Hyderabad duo wins award in vintage car show

Veda Kumar and Keshav Rao win Best in Class award for their rare Willys Station Wagon, manufactured in 1961

Hyderabad: As the best of cars from across India lined up at the 10th edition of 21 Gun Salute Concours d’Elegance Vintage Car Show at Vadodara, city-based Veda Kumar and his nephew Keshav Rao won the Mahindra and Mahindra, Best in Class award for their rare Willys Station Wagon, manufactured in 1961.

The vehicle participated in this event as it was all assembled by Mahindra and is one of the cars that was progressively manufactured and supplied by them, said Keshav, a vintage car enthusiast who is into freelance restoration.

“Before the foreign imports were stopped and Indian manufacturing started completely, many foreign companies brought in Knock Down Kits and assembled the cars in India. Willys Station Wagon falls in this category,” he added.

Veda Kumar has a passion for automobiles and this one in specific, as these cars were not supplied to everyone. He developed a liking for this vehicle and bought it around the early ’90s from the Fire department.

“Veda Kumar owns this car for about three decades now, he used it for 15-20 years and as we saw these cars were becoming rare and scarce in the 2000s, we thought of restoring it to its original condition,” said Keshav. The car was restored ten years ago and they received an invite to the event, where they won the best in class for the vehicle.

Apart from this, Veda Kumar owns more than six vintage cars. “I have a 1949 Dodge Bus B-Series, owned previously by the Nizams of Hyderabad, a 1960 Willys Wagon Pick Up truck, a 1949 Plymouth, and others,” he said.

With the parking facility becoming difficult in the city, he is making a special arrangement to store all the cars at his farm.