Having taken all types of challenges of restoration of vintage & classic cars in my five plus decades of life on the shop floor, this particular project was just out of the World. A scrap of a 1927 Rolls Royce Phantom that had just the chassis, only three wheels, a bare engine with all its external fittings like carburettors, distributor, radiator, control linkage, magneto missing. Nothing at all to even give a glimpse of what the original body and design looked like. The owner of this scrap had a special requirement and wanted to replicate the 17EX Rolls Royce the one in the garages of HH Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir.

The original car has recently been bought by the famous Poonawalas. From a junk yard scrap to a an exquisite and handsome Rolls Royce that runs like one. This reminds of the good old nursery tale of the Princess who kissed a frog which turned into a handsome Prince. To me – this Rolls Royce Project represents the pinnacle of my vintage restoration career - a perfect jewel in the crown of my creativity and automobile engineering quest. The original Rolls 17EX, then in mid 1920’s was ordered by HH The Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir, who already owned dozens of Rolls Royce’s but none could touch the golden figure of 100 MPH. And so this Rolls was a special custom order to the RR factory with a mandate to touch hundred mph.

This car was lighter, peppier, and aerodynamic with a body slimmer by almost eight inches. With all the controls like the gear shifter & handbrake brought inside the body, giving it a sleek boat tail shape to reduce the drag created by a moving mass in atmosphere, most importantly gave it flared fenders for ease of air flow through them with minimal co-efficient of drag This 17EX Rolls Royce replica is one of the most iconic pieces of artwork of yesteryear and I replicated this vintage classic to 100% perfection in terms of shape, style, proportions and performance.

That too without any blueprints, dimensions, drawings or guidance from anyone, except some reference photographs from a book 17EX written by a automobile historian Gautam Sen, who had done an in-depth study on this Rolls history till its present ownership. Outside the Rolls Royce factory, I can state confidently that I am one of the few who have actually rebuilt and reassembled this masterpiece completely, after inspecting each and every nut, bolt, components of Rolls Royce P-1 (Phantom One). Meticulously sand blasting the chassis, primed, painted with preservative chemicals & compounds, overhauled and rebuilt all the units like the front & rear suspension, brakes, rear differential, drive shaft, gearbox, clutch assembly, brakes servo and the engine.

Even the rare P-100 head lamps are also my own creation, along with the intricately moulded glass and the heavily Shining Vacuum Plated Reflector. Its heavy-duty wooden body frame created to exacting specifications to give it the robustness with a 1.8mm thick aluminium sheet to give the seamlessly slick skin. The front Grill in Stainless Steel, with openable shutters, being one the most difficult task to hand create. Apparently during the course of its service in the Royal Garages, someone probably with a grudge with the in-charge of the mechanical transport, (MT, in army lingo) or with the owner, sabotaged the engine by putting Emery/ Mud into the oil sump which churned up with the oil and seized the engine.

The evidence shows clearly in the photographs. This was the biggest challenges for me as emery in oil churned up with the lubricant, totally destroyed some of the moving parts of the engine - the biggest destruction being the Oil-Pump, the Crank Shaft & its bearings ! At the very beginning of the project, I made extensive contact with various shops and fabricators in UK (the Mecca of rebuilt spare parts for veteran & vintage automobiles) Some companies were agreeable in building parts & specific units but on a condition of both cost and time. For instance, the engine oil pumps costed 3500 Pound Sterling each with a minimum order of 3 pumps with payment upfront and time required would be six months or wait for two other customers, to start the remanufacture.

Who knows when those customers come, only God can tell! These obnoxious figures were too high plus time required to make them was a bit much! With my back against the wall, I had to figure out how to procure these critical missing items. My simple philosophy that works surely - something created by human beings, it can surely be replicated in all earnestness - I started collating detailed specks of all the missing items from other running P-1’s. This was just about adequate for me to replicate the missing parts including the radiator, its cap & the insignia, distributor and the intricate grill shutters that open remotely from the dashboard to control air flow for winter’s & summer’s months. I also used the same philosophy for the radiator, headlights, tyres, rims, dashboard meters & control switches, steering wheel, engine controls systems & levers, carburettor, it’s detailed inner parts & its control linkage system.

The tough part was to work out the exact specs of these items. Creating wooden mould and have them casted in the required metal but with only virgin metal (not melted from scrap) was used, to get a perfect finish without any blowholes. After which the same casting had to be machined to the precise accuracy required to be a part of a Rolls Royce Engineered car! Much research later I found a CNC machinist, On inspection he showed confidence in recreation these gears after over boring the oil pump housing & made a hundred percent perfect fit with the special graded steel and boy, did it work! It had even better capacity & volume of pumping than the original because of it being a bit over sized internal gears. This entire procedure took five to six weeks and it worked superbly even after the engine warms up to its maximum temperature.? ? It took a while, slowly yet surely, I got my hands on each item, with some bits n pieces from junk shops in UK & USA. I reworked on all of these bits and recreated them to work to hundred percent accuracy worthy of being a part of a Rolls Royce engineered car.

The photos display innovativeness and ingenuity I had to use during the six years taken to rebuild the car. During the Covid spell of about three years, I created a full-fledged workshop at home with almost all the equipment’s and worked long hours alone on each item. Sometimes even my youngest grandson Vir stood by and lent a hand to me. I re-created the complete dash board along with all the meters (with some internal parts missing) and instruments in working condition. Besides, all the chrome bits of the car that included the front & the middle windscreen frames their quarter glasses etc were made from the best grade Stainless Steel created here in house.Putting together all these units made this project seem like a carbon copy of the original 17EX, in both looks and performance of the original vehicle.

While reassembling of the car I was amazed to notice that this car had close to four dozen plus greasing nipples in the entire mechanical system, without even a single rubber oil seal or a packing used in any of its units like the differential, gearbox, engine- except the Head Gasket and that’s really unique piece of RR engineering! Upon completion of this project, I am proud to say that this 17EX Rolls Royce was awarded the Best Restored & Rebuilt Vehicle in the 57th Statesman’s Vintage Classic Car Rally in February 2024 in which it completed 65km to 70 km of drive of the rally route.