A man is always sentimental about his first car and my husband loves his old FIAT which even today occupies pride of place in his garage. In its time, it was pretty “advanced” with airconditioning that chilled to the bone, a souped up engine that took us from Bombay to Pune on a two lane road in all of 2 hours, had a four speaker music system and a Fiamm horn that terrorised all the trucks on the highway with its ear piercing sound. 
That little car has always stood us in good stead, and while many a Mumbai car has stood sheepishly in a flooded street, 282 would plod bravely plod on, its Delco covered securely in plastic and its lone wiper battling the raindrops on the windscreen. For many years we stubbornly refused to change into something more modern and more economical and I even joked that my little Fiat was actually a Ferrari masquerading as a Fiat ( I got the same mileage as the Ferrari). 
But after several years of taunts and finally a flat refusal of the children to sit in such an archaic car, Hubby dear capitulated and got a new one instead. So gradually 282 was relegated to being a weekend car till finally we found the steering impossible to handle. Finally it became a pile of rust till early this year he decided to get it restored.
This is how we found SWADI AUtOMOBILES a garage in Nana’s Chowk that has specialised in restoring old cars. Every morning Mr. Swadi comes to his workshop to sit amid the beauties he now only supervises over. Some of the cars have taken years to perfect because that is what he believes in – a perfect job.
We spent the better part of the morning amidst these old beauties and I remembered what I had heard all those years ago from Mr. Muchalowski a Polish gentleman with whom my husband did business in those early years. 
Apart from his business sense, my husband admired him for his sartorial elegance and his sardonic wit and after a business dinner,was eager to show off his newly acquired toy – a Canadian manufactured Ford Model T , the only one of its kind in India. Mr. Muchalowski was impressed and he hemmed and hawed. He looked my husband in the eye and said
“Young man do you know that old cars are like old women? They have to be used regularly to be kept in good shape!”
Twenty- five Seven 
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