Owing a 4x4 , open, capable vehicle was always at the back of my subconscious mind for a long time now. I cannot really figure out since when , but this feeling has grown steadily over a long time now. It must have been the time in my childhood that I spent in the hills of north Bengal where such vehicles are used for daily commute, or the childhood remembrance of the open jeep of my dad's friend in Nagpur , or the numerous journeys to the school in my dad's company owned gypsy in the 1980's , or the sight of numerous gypsies in the jungles of central India.... that the desire to own such a vehicle grew steadfastly over all these years.
I began my initial serious research into the execution of this desire in 2008 when I started interrogating the Gypsy drivers of the central Indian forests which I have been frequenting for the last couple of years now for the purpose of Wildlife Photography and NGO work. Initially I used to go to the jungles taking my workhorse 2004 Maruti Alto Lxi and subject it to some serious offroad driving inside the jungles. Over the years, I realised that I needed a vehicle which was open so as to get the best angles for my shots and to go to those places where I could not dare to take the Alto to. I began tying out my hand on the Gypsies in these jungles and I decided on the gypsy to be the vehicle that I would like to buy considering the fact that it was light, noiseless, had a large bay area and being an extremely capable offroader.
In the second half of 2008 i started looking at the various civilian models that were on sale in Nagpur and on the various online forums like carwale and team bhp. I simultaneously started reading the various threads on the restoration of ex army jeeps on team bhp (notably Harjeev's and Tarkesh's mm550 and the various gypsy restoration threads) . I was notably inspired by Harjeev and also spoke to him on a couple of ocassions about this. I evaluated about 30 civilian Gypsies in Nagpur and elsewhere between December 2008 and March 2009 but none of them was priced in my budget and most of them were pre 1995 models. In January 2009 , I had the chance to extensively drive a 1993 model ex army gypsy in Jabalpur belonging to a patient of mine and I had as good as made up my mind to buy it at the cost of 1.4 L . I however did not buy it and kept looking at other options.
Around January 09, I had a chat with my friend , Kaustubh Thombre, a naturalist working with Taj safaris at Pench Tiger Reserve and both of us decided to form a team to hunt for 2 Gypsies together. This teaming up was the break that I was looking for. This event and the knowledge that e-auctions of army vehicles are held through the website
M S T C Limited propelled my desire further and I then started researching on getting my gypsy through this route. I tried registering myself as a scrap buyer on this website but failed as i could not furnish documents to complete the registration. While browsing the mstc website , I came across an auction listing of a lot of Gypsies by the KAFVD, Pune. I then started making enquires at my level by telephoning KAFVD and getting a confirmation about the auction. I had shortlisted a lot of 3 Gypsies in the auction. I also wrote on team bhp regarding this
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-ve...ml#post1199423 and was rewarded by an answer from Tarkesh who said that he was also looking for a gypsy and thus he initially formed the third member of our team.
Having made our team, we entered the auction. The Auction was on 17th March and we inspected the lot by visiting the depot on the 16th. The gypsies in this lot instantly won our hearts and we decided to go for them even at the cost of slightly inflating our bids. To cut a long story short, the next day we were successful in bidding for lot number 375 containing the 3 gypsies (two 1999 model soft tops and one 2000 model hard top) for 2.5 L + 12% taxes.
We were to get the delivery of our lot in a month's time.
We celebrated the next day by driving down to Karnala, Alibagh and Bhaje.