Osian's Auction Catalogue Automobilia The Art of the Historical Vehicle | October 2018

Automobilia: The Art of the Historical Vehicle 15 Half way through 1928, the engine was enlarged, to 5.5-litres (337 cubic inches). Though, as many as 8,000 FA Presidents were produced, just a handful survive in the world today. The FA President featured in these pages was sent by Studebaker to India as a demonstrator to perhaps attract and wean away the rajas and the maharajas off their staple Rolls-Royces. One raja, Kamalaranjan Roy, the Raja of Cossimbazar (some 230km from Kolkata) was very much taken up by the car, and he managed to acquire it. Since then, the car has remained in the family, passed down through generations, and preserved in a fairly decent state of conservation, with an occasional repaint. The raja’s grandson, Pallab Roy, decided to restore the car in 2012, and four years later, this rare and perhaps unique limousine has been brought back to a fabulous, almost new state, with everything either restored or replaced with original parts sourced from all over, amongst which is an electrically- operated Autofone that connects the passengers’ cabin to that of the driver’s! 1930 Auburn 6-85 Phateon Sedan One of the more prestigious American marques ever, the Auburn Automobile Company had considerable success initially, but by 1924, the company was floundering. With deepening financial woes, Auburn hired a rising star in the car industry, 30-year-old Errett Lobban Cord, to help revive the company. The young car salesman brought in J M Crawford who redesigned the 1925 year models, making them into handsome and well built cars that soon saw its popularity rising. In 1926, when the average increase in sales for American carmakers was just one per cent, Auburn’s sales were up 52 per cent! Auburn’s mainstay was the Six Supreme engine, sourced from Continental initially, which powered a family of six-cylindered-engine car models that represented the automaker’s backbone through the 1990s. Launched as the Beauty Six in 1919, the models were described as the Auburn 6-39 at the beginning, with 6 indicating the number of cylinders and the 39, the developed horsepower. The 6-39 evolved to the Auburn 6-43, then to the 6-63, eventually to the 6-66. This Auburn – owned by Kolkata-based car collector Partha Sadan Bose – is a five-passenger all-weather 6-85 from 1930, which has been restored and painted in a typical Auburn orange-and-black two-tone. How the Auburn was acquired by Bose is a story by itself. Since new, the Auburn had been one of the many cars of the Shobhabazar Rajbari family, the Debs, in North Calcutta, and Bose had hankered after it for many years. But the family was not selling, as it was deemed to be beneath their dignity to do so, even if the jalopy was falling apart. Finally when they did agree to give away the car (or what was left of it), they wanted to do just that – give away the car to Bose. But as Partha Sadan Bose didn’t want to get the car for ‘free’, the agreed upon deal was to send across to the Rajbari a huge pot of a traditional Bengali milk-based sweetmeat called rabri! 1930 Bentley 8-Litre When in 1922, LeMans-based Automobile Club de l’Ouest announced the creation of a new type of competition, an endurance test - the world’s first 24 hours of racing –many at that time believed that it was an insane concept, that the cars of that period wouldn’t last 24 hours of constant high speed driving. Yet a French Chenard et Walcker (as well as 29 other cars) went on to complete the first race on that fateful day of May 1923, and the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans was born. In fourth place was a new car from a recently-established marque, a Bentley 3 Litre, driven by Canadian John Duff and Englishman Frank Clement. By 1930, Bentley went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times, establishing the legend of the Bentley marque. Fans of Bentleys will always tell you that the ‘real’ Bentleys were the ones that W O Bentley designed and built from 1919 till 1931, before the company went into receivership and was taken over by Rolls- Royce. Not very many early W O Bentleys made it to India, with most being the 3 Litre cars, half a dozen 6 1/2 Litres, and a few 4 1/2 Litres. No mighty 8 Litres were ever imported directly, but two are in India at present: chassis # YR5083 and # YF5014. Developed from the Bentley Speed Six, the 8 Litre had a 7983cc straight-six that developed a very impressive (for its time) 180bhp that enabled the rather heavy cars to get to a top speed of over 160 km/h, making them some of the fastest cars of their time. Featuring very advanced four valves per cylinder and twin-spark ignition, the Bentley 8 Litres were also mighty big machines. And very expensive! Launched in 1930, barely 100 were made over two years, when in 1931 Bentley went into receivership. Surprisingly enough, as many as 78 of the 100 made are extant in the world today. Of the two 8 Litre Bentleys extant in India, the one featured in these pages features a specially modified engine by McKenzie (one of two such cars ever) and is owned by the family of the late Roni Khan, in Mumbai. The engine is a McKenzie masterpiece. Using three SU carburettors with a special system of throttle slides instead of butterflies, the camshaft from the Speed Six Bentley, and markedly lighter pistons designed by McKenzie himself, plus an increase in the compression ratio by milling the cylinder block and crankcase, this modified engine was noticeably more powerful than the standard 8 Litre’s 180bhp, making these McKenzie-modified 8 Litres some of the fastest cars on the planet then: A late 1930s equivalent of a tuned Bugatti Veyron today!