A royal family-owned 1934 make Rolls Royce which was sold some 42 years back, has been bought back from Germany and brought to Rajkot. Albeit for a royal sum of Rs3.2 crores!
The scion of the erstwhile royal family of Rajkot has given a unique gift to his father Manoharsinh Jadeja on his 75th birthday. A royal family-owned 1934 make Rolls Royce which was sold some 42 years back, has been bought back from Germany and brought to Rajkot. Albeit for a royal sum of Rs3.2 crores!
“This is perhaps the first instance in the history of Indian royal families when something that had belonged to a family had been successfully brought back from abroad,” said Mandhatasinh Jadeja, prince of the erstwhile Rajkot estate. The prince said he had recently bought a Rolls-Royce car which once belonged to an ancestor, and was bringing it back from Germany.
Jadeja’s grandfather Dharmendrasinhji had bought the Rolls-Royce in 1934. It was known as ‘The Star of India’ and was named after the famous 563-carat star sapphire.
From the early days of motoring, Rolls-Royce cars were the favourite of the Maharajahs of India. The rulers of the erstwhile princely estates had considerable wealth and were inclined to spend it on clothes, jewellery, palaces and fine motorcars.
Hence it is not surprising that, in 1934, Dharmendrasinhji decided to replace his 20-year-old Rolls-Royce with a new one. But the new car would not be just any Rolls-Royce. The car he eventually bought became renowned as the ‘Star of India’, named after the famous 563-carat star sapphire.
“I want to gift this car to my father, Manoharsinh Jadeja, on his 75th birthday,” Mandhatasinh said, adding that more than 50 painters had drawn pictures of the famous Rolls-Royce. He said he had bought the car through a telephonic auction for 6,44,000 euros (approximately Rs3.20 crore).
The car is expected to arrive in India in about four months. Mandhatasinhji said the car would get a grand welcome on arrival and will be driven to different places before getting a place at a private museum.
The royal family wants to set up a museum where they plan to display a lot of photographs of the Rajkot estate, informative documents related to historical events of Saurashtra, family arms, vintage cars, a silver buggy and the ‘Star of India’. “The car is painted saffron, a symbol of bravery. This is the only saffron car in India,” said Mandhatasinhji.
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