KARACHI: Preservation and restoration not only plays the cultural role but also promotes respect for those that came before us. Moreover their memories and monuments cultivate pride of our past and heritage making us unique in the world.
Miss Fatima Jinnah’s golden 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible and white 1965 Mercedes Benz 200 have been parked in the National Museum Karachi, not been roadworthy since ages and would have been corroded away completely if weren’t saved by a few people. After a great effort of 19 years, both of Miss Jinnah’s cars are at last going to be preserved.
Behind this struggle are Mohsin Ikram, founder and president of the Vintage and Classic Car Club of Pakistan and Motorheads Pakistan.
They first found these cars at the Mohatta Palace back in 1992/93. Ikram says that at that time they were parked in the palace garage and weren’t in such a terrible condition, with even the stickers on the engines intact.
And they stayed there until 1997 when the Sindh government renewed the Mohatta Palace. That’s when the workers doing work on the building shifted the cars from their garage and left them outside. Not realizing their value, they used to sit on their bonnets everyday and eat their food on them.
Just then Mr Ikram came across with the news by a collector of classic cars bragging about how he had broken the dashboard of one of the cars to pull out its clock and other accessories. Hurriedly, when Mr Ikram went at the scene himself he was surprised to see the missing parts of the cars including their wheels and rims. The car was in an awful condition with many of its parts missing. This made him to write to the governor of Sindh to immediately take this matter into consideration.
His letter brought a little change, as the cars were soon taken away from the Mohatta Palace and sent to the Sindh Archives department. “They literally dragged them to the Sindh Archives building causing further damage. I thought then that people should know about what was happening to this national asset so I wrote a letter for Dawn’s ‘Letters to the Editor’ section, which prompted several more letters from other people as shocked as myself over the treatment meted out to the cars. Of course, all were in favor of restoring them, especially those in authority, who seem excited at the prospect of these heritage vehicles getting restored,” explained Mr Ikram.
Mr Ikram is a great fan of old and vintage cars and has himself restored over a hundred of them therefore he felt positive enough to volunteer for this cause as well. “I am so passionate about classic cars that initially I even offered to do it for free,” he says. Many people visited Sindh Archives department but things didn’t turned up until another humane citizen of Karachi filed a petition in the Sindh High Court for the responsibility of the cars so that they can be restored.
This matter, soon, caught attention of many. Around 2006, there were strategies to take the cars to Islamabad to be conserved and displayed at an army museum or at a park named after Miss Fatima Jinnah in F-9.
“But my argument is this that these cars are a part of Karachi’s heritage. They should stay in this city. I told them that I would only help in restoring the cars if they stay in Karachi and are displayed at the Mohatta Palace where they actually belong,” Mr Ikram shares.
“I am happy that after years it is finally going to happen,” says Mr Ikram, who is, fortunately, now working as a consultant on this project.
Mr Ikram says that the preservation could take up to one-and-a-half or two years more. It may take additional work but they will be unique and original, not some replicas from China, Taiwan, Korea or India,” he winds up.
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