The Hindu Business Line : Truly in love with jeeps

Driving and preserving jeeps is much more than a hobby... this is our bit to save a slice of India's military history. It would be a shame to see the jeeps all gone.

Jeep Thrills: The jeepers during one of their 'off-roading' adventures.

Six a.m. on a sleepy Sunday along Chennai's still developing IT corridor. It's not very pleasant to stand outside an MRTS station watching a sagging fence with a sign that welcomes you to the IT Highway and asks you to bear with the slight inconvenience the development is certainly causing.

A couple of Ferraris zip past, two gorgeous racing bikes follow soon after, and then a Porsche convertible with a driver who obviously isn't interested in taking in the scenery, rusty signboards and all. Just the usual Sunday morning traffic heading towards the wide-open spaces.

Suddenly, there's a rumble of engines and two World War II Willys jeeps draw into the station. A couple of Mahindra CJ3Bs follow and a Mahindra Classic brings up the rear. The drivers hop out and excitedly examine one another's vehicles, exclaiming over an original rear-view mirror discovered in a tiny shop, convoy running lights rescued from scrap, and the dressing up of one jeep's anti-roll bars.

The monthly meeting of the Chennai chapter of Jeep Thrills seems like a bit of a boys' club, swapping my-toy-is-better-than-yours stories. But as more jeeps arrive and the conversation moves into a comparison of Peugeot and Hurricane engines, electric and hydraulic winches, steering swing and 4WD tyres, any ideas about this being a group of excited little big boys pass. There is no leather-and-sunglasses machismo here. They are, as one member puts it, "truly in love with jeeps."

Across the country, there's a small but growing group of jeep fanatics who spend huge parts of their lives lovingly restoring their jeeps and eagerly driving thm.

Jeep Thrills (www.jeepthrills.in) is a fraternity of those who believe that the jeep is the only vehicle worth driving. And preserving.

Anjan Cariappa, a creative consultant for Image Infotainment Ltd, who started the group, says, "I have never met anyone who doesn't like the jeep, but few people dare to own one." He started the group because of the curiosity people displayed whenever he took his World War II Willys out. "Owners of jeeps, passionate about their vehicles, needed a common platform to interact. That made me start `Jeep Thrills'."

And what started as three people — Cariappa, Arkaprava Datta and S. Sreevardhan — meeting at a coffee shop in March 2005 has now become an organised forum with over 100 members across the country.

S. Sreevardhan, air cargo manager with Air India, says his fascination for jeeps started when he was seven. Though the initial outlay to get the rusty relics into prime shape is quite a bit, Sreevardhan says once the restoration is done, it doesn't need much maintenance.

"It is not expensive to maintain; it is a tough but simple vehicle. And for most of us, it's not a fancy toy; it's our primary mode of transport." He owns a rather rare 1942 `script' model Ford jeep, apart from a vintage Austin Seven and a Citroen, and a massive collection of miniature model cars.

Kolkata-based Uday Bhan Singh, known as UBS and considered the guru of the group because he owns over 40 jeeps and knows everything there is to know about the vehicle, says he bought his first jeep in the late 1960s. "Jeeps have their own charm. There are no words to express it; you have to experience the feeling of driving one."

Rajdeep Datta-Roy, a journalist from Kolkata and one of the earliest members, says, "I have spent some of the best years of my life in the company of petrol jeeps. I learnt how to drive in a CJ3B. They have a peculiar smell — a mix of petrol, canvas and rubber. The Hurricane engine and the transfer case have a unique sound. For people like me, that's music."

He bought his jeep from an Indian Army auction in December 2002 and spent much effort, money and over eight months restoring it to near-original glory. When the army started phasing the jeeps out, he explains, they ended up en masse in scrap yards to be melted down for steel. "For me, it's like a mission to save a childhood friend."

UBS says he buys jeeps and spare parts from scrap yards, and stockpiles them. "Collecting parts is becoming more difficult as production has stopped and most people sell them for scrap. I keep the spares and pass them on to members of the group when they need them."

Ideal for off-roading

Apart from advising each other about buying jeeps, and swapping notes about handling tantrums the brutes throw and where to get which obscure spare part, the jeepers also organise regular meets to go `off-roading'.

"The jeep is meant to be off the road. That's where it is in its element. And that's where you can challenge it, and yourself, the most," says Datta, one of the moderators of the Jeep Thrills e-group, who drives a 1953 Mahindra CJ3B petrol jeep that served the Air Force once upon a war.

But UBS is more cautious, "Off-roading is great fun but it can get risky when the ratio of josh to jeep is disproportionate. You shouldn't get too excited and rush in while tackling tough terrain. So we have occasional tutorials where we teach the younger, newer drivers the proper techniques."

An off-road trip, the highlight of every jeeper's life, involves quite a bit of planning. First, they make sure the jeeps are shipshape as the vehicles take quite a beating. One member takes responsibility for planning the route, plotting the obstacles they will tackle and the timing of the trip. The club has common recovery equipment that they carry on every trip, including winches, ropes, cables and tow hooks. This comes in handy if a jeep gets bogged down in very tough terrain. Experienced off-road drivers tackle challenging obstacles first — an embankment, a steep, rocky hillock — and then guide the `freshers'.

Quite a few road-driving skills have to be thrown to the wind here, as they can prove disastrous on off-road terrain. The brakes aren't really of much use as you drive down almost vertical slippery slopes, and your vehicle won't react to your steering wheel, but will have a mind of its own.

The jeep was designed for World War II. The Willys-Overland Motor Company built them and manufacturing was outsourced to Ford. The troops loved the vehicle's off-road capabilities and it soon became a favourite. Soon various models came from the jeep stable. Mahindra and Mahindra manufactured the jeep in India and continues to do so, though in more `refined' forms.

Hard-core jeepers will tell you the term `jeep' for other SUVs is a misnomer. "A Maruti Gypsy is not a jeep. On Jeep Thrills we consider a jeep complete only if it comes with four-wheel drive," says Cariappa.

That means, unlike a normal car, which has two wheels to propel it, a jeep can propel itself with all four wheels giving it the ability to move on really tough terrain. High ground clearance — the gap between the ground and the lowest part of the vehicle — gives the jeep the ability to cross hurdles with ease.

And those are just the technical reasons to love the big brutes. Once you actually drive one, you'll find out, as I did, that the rumble of the engine as it mounts a ridge, or the rattling purr it settles into while clipping along on level ground, is enough to make you realise that jeeps do thrill.

"Driving and preserving jeeps is much more than a hobby," says Datta-Roy. "This is our bit to save a slice of India's military history. The petrol 3B has fought shoulder to shoulder with the troops in 1962, 1965 and 1971. It would be a shame to see them all gone. It's like giving a home to an old warrior."

"This is not a collector's vehicle," says Datta proudly. "This is a JEEP — that says it all."

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