Veda Kumar and Keshav Rao win best-in-class award for rare 1961 Willys station wagon
Post Date – 11:53 PM, Tue – 1/10/23
Veda Kumar and Keshav Rao won the Mahindra and Mahindra Best of Class Award for their rare 1961 Willys Station Wagon.
Hyderabad: The best cars from across India lined up at the 10th 21st Gun Salute Concours d’Elegance Vintage Car Show in Vadodara where Veda Kumar from the city and his nephew Keshav Rao won Mahindra and Mahindra Best of Class Award for a rare Willys station wagon, built in 1961.
The car took part in the event because it was all assembled by Mahindra and was one of the cars they progressively built and supplied, said Keshav, a freelance vintage car enthusiast.
“Before foreign imports stopped and Indian manufacturing fully started, many foreign companies brought in disassembly kits and assembled cars in India. Willys station wagons fell into this category,” he added.
Veda Kumar is passionate about cars and this one in particular as these cars are not available to everyone. He took a liking to the car and purchased it from the fire department in the early 1990s.
“Veda Kumar has owned the car for about 30 years, he used it for 15-20 years, and when we saw that these cars became rare and rare in the 2000s, we considered restoring it to its original condition,” Keshav Say. The car was restored a decade ago and they received an invitation to an event where they won a best-in-class award for the vehicle.
Apart from that, Veda Kumar owns more than six classic cars. “I have a 1949 Dodge B-series bus formerly owned by Nizams of Hyderabad, a 1960 Willys Wagon pickup, a 1949 Plymouth, etc.,” he said.
With city parking facilities becoming increasingly difficult, he is making a special arrangement to store all cars on his farm.
