doorstep and he said, "Fine, take it." So he took it. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:27 | |
In 1962, Patrick Lindsay and his friend, Ian Graham, arrived in Jaipur to collect the car. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:37 | |
After some routine maintenance, they set out for London, passing into Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass | 0:51:39 | 0:51:46 | |
and stopping by the Buddhas of Bamiyan. | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
I think we were extraordinarily lucky to have seen everything before it all was sent to smithereens. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:58 | |
It was the greatest trip of my life. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:02 | |
I couldn't have expected anything | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
more educative or exciting | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
or productive in getting this marvellous car back and | 0:52:07 | 0:52:14 | |
giving it a good home. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:18 | |
We gave one or two lifts to people on the way, who looked as if they weren't going to cause us any harm. | 0:52:18 | 0:52:25 | |
It was a trouble-free trip. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:29 | |
It was quite amazing. Once, we got the oil changed. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:32 | |
After that we didn't have to do anything new. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:36 | |
The car made it as far as Basra, more than 2,500 road miles from Jaipur, | 0:52:38 | 0:52:44 | |
and it was shipped back to London from there. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
During its 80-year lifetime, this car has travelled a full circle, | 0:52:52 | 0:52:58 | |
from the works in Derby to the royal garage in Jaipur, | 0:52:58 | 0:53:03 | |
and back home again, | 0:53:03 | 0:53:06 | |
a journey that brings to a close the story of Rolls-Royce in India. | 0:53:06 | 0:53:11 | |
For the first 50 years of the 20th century, Rolls-Royce cars | 0:53:25 | 0:53:29 | |
played their part as symbols of the power of the maharajas. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
They bore witness to the complex relationship between India and Britain. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:37 | |
Some of the cars are well looked after, | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
some have disappeared | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
and still more are yet to be discovered. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:52 | |
What's clear is that the maharajas' motor car has lost none of its timeless appeal. | 0:53:56 | 0:54:02 | |
Through all these decades, the Rolls-Royce name has endured in India, and I think it still | 0:54:04 | 0:54:10 | |
symbolises prestige and wealth as it did in the time of the maharajas. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:16 | |
When you look at one of these unspoilt Rolls-Royces, one of these | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
survivors from this golden era, they really provide you with a window onto a period of glamour, | 0:54:22 | 0:54:29 | |
extravagance and in many ways romance, I think the likes of which we'll never see again. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:35 | |
It makes a statement that you have arrived. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:45 | |
And that's perhaps, | 0:54:45 | 0:54:48 | |
in a nutshell, | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
what Rolls-Royce means to most of us. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:52 | |
And it automatically provides you with an identity. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:57 | |
Across India, times are changing | 0:55:03 | 0:55:07 | |
and the reign of the maharajas is a distant memory. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
Their surviving cars are relics of a forgotten time and place, | 0:55:12 | 0:55:16 | |
when one manufacture's mechanical elephant held India in its thrall. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:21 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:55:28 | 0:55:32 |