CAR DESIGNER DILIP CHHABRIA SAYS HE DREAMS OF MAKING
AN ULTRA SPORTS CAR

‘In India, I have no competition!’

SULEKHA NAIR

Cars happened to him very early in life. Recollects foremost car designer Dilip Chhabria: “A picture in the family album has me wearing a garland of cars when I was only two year old! That’s how early the passion of wheels got me revved up.”

Mr Chhabria reveals that as a child, he would draw on walls his favourite motif, a car. “My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor. I could draw well. I graduated with a degree in commerce from the University of Mumbai and was in two minds what to do next.

Around this time, I saw a magazine devoted to cars. It carried an advertisement titled, ‘Do You Want To Be A Car Designer?’ and I was pleasantly surprised to know that my hobby could be turned into a career. I applied to the Automotive Design Arts Center, California, and majored in transportation design. I worked for General Motors briefly, but I felt stifled in its large bureaucratic order. I realised that if I continued working there, all that I would ever be allowed to make was a handle or a hub!”

DC RA 2x2 highly stylised mini SUV based on the Suzuki Jimny

On returning to India, Mr Chhabria manufactured accessories in his father’s firm for some time. He struck gold with his indigenous design of a horn in the shape of a ring for Premier Padmini cars in the replacement market. “My Dad had given me a month to experiment with my creative designs. The horn brought in unprecedented orders and I made more money in that one month than my father did in a complete year! Dad gave the factory to me and I got the capital established.”

Mr Chhabria first redesigned the Gypsy in 1992. “As it was my car, I decided to showcase my craftsmanship the best there. The car would get mobbed wherever it went. I sold it to finance my projects for designing cars.”

DC Ikoncept 2003 Open tourer with the asymmetrical proportions of a true classic, based on the Ford Fiesta platform

Mr Chhabria works only on his company owned cars, which are then sold to customers. He received his biggest kick when he participated in the Frankfurt Euromold Fair (an automotives specialist fair) in December 2000. “We chose to redo the E class Mercedes Benz and the Lil. I think that symbolised the height of snobbery. Our design was accepted by Mercedes. The company flew down some of its officials to visit us and gave a few suggestions as well. Thus came about our design centre.”

The Dilip Chhabria Design centre has 400 people with 10 designers forming the core team. Mr Chhabria sketches the lines of a vehicle, while the team does the detailing. “Nobody, but nobody, builds cars the way we do, and it shows!” says a placard on the DC office and it is not an idle boast. DC has to its credit 450 original designs in nine years, with Italian firm Pininfarina coming in a poor second with 60 designs in its 50-year history.

DC Phoenix Based on the Morris Oxford (below), leapfrogging 40 years of style philosophy

Besides cars, Mr Chhabria also redesigns two-wheelers. And now he would like to design a train. “I have approached the Railway Board, Delhi,” he says hopefully.

From the many cars that he has designed, which is his favourite? “Personally, it is the Sierra Arya. The car has a very radical and original style and what’s most important is that I have not as yet been able to improve upon that design in the last five years. But from the point of view of customers, it is the Ambassador Phoenix. This car evokes a big sigh of satisfaction for we redid a 40-year-old car and our new design made it leapfrog four decades. We retained the original British design philosophy, and yet made it contemporary. It looks like an Ambassador, which has evolved and can stand up to the best in the world. And what’s more it brings a smile to people’s faces.”

Cars are the oxygen that keeps him going. So much so that he has named his two children, Bonito and Minica, after cars. “It’s a different story that my children are not happy with their names now that they have grown up!”

Though designing cars is his passion, Mr Chhabria does not travel in one of his creations. “That’s because compliments about the car would make me arrogant. I could do far better with humility,” he reasons. “In India, I have no competition. The challenge for me is to increase the revenue without losing the delicate touch of creativity. I want to build an ultra sports car that can battle with the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the world and put the country’s capability to produce such a car on the world map.”