It is a fact that motorsport in India started in Calcutta, and the first motor sports club was the 'Calcutta Motor Sports Club', As early as 1949 a certain group of Englishmen raced home made Sports cars around disused airstrips around Calcutta, this was long before my time so my stories are based on tales told to me by my dad (who himself raced a front wheel drive Citroen in those days), and the greatest of Indian motorsport, such as Kinny Lal, Mr Ferozshah, Mr Suresh Kumar, not forgetting Tarapoda Shah, who to the best of my knowledge is the only Indian to have raced at the famous 'Iles of Mann' TT races. The racing started at a track called Kancharapara, then moved to Barrackpore to a disused horse racing track, when I was a little boy I remember going to the track at Alipore, just past the Britannia biscuit factory, the sight and sounds and the smells that came from these outings with my dad are still firmly entrenched in my mind, to see those cars scream around bends, Kinny was there, Peter Adams was there in a red and white Fiat with huge spacers on the wheels, open exhausts, there were no Sennas, or Schumachers, just names that did just the same to me, like Mike Satow, gee, with a name like that, speed just had to follow! Every one used cross ply tyres and to walk around the pits and see those tyres with the outer edge completely bald, was just amazing. Castrol would make a special oil for these racing cars and it had a beautiful smell, sweet. It was around this time that someone built the 'Q'MARRI', I still don't know who built it, but it was there then, the motoring legend Kinny drove this car in Sholavaram in Madras, I was the next person to drive this car at Sholavaram, more on that later, let me get back to what I was saying. The car was based on an Ambassador, it had the Ambi block but an absolute gem of a head, it was a 'Derrington' cross flow head with valves the size of dinner plates, they were really big, it had the Ambi torsion bar suspension up front, and an independent rear, it had two 40mm DCOE Weber carbys, a high lift cam, a tiny gearlever, with the shortest action shift that I had ever seen. It had a ambi diff cage with fabricated stub axles to link it up to the independent rear suspension. It was very quick in those days. Finally the day came when we took her down to Sholavaram. For her return to Sholavaram we fitted her with a Fiat engine bored out to 1198cc, fully ported and balanced the motor, then put double sprung valves, large diameter, and a F3Y cam ground by Piper in England, we used a Fiat gearbox, but had to swap the Webers for two solex carbys, Rules rules!!, Sholavaram had never seen such a sexy formula Indian (as they were called) OK so before someone jumps up and down, beauty lies in the hands of the beholder, so there. It was a dream come true to drive her at a race track.

Year I went back to Calcutta for a short holiday and went to my friends house in Jadavpur where she lies................it was sad.....she had been unlicenced so I could not take her out for a spin, but she was there, well kept, unfortunately we didn't start her up , so I didn't even get to hear her, but she was there. With the arrival of the formula one circuits in Calcutta, I hope , she gets to be driven around a world standard track, If your reading this article I'll take it for granted that you are a petrol head interested in speed or in making your car faster, safer or more comfy. I happen to fall in to the first category, 'Faster and handle better'. Since the motor car was invented men have always mixed their cars with their women, and even today we can class some of the new cars, let me see if you agree with me.

The new Audi TT.................Sexy

The new VEE DUB Beetle ....Cute

The Subaru Wrx,Sti...............Raunchy

The NEW porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet.......classy, agree ????.

Well I could go on and on, but I guess if you did'nt see the similarity then this is where you find this article boring. Long before I reached puberty cars were named after women, the most famous was of course Damlier Benz's daughter Mercedes, I can only imagine her to be extremely beautiful, and even I raced an old girl by the name of "DELILAH" that was on the 26th of march 1978, at a dirt track race track on the outskirts of Calcutta called Barrackpore. The event organised by the oldest motorsports club in India the ‘Calcutta Motor Sports Club', or the C.M.S.C. as we knew it then, have a look at the picture of this car. I found it in mess lying at the back of a friends workshop. It was love at first sight, it was based on an old Riley, with a twin over head rocker system (no not cam shafts), cross flow head, dome pistons, with the spark plugs bang in the center of the combustion chamber, It had a Fiat diff and a "crash " three speed gearbox which made double-declutching a necessity , when changing down, it had a strange thing on the electrical system which I'd never seen before , it was called a 'Magneto", wooh we had never seen such an advanced racing car back then , all you needed to do was push the car and it would start, no battery needed. The best part was that when we got her ready we could not start her, it kept popping and back firing, and all the symptoms led to the timing, I remember sitting on the side of the road checking the firing order..1...3...4...2, check it again/// 1..3..4...2 yup it ok , still it wouldn't start, then while we were fiddling an old roadside mistiri walked up to me and said in Hindi " Saab aapka phiring order is not theek hai" By now I had had enough so I smiled at him and said " tum Karo" with that the old man bent over the bonnet changed some of the plug wires and bang it started, it seems these old pommie cars had a diffrent firing order something like 1243 I can't remember for sure. I can admit that embarrassing moment now but not then.

When I came to live in Perth Western Australia much to my amusement I saw a car that took me straight back to my racing days, look at the picture of "Sabrina" very elegant and oh so smooth, as I did my research I found out that this lovely lady was actually named after a real person. If you look through clouded eyes you can see that Sabrina the car, has the very sensuous lines of the D type jaguars , but in reality Sabrina is classified as a group LB (don't know) but she competes with other cars built after the war but before 1960. She is powered by an Austin Healy 3000 motor and is super charged drawing through two 50 mm SU's it still has the original Healy gearbox with close ratio straight cut gears, the braking is not allowed to be modified which means that after a few laps brake fade usually sets in , just like the Ambassadors at the Sholavaram tracks.