Classic cars
The 10th edition of the Mercedes-Benz Classic Car Rally (MBCCR) on December 3, 2023 saw 81 cars spread across 77 different model variants. Ten percent of the vehicles that glided from Taj Lands End in Bandra to Worli Sea Face and back were Parsi owned, according to details furnished by curator Perseus Bandrawalla.
The rare models owned by community members were: 230 (W 123) bought for the event by Farzad Palia; E220 (W124) by Bandrawalla, the car that started MBCCR; 190SL (W121) by businessman Yohan Poonawalla that was originally Maharani Gayatri Devi’s car; 170V Roadster (W 136) by Freddy Turel, one of nearly 271 such extremely rare cars in the world; 500 K (W29) by owner-publisher Hormusji Cama, also a very rare 1934 edition; 300 Adenauer (W186) by Behram Dubash yet another rare limousine named after Chancellor Conrad Adenauer and originally owned by the Tatas; SLK200 (R 170) by well-known lawyer Erach Kotwal; and 500SEC (C 126) by another prominent lawyer Purazar Fouzdar.
Parsi owned Mercedes-Benz at the Classic Car Rally: (top l) Freddy Turel’s 170V Roadster; (above l) Hormusji Cama’s 500K;
(from top r) Perseus Bandrawalla’s E220; Farzad Palia’s 230; Purazar Fouzdar’s 500 SEC; Yohan Poonawalla’s 190SL; Behram Dubash’s 300 Adenauer; Erach Kotwal’s SLK200