Restorer of vintage cars - C.S.Ananth

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.1-15^th October,2019

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Adventures

Book Review 

                AD Ventures: Reliving the Golden Era of Advertising

                                               by Dr.T.S.Nagarajan

This book by a veteran research analyst describes the path breaking advertising campaigns created by JWT/HTA during the years 1963 to 1973. As a core member of a group of dedicated advertising professionals led by the doyen of advertising  Mr. R.K.Swamy,  the author was fortunate to be involved with every one of the advertising campaigns that came out of  JWT during that period,  enabling him to offer the readers  a ringside view of the successes engineered by the group. As Mr N.Murali says in his Foreword,` It is a throwback to a bygone era of glorious , path-breaking, professional work.`

Nagarajan who acquired his doctorate in Astrology after he moved to USA in 1992, post retirement, has more than four decades of experience in marketing & advertising research . With a string of degrees in mathematics, teaching, economics, management and Sanskrit and a Diploma in statistics, he joined the Census department in 1961.  An accidental meeting with a friend landed him with a job in JWT, Madras in 1963, as a research executive. He quit JWT in 1973 and had  a brief stint with Ashok Leyland as a Publicity Manager. In 1975  he started his own market research company called CAMRA ( Communications & Market Research Analysis), which he wound up  in 1992 when decided to  migrate to USA to live with his sons.

The book, which deals with his experience in JWT, Madras between 1963-73,  is  divided into four parts.  Part 1  deals with  the professional set up in JWT then and extensively talks about the advertising tools adopted by JWT to create meaningful creative ads for its  clients. In Part 2 , the author, through 15 case studies covering  big names  like, HMT, BHEL, MFL, TTK Prestige, Binny, Ti Cycles, IOB, Amrutanjan, EID Parrys, Ashok Leyland, MICO, TVS  &  Ponds   explains the background to various campaigns bringing out every aspect of the campaign strategy. He also  briefly touches on the success or failure of the campaigns. Each case study is illustrated with reprints of Print advertisements,  used for the campaign, sourced from The Hindu archives.

While Part 3 briefly talks about his activities post his stint with JWT , the last part gives a glimpse about his early days and his journey in life with many ups & Downs.

According to Nagarajan the decade of 1963-73 was not only a golden period in the history of JWT, Chennai but for the whole advertising industry in Chennai. JWT achieved many firsts during this period like breaking  the lethargy and resistance to advertising in Public Sector Undertakings. It made them believe in the power of advertising and they became the major contributors to advertising revenue of the agency during the period. A new wave of advertising campaigns based on solid research for products and services helped clients understand the profile of their customers and find new users and new uses for them.  Many conservative consumer industries in the South were persuaded to accept the concept of integrated approach to marketing  and advertising.

The shifting of one major consumer account Pond`s from Bombay to JWT Chennai, opened up great opportunities for the development of infrastructure needed for the advertising industry in Chennai. New investments in printing, block making, film production, were made. Demand for ad professionals in copywriting, commercial art, modeling and research arose resulting in new job opportunities.

The author also says ,` the period was also one of remarkable change in the outlook of those born post independence who had opted for more liberal style. It was an era that saw more of `product class` promotion than `brand selling`  since customers had to be weaned away from the traditional perception of the usage of the products. Advertising was a major factor in bringing about that change…. JWT can take pride in that it was a major catalyst for this development  and a number of path-breaking advertising was produced by the creative team of of the agency during the period`.

There is also a reference in the book  to Umesh Rao, the legendary Art Director of the agency as the creator of the famous Air India mascot- The Maharaja, though the full credit for it has been always given to Bobby Kooka , the Commercial Manager of AIR INDIA at that time.

The book is indeed a valuable addition to the literature on advertising and market research in this part of the world. Published by the Chennai based Cre-A publishers, the hard cover edition of this book with 142 pages is priced at Rs 699/- and is available with the publishers. Visit www.crea.in