The Hindu : Manjusha to display miniature cars

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 18, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Manjusha to display miniature cars

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE APRIL 17. Manjusha, the museum in Dharmasthala, has one of the three well-known collections of vintage cars in the country. Thanks to Prabhakar Kundaje of Pune, former deputy chairman of the Marmugao Port Trust, the museum is all set to host a collection of miniature cars too.

Mr. Kundaje, who donated a collection of 19 miniature models of vintage cars to the museum, said the creations were precise, scaled-down models of some of the reputed brands such as Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz, with their original registration certificate, some of them embossed in 24 carat gold. The collection comprised miniature models of the Silver Ghost, the Silver Cloud, the Phantom (all Rolls Royce), and an array of Mercedes variants. Mr. Kundaje, an octogenarian, donated his collection to Dharmadhikari of the Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, Veerendra Heggade, as he felt that the latter would take good care of them.

Learning about the vintage car collection at Manjusha, Mr. Kundaje said he packed his collection and arrived in Dharmasthala. A visit to Manjusha convinced him that Dr. Heggade was the right man to hand over his collection, he said.

Mr. Kundaje said that only three people — Pratap Bhogilal, Vijay Mallya, and Dr. Heggade — had a collection of vintage cars in India. While the first two were private collections, Dr. Heggade had kept his collection open to the public.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Kundaje said that he had been collecting these models for the past 20 years. Some of the Rolls Royce and Mercedes models were produced by the Franklin Mint of the U.S. His first model was the Silver Ghost, a dream of every millionaire. Some of the Mercedes models, specially scaled down for him, were the ones used by the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito, and another by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

Mr. Kundaje said he was also a collector of pictures of miniature representation of cities. He had the pictures of the miniature representations of London, Mumbai, and Amsterdam. Another prized collection was a six-room doll house at his residence in Pune.

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