Most of the people, post retirement from a regular job, opt
for conventional hobbies or go spiritual
to keep themselves busy. My friend
Chitthoor Subramaniam Ananth ( C.S .Ananth)chose an eclectic hobby- restoration
of vintage cars. A hobby, nay a business, which calls for deep understanding of the automobiles and a passion to seek new
knowledge to deliver on promises to his
clients. A man who had thought Automobile Engineering as irrelevant and chose Chemical engineering for
his degree, never imagined that one day he will be considered a Vintage Car
Wizard .
Born in Calicut, he studied in
Madras Christian college school before joining A C.College of Technology. His
first job was with Union Carbide India as an Engineer Management Trainee. During
his stint at Carbide in Mumbai, he was
selected to be a part of the Official Car Rally Team . This gave him an opportunity to learn about cars as he had
to be associated with the preparation of the Rally car. After Carbide and a
brief stint as a business man he joined the Chennai based UCAL group where he
rose to become the CEO. Though his retirement plans were to travel, golfing
& play tennis, prodded by his son he bought two vintage cars- a Morris 1936
and a 1936 fiat and entrusted the restoration of the cars to an engineer who
had a workshop. When he realized that there was hardly any progress even after
waiting for 2 years, he decided to restore the cars
himself, which involved a lot of research & hard work. In 2005 both
the cars won first prizes in their respective categories at a show held by Madras Heritage Motoring Club, which Ananth had founded with a few
others.. Coincidentally, he received these prizes from his celebrity son in law, the
Chess Vizard Vishwanathan Anand, who was the chief guest at the function. Ananth
was delighted beyond words. Thus began his tryst with vintage cars.
Anant said, “Based on my success
at restoring cars a few friends approached me to restore their cars. One of
them was Shri A.Sivasailam, Chairman of the Amalagamation group. Since I was entering the
world of Commercial restoration of cars I was advised by my auditors to
register a company. I spent three months to develop a proper business
model with clear Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). TEAMCSA was born in
January 2007 and it consisted of mechanics, body beaters, electrician,
painters & upholsterer.”
While he was trying to establish
TEAMCSA, tragedy struck him when he was
diagnosed with Cancer of the bile duct and
the next two years saw him fighting the
dreadful disease. He reopened his garage
in 2010, located in the spacious compound of his beautiful home in Neelankarai.
Anant continued, “I was touched by the fact that Mr Sivasailam was waiting patiently for me to
recover and do the restoration of his car- a 1947 Riley”. This car won the best restored car in its category in
the 2010 Madras show. There was no
turning back. More cars followed and Ananth found himself working full time restoring cars. What he
started as a hobby had become a business. In the last 12 years he has restored
70 plus cars including a Ford model T, a Jaguar, a Plymouth and a Rolls Royce
of 1935 vintage. TEAMCSA became one of the top restorers of cars in India.
Unlike a few fly by night
restorers of cars, Ananth believed in high quality execution without making any
compromises, which made him constantly
seeking information to improve his knowledge on the subject. In August
2013, Ananth went to Germany to get special
training from the largest
restorer of cars & returned with a lot of new knowledge. But, none of the
materials they used in Germany were available in India. Thus began a long
search for substitutes. In the year 2014, Ananth spent a few lakhs on R& D for improving the TEAMCSA`s process. “With
import substituted materials, our fit and finish has reached global standards”,says
Ananth.
Among his many
celebrity clients was Maharaja of
Udaipur who got his Triumph Car restored by Ananth. It is now occupying a pride of place in the museum at the Maharaja`s palace. He is
also a consultant for the Gee Dee car
museum in Coimbatore.
In 2013, cars restored by TEAMCSA
won several prizes at the Chennai show. According to Ananth the crowning
glory happened in 2017. He explained, ” We had completed the restoration of a 1914 Benz,
which is only one among the 3 such cars surviving in the world. According to
Mercedes Benz, Stuttgart, this car was
beyond restoration. TEAM CSA took on the challenge and restored the car to almost 100% originality.
It won the first prize in its class at the 21 gun Salute International show in
2017 in Delhi. I was delighted when at the same show , a 1947 MG which was
restored by TEAM CSA also won the first
prize in its class. The foreign experts who judged this car could not find even
a single non-original part in the car”
While recognition in the form of prizes for
his restored cars was happening, Ananth was also being invited to be a judge in
the Vintage car contests held across the world. He was the Chief judge for international shows
at Malaysia & Singapore, besides assisting judges at a prestigious
show in France. He was also one of the
judges at the 21 Gun Salute International Rally held in Delhi.
Recently C.S.
Ananth was invited by the international
body of Historic Vehicles – FIVA
(Fédération Internationale des
Véhicules Anciens) a worldwide organization dedicated to the preservation, protection and
promotion of historic vehicles and related culture, to be advisor legislation
commission in order to address the restrictions being imposed on historic vehicles
by various Governments. Ananth is the first Indian to be invited to FIVA panel
in the fifty years of FIVA. With the support of FIVA, a team led by Ananth has presented a
memorandum to The Ministry of Transport, Delhi, for legislation concerning historical vehicles in India. When this
happens, it will be Ananth`s single
biggest contribution to the Vintage Car fraternity.
At 75, Ananth is not sure how long he can
continue to work 8 to 10 hours a day pursuing his passion for restoring cars.
But I am sure he will continue as a useful member of the local &
international bodies devoted to Vintage Cars.
This article has
appeared in the Madras Musings issue dt.1-15th October,2019
Feedback welcome on rvrajan42@gmail.com or 9840392082
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