Mumbai-based Allan Almeida tells AKSHITA RAWAT how he restores vintage cars using just scrap

A master craftsman and an offroader, Allan Almeida aka Allan of Sara 4x4, has recently completed a very difficult project of restoring a vintage car, a 1936 Cord 810 Westchester, from nothing but scrap. Allan has been restoring cars for a long time now and has also won various awards like at the prestigious Cartier show and other such exhibitions.

What is your work like and how did you get into this field of restoring vehiclesIJ

My extreme love for cars brought me into this work. I have been working for a long time now with Viveck Goenka, India’s top car restorer having the largest collection of 4x4 vehicles. This field is not something which we think about getting into, rather it is one’s passion which makes one follow this path. It is a stressful job as it requires constant hard work, but I was nevertheless drawn towards it.

How long did you work for restoring this 1936 vintage carIJ

It took me about six months to complete this ‘frame-off restoration’, which is a term used for vehicles which are completely disassembled with the parts cleaned or replaced. This is to say, this car has been restored from scratch, using scrap.

How did you financially manage such a projectIJ

It was difficult managing the costs of finding rare parts of the vehicle. A lot of the parts are made by us in order to cut down the production cost.

How many cars have been restored by you till dateIJ

I started restoring cars since I was 24 or, so

I have managed to restore over 50 different vehicles till date.

Where do you get the parts of the project you work onIJ

Our chairman, Viveck Goenka, encourages us to go out to different places in search of the parts. We try and make most of the required parts of the vehicle, remaining of which are imported from different countries.

What is the most difficult part of taking on such a challengeIJ

The biggest challenge we face while restoring a vintage car is that those cars are one of kind. We cannot even find pictures of such a car, like the ‘Maharaja’ car which was a single piece in the world. It then becomes difficult to recreate its parts.

You are also a part of this team, ‘Off-Road Junkies’. What is that likeIJ

We are three people together in this team and we do off-roading in various parts of the country. We organise small events and exhibitions, drive cars of different brands and do four-wheeling.