Years ago, while growing up in Calcutta, a powder blue Standard Herald, registration number WBG 4492, was the family’s car of choice for commuting. One day, a shiny black Premier President barged into the garage and the little Herald was left to rot in the open – there being space for only one car in the garage. Everybody took to the new car, except me that is, for I was in love with that Herald – my favourite car.

I couldn’t bear seeing the rest of the family gallivanting around in the President while the Herald lay forlorn and uncared and one day, in connivance with the family chauffeur while the parents were out for their walk, I gleefully took the battery from the President and installed it in the Herald. Having cleaned the sparking plugs and (gleefully again) transferred a bit of petrol from the Padmini into the Herald, it was sheer joy to hear the Herald’s engine running again. I had to get it on the road and so, after stopping briefly only to check tyre pressures, I was soon being chauffeured (not being of driving age) in bliss down a rather empty road rushing past everybody – including a couple of very surprised (and angry, as it turned out later) parents.

Later that day, I was summoned to the dining room where I was told off in no uncertain terms – the main point being that I had nearly caused the chauffeur to lose his job, not to mention how it was so dangerous to drive an old car at such high (!) speeds.

Many years later, I had the privilege of visiting and spending a day at the celebrated Brands Hatch racing circuit in the South of England. The programme for the day was motor racing of course, but racing of a very different kind – it was a racing meet for historic cars. In other words, ‘old cars’ being driven, nay raced, at ‘high speed.’

It was like dying and going to my kind of ideal heaven. That day at Brands Hatch will be etched in my mind forever. Sitting in India, the closest one gets to classics like the ones racing is by reading about and seeing pictures in expensive, glossy coffee-table books and also, the Internet. To be able to walk into the paddock and just go up to the owner of, say, a Lancia Montecarlo to exchange views was truly an amazing feeling.

Coming back to the events of the day, there were races for open-wheeled Formula Junior cars, which included names like Lolas, Elvas, a few Lotuses – model 18, 20, 22 and 27 – Coopers and Brabhams dating back to 1959, and even a 498cc Kieft built in 1954. I was disappointed not to see any Stanguellinis because this Italian marque won the 1959 World Formula Junior championship with cars based around highly tuned (close to 100bhp) Fiat 1100 (Premier Padmini in India) engines. All the cars being in excellent racing condition, one was put to the task of attempting to catch these little pocket-rockets on camera.

After that, very interesting machinery took to the track – Morgans, Chevrolet Camaros, Jaguar E-Types and XKs, Triumph TR4s and 5s, Porsche 911s – all dating from 1964 to 1965 (around the same vintage as the family Herald) being driven on the limit. That’s only half the story. What was most impressive was the race for Formula 2 cars, dating back to between 1967 and 1977. It was hard to decide what was more exciting – the smell of racing fuel or the ear-splitting exhaust crackle from Chevrons, Ralts, Marches, Brabhams and Surtees being driven at the limit on the demanding layout of Brands Hatch. Almost as exciting and awe-inspiring was the hammer and tongs battle between the SuperSports cars that included Can Am cars (March, BRMs, and McLarens) with their 8-litre (!) engines racing ahead of smaller engined but very potent rivals like Osella, Lola and Chevron.

The thought that struck me that day, and keeps coming back, is the fact that Westerners like to look after their motoring heritage. India has heritage too, as motorsport in India has been around for over a 100 years… yes, over a hundred years. But who knows where the cars are today? Whatever is left is probably lying around in warehouses, garages, fields and scrap yards in very decrepit condition, i.e. if they have not been broken up and sold for whatever the metal fetches. I stumbled upon one such car on a visit to Bombay recently. The fact is that Indian motorsport has seen a number of interesting cars racing. Thanks to expatriates, racing thrived and so did the building of ‘specials’ – The Bijou, the Bijou 2, the Delilah, etc., were names given to various racing ‘specials.’

In later years, there was the Formula Indian class – a class unique to India with the cars being based around Fiat and Ambassador engines. Then there was the Maharaja of Gondal’s Gondal Special, based around a modified Jaguar engine. One remembers that fabulous duel between the Maharaja in his Gondal Special and the late Karivardhan in his Black Beauty at Barrackpore in more recent times? Karivardhan raced 90 laps through the day in various different formulae. Then there was the stirring sight of the lone Standard Herald from Madras (Dr. Saboo perhaps) running the Fiats from Bombay ragged, giving the Fiat drivers Jehangir Bharucha and Vimal Shah a big headache, until it came unstuck in the chicane and went into the haystacks.

It’s a pity that there is no museum for Indian motorsport – a Donnington Collection or even Gaydon. Any cars that still exist today could be restored and preserved with respect – they were the stepping stones, the tools for learning in their day. Perhaps they could be taken out and driven in anger too, just like the historic racers I saw in the UK. All that the young ‘uns know today is to spend money, bolt on parts and go faster in their Gypsys, Honda Citys and Maruti Esteems – it’s all a question of who has the money. Idiots have nitrous injection in their street cars for a quick burst of power and then nothing except a pending bill post the next top-up.

The seventies were a time of innovation, of trying to get the maximum out of what was available. It may surprise a few people to know that a lovingly prepared, well-tuned and properly-geared racing Fiat (Padmini) could touch anything between 175-185kph in a straight line, with engines reputed to rev up to a peak of 9000rpm. What would be a dream come true is finding WBG 4492 somewhere, some day… and hanging on to a bit of my own personal history. Someday, perhaps…