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Restoring an Austin 12/4 Clifton Tourer

12th May 2021, 16:57 by Chirag Moro

There’s something magical and undeniably enchanting about finding an old car and devoting your time to it until it’s shinier than the day it rolled off the assembly line.

BHPian bhasin54 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Nothing fuels a car lover’s heart more than a good, old-fashioned restoration story. There’s something magical and undeniably enchanting about finding an old car and devoting your time to it until it’s shinier than the day it rolled off the assembly line. The dedication, the frustration and the unadulterated passion for such projects is what makes them so interesting, but vintage cars create lasting relationships between the car and it’s owner as well as within the vintage motoring community. A process that makes restoring vintage cars all the more beautiful.

Today, I am going to share with you a brief of how I was able to acquire a 1929 tourer Austin Clifton 12/4 from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, now known as Telangana.

It was in the middle of July 2020 when I received an early morning call from a friend, Mr. Kapur, while I was having breakfast, that a tourer Austin car is available for sale in Hyderabad and if I would be interested in it’s purchase. My preference and liking for a tourer car was already established after I bought and restored a 1933 Morris Major about 10 years back. I loved the photographs and my response was quick in settling the nitty-gritty of the deal with the present owners. A few days later the car bearing Regn No. AP 13 Q 0574 was loaded on to a trailer from Hyderabad and brought to my Indian Oil Retail Outlet & Maruti Authorized Service Station, Bhasin Service Station, located in Central New Delhi.

Past historical information about the car goes back to mid 1950s when it bore a Regn No. AJM 3170 owned by Sh. Dungarmal, who was a resident of Beawar, Ajmer, Rajasthan. In the 1960s, the ownership of the car was transferred to Sh. Laxmi Chand, who was the son of earlier owner Sh. Dungarmal and Regn No. also changed to RJZ 352. The car was then brought to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh in 1992 by Sh. Kamal Sankhla S/o Laxmi Chand, in whose name the Registeration certificate was transferred. The car was assigned new registeration No. - AP 13 Q 0574.

Sh. Kamal Sankhla was a very keen, hands-on restorer and had taken many pains to maintain the originality of the car. The car was brought out of a garage where it was stored and was being worked on for a couple of years. Unfortunately, Sh. Kamal Sankhla who was then 61 years old was keeping indifferent health and passed away in September 2018. The car restoration project remained at standstill for almost the next 2 years as the family was unable to come to terms with the loss of the beloved Sh. Kamal Sankhla.

Finally Smt. Vasanta Sankhla, wife of Late Sh. Kamal Sankhla, along with her sons Yashraj, Siddharth & daughter Khushboo decided to part with their ancestral family car so that one day they will be able see the car restored & running thus fulfilling their father's unfulfilled dream.

Car restoration is a time consuming, stress inducing, labor intensive, and expensive endeavour. On the other hand, if you love the process of bringing a car back to its former glory, restoring a car might be the right decision. I would go for a restoration if the car is a historic vehicle with unique features. Regardless of the car being restored, in fact, I simply love the process of bringing it back to the way it was, when it came brand new.

I have worked on and restored three British cars namely an Austin 7 tourer 1934, a Morris Major tourer 1933 and a Hillman Minx 1939 and work has already started on the Austin 12/4 Clifton. I'm attaching pics of the car as it was received along with a few of the work in progress. I have become a member of The Vintage Austin register Ltd to seek help in case of any need. At 66 years of age, I fall in the category of retired, but my love for vintage cars doesn’t accept that game plan. The way I look at it, I would continue to do this till the very day that I couldn’t do it anymore.